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What cracking open a Sonos One tells us about the Sonos IPO

191 points by flashman 8y ago

2bitencryption 8y ago
this site format makes me feel like I wasted lots of money on my computer monitor, because 30% of it is taken up by enormous banners on the top and bottom of the screen...
- jimnotgym 8y ago
  Have you tried Firefox reading view? No banner, and you still get the teardown pictures.
  - Digit-Al 8y ago
    Odd. When I tried using reader view it only showed the text and not the pictures.
- drngdds 8y ago
  Yeah, Medium does that. It's annoying I wish people would stop using it.
joshumax 8y ago
> "Interestingly, this is the same system-on-a-chip used in the 6th generation Amazon Fire HD; maybe Amazon had a few extra laying around?" A little-known fact about the echo smart speakers is that they run a minimally modified version of FireOS at their core. In fact, many references to the Fire tablet lineup can be seen around the echo firmware. Using the same SoC makes sense in this regard as it allows for a more unified build process by enabling kernel/driver/firmware blob reuse.
- xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
  The original Echo ran something akin to the Kindle e-reader Linux-based OS. Once the Fire Phone failed, many Android engineers were absorbed into the Echo projects and the follow-on products seem to have been migrated to FireOS (or vice versa?). There are some sparse details about the original Echo floating around[0], but I couldn't find the specifics. While they may be able to share some firmware, I'd still wager their kernels/drivers/firmware blobs are different enough due to drastically different components interfacing with the SoC. I personally question the value of putting Android on non-mobile screen-less devices (forgetting about the Echo Show). 0: https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-listening/ https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-listenin...
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    I'm not sure we should be forgetting about the Show; I can't imagine that Amazon wants different kinds of Echo to have different operating systems, and once you've got the screen, it makes more and more sense to reuse your existing systems.
    - xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
      You're implying Amazon knows what it wants. They thought the Fire Phone was going to be huge. They thought the Echo wasn't. While reuse is nice, optimizing for experimentation and different products is probably more useful. Given most of the magic of Alexa lives in Amazon's servers, there seems to be less incentive to use existing solutions over what makes sense (and is cost effective).
fake-name 8y ago
I'm deeply confused why the person writing this thinks speakers are a technology that even can be "disrupted", let alone all the stuff he does that is for all intents and purposes just reading tea leaves^H^H^H^H^Hspeaker casings. Sure, the manufacturing is interesting, and there is some truth to the smart aspect of the sonos being kind of "bolted on", but the attempt to read an entire companies outset from the manufacturing processes they use is just stupid. As much as software likes to go on about "disrupting" this and "reimagining" that, manufacturing, particularly large volume manufacturing is extraordinarily staid, and different companies have in-house experience with different processes. Switching processes just because something is new and shiny is just not done, because the retooling costs are enormous, and you may not have the in-house familiarity with the new processes. Really, what it sounds like to me is that the engineers at Sonos are far better at designing things for production. They didn't need to use fancy new tools, or design extremely exotic moldings. When it comes to cranking out a product, the LESS fancy new processes you use, the better in almost every case. It means the processes you're using are more predictable, you have more vendors you can use (because they're more broadly available), and you're likely to maybe have a old guy or two in house who's use process XXX for 40 years, and can tell you in excruciating detail every single little thing you have to worry about before you even start production. Basically, this is a single decent point (sonos is a speaker company adding smart shit, and amazon is a internet-of-shit/retail giant adding speakers), buried in a whole lot of hyperbole and bullshit.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Your comment would be better without the name calling. My thought was: interesting teardown but where’s the support argument. Scroll, scroll, scroll, ah! Three points at the end, Ben reckons Amazon will win because: 1. OEM & retailer 2. More of the stack 3. Diversification But, you don’t have to win to be successful.
  - fake-name 8y ago
    What name calling? The thing is, all those points are true, but they have zero to do with the hardware design. If the guy want's to make those points, make those points. Don't pretend to extract them from the hardware with some sort of bizarre hardware phrenology.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
I don’t think it matters that the Echo Plus is technically more advanced and that Amazon owns more of the stack. If the Sonos One looks better, is heavier, and costs more, then Sonos might be able to sell the product further up-and-to-the-right on the Veblen good chart. Maybe. I’m not convinced going public for these one trick ponies does anything other than let the early investors cash out. I’m just a layperson when it comes to these matters, but wouldn’t Sonos have been acquired if their product-market fit was believed to be worth something?
- BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
  Acquired by who? It's a luxury niche brand. Acquisition by one of the giants they integrate with (Apple, Amazon, Spotify, etc) would inevitably result in vendor lock-in (Apple buys them and now Amazon Music doesn't work anymore), which would be devastating to their reputation and customer sat. A "neutral" giant (LG?) could pick them up, but why? Who wants to diversify into luxury home stereo? That leaves major audio companies (Sennheiser? Bose?), but those are mostly already luxury brands, and cobranding ("Sonos by Sennheiser") could get complicated. The nature of the market Sonos is working in means that whatever P/M fit they have is potentially compromised by being acquired. Weird, but that's luxury goods for ya.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Yeah true, thanks for your taking the time to point that out.
  - samatman 8y ago
    LVMH perhaps?
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      Your comment prompted me to read the LVMH Wikipedia article.[1] I didn’t realise the group owned so many labels. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries
yeukhon 8y ago
I own Sonos One. Love it when the wifi connectivity between my cellphone/laptop and my Sonos don’t die. Iisten Spotify and some radio podcasts. The sound quality is great, especially the bass is pretty good. I wish there’s a bluetooth option which would offer better connectivity quality in short range.
- stevesimmons 8y ago
  I bought a Sonos One for my partner and regret it. One of our use cases is playing audio from videos of dance classes. But it can't do this, because the WiFi streaming protocols are set up for linear streaming, using long buffers. That kills the ability to do frequent seeking and looping of sections of a video. Yet the most basic of crappy Bluetooth speakers has no trouble with this. It never occurred to me that a premium wireless speaker released in 2017 could not do this. My fault, of course, for not researching it thoroughly enough. But Sonos's also, for arbitrarily restricting a perfectly sensible use of generic hardware like a speaker.
  - givinguflac 8y ago
    If you still have the One it’s getting AirPlay 2 next week which solves your issue, assuming iOS user.
    - admiralpumpkin 8y ago
      Can you reference that timeframe? I can’t find anything from Sonos announcing a specific date. Thanks!
  - yeukhon 8y ago
    Exactly. Changing songs manually is totally disaster. But in general its WiFi just sucks. Otherwise, like I said, totally rock.
- givinguflac 8y ago
  Bluetooth has bad audio quality compared to WiFi, it would only make it worse.
dawnerd 8y ago
I used to own a ton of Sonos speakers and absolutely loved them. But the software was just too damn buggy. Ended up giving them away right around the time WiFi support rolled out and the speakers refused to stay connected. I’m hoping for the best for them. Their customer support was absolutely top notch. Talked on the phone with an engineer from Europe on Christmas Eve trying to solve a weird bug in the Mac app.
rgbrenner 8y ago
It's cool that Amazon's product is more advanced, and that's interesting technically... but what does that have to do with the Sonos IPO? Beats cost $18 to make.. cheap plastic.. nothing premium about them.. they even put a few pieces of metal in it so they feel sturdy.. People love(d?) them. Sold for $200/pair. Company sold for $3b. The bill of materials isn't the sole determinate of success.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  To be honest, Beats was probably bought because of its streaming services rather than its brand image, though of course that's a nice bonus.
  - rgbrenner 8y ago
    They had 1.5b in revenue in 2013 (the year before apple acquired them). Apple started talks just 4 months after beats music launched, and was said to put a price on it of $500m (out of the $3b): https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-paying-just-under-500-million-for-beats-music-streaming-service-1401403287 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-paying-just-under-500-mil...
  - skinnymuch 8y ago
    It was talked about when it was acquired. Beats streaming was mostly just their MOG acquisition at the time. The streaming service was a fraction of the purchase price.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  Totally aside... I don't really understand why beats gets singled out so often, when it comes to cost of components. IDK, I feel like beats doesn't get enough credit as a company. First, if you look at a shelf of products (say an airport gadget shop), beats is not the worst value on the shelf. Most beats products are OK. Half the gear (in general) in those shops is crap. Second, Beats did a good job on "product". They understood what price ranges to target. The understood what each form factor was for, and how to explain this to consumers. Beats' actual competition was earbuds, not alternative "studio headphones." They knew which sound qualities (bass, basically) customers would want, for the music they actually listen to while walking around a mall. They aren't always the best price performance across categories, but they aren't crap either. Anyway, the reason I think they deserve credit is not that. They understood the implication of "wearables." They are the ones that managed to build that company, with a foot in fashion and another one in electronics. Part authority on what's cool, part predictor of what's cool. If you do the bill of materials test on versace it won't go well. Compare beats as the fashion-tech-wearables brand to all the smartwatch attempts at similar. Beats stands out.
lordnacho 8y ago
I'm not sure why anything needed to be taken apart for him to reach his conclusions? Amazon is manufacturer and retailer (so no double margin), they own the Alexa IP which does the real work in both cases, and has deep enough pockets to try out this market (so they don't even need the margin). If I had to have a reason why Sonos might still be worth something it's the luxury brand value. Like owning a B&O stereo in its day. Yes you can buy cheaper but are you a real connaisseur then?
- viraptor 8y ago
  From my quick review, Sonos is actually the most functional device now. I couldn't find another one which works with multiple (grouped) speakers on wifi, uses Google Play and Spotify, and allows DLNA input. Are there any non-luxury brand alternatives which fulfill this?
  - givinguflac 8y ago
    Nope, but the hate circle jerk usually doesn’t include a whole lot of logic.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  B&O has the benefit of great sound quality, in addition to the fancy design language. Sonos just looks and sounds mediocre. Disclaimer: I'm a former B&O employee, from before they started going downhill.
- jccalhoun 8y ago
  "I'm not sure why anything needed to be taken apart for him to reach his conclusions?" I would guess because he wanted to talk about the manufacturing and this gave him an excuse. It is an interesting approach but I do agree that it isn't a necessary one.
kapad 8y ago
Read this for the interesting deep dive into the parts used and the insights on manufacturing process and cost of manufacturing. Wished the article would have also covered the tweeter and midrange on sound quality. That seems necessary given its a breakdown of a smart Bluetooth speaker. Other than that, I don't see much value in the business insights the writer has reached.
- goldenkey 8y ago
  Aren't most PC speakers ie. integrated amplifier / 3.5mm input (is that what they are called?) inferior to having a separate amplifier, and a DAC? I used to buy PC speakers before I realized that I was paying for a new (but shitty) amplifier everytime I got a new set of speakers. Audio path is as such: Digital File -> DAC -> 3.5mm -> Amplifier -> Speakers Wireless audio path can cut the DAC out in well designed systems. In any case, I think most people, even smart hackers in our group, think that they can get amazing PC speakers..audiophile quality. Its a popular misconception. But once you think about the physics of it, of course a 3.5mm cable isnt delivering enough voltage to physically move speaker cones back and forth.. So these "PC speakers" have really cramped amplifiers inside, dealing with very high voltages. Invest in a good amp for the main sound setup that you care about. Youll have to buy new speakers with balanced red and white thick gauge cables but you'll get much better sound. It saves the environment, optimizes the process. I recommend Peachtree [1] The amp has wireless streaming, mobile apps, USB audio from PC, skipping analog conversion. Absolutely stunning quality. [1] https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21 https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21
whoisjuan 8y ago
I wish the author had focused only on doing a straight-forward teardown and comparison of both products instead of inserting random comments, jokes and business opinions. It felt unnecessarily forced and clickbaity.
nebulous1 8y ago
It's interesting that he repeatedly refers to Sonos as a "traditional speaker manufacturer" which isn't something I would have accused Sonos of being
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  Sonos was a manufacturer of wireless remote speakers in the BC (Before Cloud) era. They had a good reputation until they got religion and started frog-marching their users into the cloud against their will. Pretty much every mention of Sonos I've seen online has been associated with complaints about that, e.g. http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their-users-hostage-cloud-account-now-required/msg1624717/#msg1624717 http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their-users-... and https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/save-the-cr100-6800510/ https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/s... . So they appear to be a leading-edge wireless speaker manufacturer who woke up one day and found themselves to be a little less leading-edge than they thought they were. They are now trying to make up for lost ground by using Amazon's IP and storefront to compete with... Amazon. So I can see why the author of the article is bearish on these guys.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    The parents point still stands: Sonos were always wireless remote speakers, as far as I recall. Sonos was what you had when you wanted steaming audio around the home well before it became popular with the advent of these new tangled gadgets.
    - tunap 8y ago
      "new tangled gadgets" Is that a typo or is it a new(to me) adjective? Curiously apropos, regardless.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        Damn touchscreens and their auto-incorrect. It was intended to be newfangled. I coin a new term: tapographical error
IshKebab 8y ago
I'm pretty sure the holes in the Echo Plus aren't drilled. That would be crazy! Perhaps it is injection moulded with an internal draft and then drilled out afterwards.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  Also I have previously looked at these holes and wondered how they manufactured it, and the holes are clearly made in 6 groups with the same angle of hole in each group. This is how you'd do it with injection moulding - a load of pins attached together. If you were CNC drilling them you'd use a CNC lathe and the hole axes would all be normal to the surface which isn't the case.
  - iancmceachern 8y ago
    Your description confirms my suspicion. I bet they used a collapsable core. It is the same way they're able to mold internal threads and such.
quanticle 8y ago
Amazon sells nearly all of its Echo products through their own retail channel, this means they don’t pay a margin to other retailers. I can’t think of a single consumer electronics company that sells tens of millions of units directly to consumers like that. Doesn't Apple sell far more (of its own manufacture) than Amazon, directly to consumers as well?
- greggman 8y ago
  Apple sells on Amazon, Best Buy, Verison stores, T-Mobile stores etc... lots of places.
  - trollied 8y ago
    The margin on Apple products is tiny though. As a reseller, you'd be lucky to make 5% if you sold at the same retail price as Apple.
    - danpalmer 8y ago
      Yep. I used to work for an Apple reseller. We had a good relationship with Apple, but selling a £150 iPod and a £15 case, we made more on the case. Apple margins are non existent. Companies sell Apple stuff because they have to.
      - amelius 8y ago
        So as a salesman, you would be trying to convince customers to buy the other brand you have on store?
        danpalmer 8y ago
        No, we didn't stock iPod/Mac competitors. There was good competition for cases and other accessories, but we weren't told the margins between suppliers for those. All I knew about margins was that Apple stuff was ~6-12% depending on the product, accessories were great, and software was excellent at 50+% margin (except for iWork/iLife), but we didn't sell much software.
neya 8y ago
I have a strong feeling Sonos will end up like Aiwa[1] (the original brand) because they're in a very similar situation as Aiwa was. Aiwa died because of a combination of bad technology bets, not being able to cope up with technology fast enough while simultaneously struggling to fight a then monopoly (Sony). I did a couple of teardowns and found some interesting technical choices - The company, even in its last breath didn't let go of its "signature" design and sound of loudspeakers. They were later acquired by Sony and shut down for good after failed attempts at rejuvenation. Audio is an unforgiving market. It will be interesting to see how Sonos survives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa
- antoniuschan99 8y ago
  I still have an Aiwa system from 1990-1994. They were almost on par with Sony/JVC back in the day (~1996)
ggm 8y ago
I don't know if anyone ever looked at the mechanical prowess of b&o back in the LP day.. but they were basically crap. Crapper than crap. A Garrard turntable and sme arm beat them hollow. But.. b&o had charisma and marketing. Bests for profit giant isn't to be best, it's to be sexiest. Sonos is a sexy brand.
prayerslayer 8y ago
Somewhat related question: I quite enjoy such articles where people take apart consumer electronics, although I don't know the jargon ("an extruded plastic tube with a secondary rotational drilling operation" - wat?). Does someone know accessible resources (as in "no dry textbooks") for mechanical engineering?
- rwmj 8y ago
  Watch AvE take stuff apart on Youtube. His disassembly of the Juicero would be a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ or this one disassembling an overpriced Dyson hairdryer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8
- whoisjuan 8y ago
  IFixIt documents teardowns. They are very interesting and easy to read.
derriz 8y ago
This is not directly relevant to the article - more a critique of the Sonos product which I've wanted to get off my chest. I was a Sonos skeptic then a convert before becoming skeptical again. I stopped buying after the third Sonos 3 speaker. Some basic features are missing which mean that users like me are clearly not a focus. Primarily I want to play my own, ripped-to-FLAC media. The most irritating thing is that users have been requesting these features for 5+ years on the fora. A random list of grievances: - No regain support - this renders the playlist feature useless unless you want to constantly fiddle with the controller to adjust the volume between tracks. - No cue support (i.e. single FLAC with a .cue file) which allows transitions between tracks. This breaks play back for lots of classical, Opera, ED music and classic rock albums like the Beatles' Abbey Road. - Multi-disc support is poor - no grouping or separate disc images. 2 CD boxsets are o.k. but larger (4+) are unnavigable. - Can't handle higher than 16/48 digital rips. - No airplay, bluetooth, etc. support. This means you cannot use Sonos to replace all audio speakers in your home. - Wierd/undocumented rules for file naming - silently ignores tracks with quotes, colons and maybe others (these are the ones that hit me) - Finally the controller software has gotten worse with every update: poor album art caching, illogical navigation, confusing search, artist search cannot find tracks on compilations, etc. Then again, it seems going the "smart speaker" route has boosted their revenues. I have no interest in such functionality so I guess I'm not the target market for Sonos. This is a pity because much of the package is quite compelling and it wouldn't take much effort to support libraries (rather than streaming). (edited for formatting)
- unixhero 8y ago
  Seems like you've had a lot of experience with the products from Sonos. When it comes to file naning, no same system wants to handle colons and other special characters. I know Macosx and classic has allowed it, and taught users bad manners.
  - derriz 8y ago
    I agree that for shells, some scripting languages and the like, file names with punctuation and other special characters can be challenging. But Sonos doesn't have to do any "handling" here - the user never gets to interact with the network paths/file names so they should (I think) be treated as opaque identifiers.
pascalo 8y ago
I've got lots of Sonos speakers, one in every room of my house. Before Soundcloud was an option I wrote my own SMAPI service to get that going for myself. Then, when I switched from Mac to Linux I created my own client app [1] to control my speakers. I feel Sonos have really missed a trick by not opening up their API more. Most of the features I had a reverse engineer or check from other libraries. Their own apps have also not exactly gotten better. For example, I _HATE_ the unified search feature, it makes the search slow and sluggish. Controlling the speakers from Spotify directly also never worked glitch-free for me. Other niggles have to do with the grouping features, which are also a tad flaky and sometimes time out or only partially group. Most of all I am annoyed by the frequent updates asked for, without the ability to "pin" the speakers to a version and download a specific version of the client app. All that said, I love their speakers because they sound good. The old Play 3 and the Amp especially. I feel they should focus their efforts on making the apps snappier and faster, not much more feature rich. [1] https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-for-linux https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-fo...
- pascalo 8y ago
  Also, I forgot to say: There is no way I'd put an Amazon alexa or similar device in my home, period. I take a "speaker company" instead any day.
  - wgx 8y ago
    Agree entirely. Sonos 3 sounds fantastic even to more discerning ears. And, I’d never allow an always-on smart speaker from in my home.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - ModernMech 8y ago
    I was sad when they integrated Alexa into the Sonos One. But it did make the Play:1 cheaper, and there's really not much room to improve on that speaker. Love it. I just hope they keep making Alexa free options.
oliwarner 8y ago
Obligatory: SlimMP3/Logitech's Squeezebox[0] was the best. Very similar line-up to the original Sonos boxes, except they released a lot more speakerless hardware. Open source server (that could be run from the Touch model) which is still maintained and improved. Streaming options. House-wide sync. All for half the price of the Sonos. It's especially galling reading that list of Sonos complaints. We've got regain support, good .cue handling, 24/192 and higher playback depending on your hardware, you could even do bidirectional Airplay and bluetooth (with some kicking and screaming)... And oh yeah, you could make your own players because it's all open source, open spec. And a feature (for me), none of this smart rubbish. For those of us that have a household full of it (and spares) it's still an amazing system... but Logitech ultimately binned it. I guess only selling one pile of kit every 15 years didn't seem good enough business for them. Le sigh. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_player) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_play...
- detaro 8y ago
  In DIY circles, that ecosystem seems to be still somewhat alive (with client software running on Raspberry Pis etc), which is pretty telling about the alternatives...
  - oliwarner 8y ago
    Oh definitely. Yeah, I've got 4 real ones and 4 DIY squeezelite's in rotation at the moment. And even while you can build you own, the used market is still strong. Hardware that's been used daily for 10 years selling for 70% its original retail pricetag. Practically unheard of for consumer tech. Basically, Logitech are idiots. They could keep selling what they did and still make money but it'd be trivial for them to step back in and pick up development, but hey ho.
  - rwmj 8y ago
    It's certainly alive. I have two of the hard players (including an original ethernet SLIMP3!) and two soft players. You can turn any spare smartphone/tablet you have lying around into a player by hooking it up to a cheap BlueTooth speaker dock and installing an Android app. The "downside" of course is you have to run your own server. For those of us who want to have control, want to maintain our own music libraries, and want everything to be open source, this is an advantage. But I can see why this is not for everyone. You can pick up the old players on eBay although some of the rarer/better ones are not cheap.
mahrain 8y ago
He correctly identifies the silicon labs Zigbee/Bluetooth chip but then remarks the Zigbee is not used? It's one of the major selling points of the Echo Plus and it was sold bundled with a Philips Hue bulb for launch. After this I doubt this guy really knows what he's talking about. Nice teardown though.
jacquesm 8y ago
I was about to buy some Sonos stuff but asked if I needed to go online to activate them (I claimed I did not have internet), and sure enough, an internet connection is a requirement. So sorry Sonos, I am buying an appliance which I expect to function independent of your company for years to come. If that can not be guaranteed then my money will stay in my pocket and I will continue to use my open-source cobbled together solution even if it is slightly less polished and convenient.
- whichdan 8y ago
  Your approach definitely isn't a bad one; a few weeks ago I had trouble connecting to Sonos's network, so I couldn't stream anything from Spotify/Amazon/etc, even though they worked on my network for me. It's worrying how easily these (expensive) speakers could become bricked. I still love them, mind you, I would just be hesitant to invest in them further.
- auxbuss 8y ago
  Take a look at Libratone [0]. I love my Zipps. Bonus is the inbuilt battery; so you can take it anywhere. Appears as an audio output on all Apple devices, so can be used for anything. Also works standalone with internet radio stations. Nice bit of kit. Should be better known. [0] https://www.libratone.com/ https://www.libratone.com/
- JOnAgain 8y ago
  I get what you’re saying, but Sonos works differently than a normal speaker. It is playing the music, not your other device. The app is a control. So if you turn on music and leave with your phone, the music keeps going. When other people connect, they see your music and services, not theirs. It’s its own thing - not just a speaker. That said, your point about, “will it continue to work if sonos, the company, is shut down?” Is a valid one.
  - subway 8y ago
    I'm not sure why any of the things you describe require a Sonos operated service. An app on the smartphone should be able to communicate directly with your Sonos via Bluetooth or local WiFi. The Sonos can then (over the local protocol) inform the app of what services and media are available on that Sonos unit. A not-so charitable guess would be that Sonos keeps close tabs on what you listen to.
sg47 8y ago
How long before Microsoft buys Sonos?
joshstrange 8y ago
I loved the teardown and the article as a whole but that header was MASSIVE. On my 13" MacBook I could see very little content. I ended up deleting the header + nav and that mad it much better but I would have expected it to slim down or hide once I scrolled down.
allengeorge 8y ago
I can’t speak to their “smart” aspirations, but...it’s surprising to me that the author lauds the Echo. Sounds like that speaker is far more demanding to manufacture, which...isn’t necessarily a good thing.
jfindley 8y ago
So he spends what looks to have been a substantial amount of time carefully disassembling and commenting on the manufacturing processes and material quality of two speakers, without ever even looking at the actual speaker cones and housing at all? Seriously? I kept waiting for there to be SOME discussion of the actual speaker itself, and even went back and re-read, figuring I must have missed it... but no. Nope. He actually managed to do a teardown of two speakers without ever actually looking at the most important bits. Wow.
- yc-kraln 8y ago
  you seem to have completely missed the point of the article. it isnt a speaker review, it is an analysis of the strategy of the company developing the speaker. the audio quality is not germane
  - seizethecheese 8y ago
    Audio quality is the reason why anyone would buy a Sonos speaker over an echo. It's a core strategy component.
amaccuish 8y ago
I just wish the echo had an ethernet port. Its WiFi chip seems real flakey.
lykahb 8y ago
I'm not going to buy Sonos, Amazon Echo, smart TV or any other "smart" device. They all have some things in common: vendor lock-in, manufacturer having more control over the device than the owner does, and little control over your own data. For many websites it took quite a lot of effort to comply with the GDPR requirements. Updating the devices firmware is harder. Without OTA capabilities it may even be impossible. Soon we may hear some news about manufacturers with unscrupulous practices being fined and kicked out of the European market.
S_A_P 8y ago
I think the author misses the point of Sonos somewhat. I don’t think they aim to dominate the smart speaker market. They seem to be a fashionable upper midrange device that is as much for status as it is a speaker. They market Sonos speakers as a fancy home speaker that also happens to support Alexa. Amazon is more the mass market option and just aims to put Alexa in every home. Sonos will never take over the world but will be an established niche player. I would also agree with the sentiment of no Alexa in my home. I was an early adopter of Amazon echo but I have given them away and will never have one in my home again.

191 points by flashman 8y ago

this site format makes me feel like I wasted lots of money on my computer monitor, because 30% of it is taken up by enormous banners on the top and bottom of the screen...

jimnotgym 8y ago
Have you tried Firefox reading view? No banner, and you still get the teardown pictures.
- Digit-Al 8y ago
  Odd. When I tried using reader view it only showed the text and not the pictures.
drngdds 8y ago
Yeah, Medium does that. It's annoying I wish people would stop using it.

joshumax 8y ago

> "Interestingly, this is the same system-on-a-chip used in the 6th generation Amazon Fire HD; maybe Amazon had a few extra laying around?" A little-known fact about the echo smart speakers is that they run a minimally modified version of FireOS at their core. In fact, many references to the Fire tablet lineup can be seen around the echo firmware. Using the same SoC makes sense in this regard as it allows for a more unified build process by enabling kernel/driver/firmware blob reuse.

xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
The original Echo ran something akin to the Kindle e-reader Linux-based OS. Once the Fire Phone failed, many Android engineers were absorbed into the Echo projects and the follow-on products seem to have been migrated to FireOS (or vice versa?). There are some sparse details about the original Echo floating around[0], but I couldn't find the specifics. While they may be able to share some firmware, I'd still wager their kernels/drivers/firmware blobs are different enough due to drastically different components interfacing with the SoC. I personally question the value of putting Android on non-mobile screen-less devices (forgetting about the Echo Show). 0: https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-listening/ https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-listenin...
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  I'm not sure we should be forgetting about the Show; I can't imagine that Amazon wants different kinds of Echo to have different operating systems, and once you've got the screen, it makes more and more sense to reuse your existing systems.
  - xyzzy_plugh 8y ago
    You're implying Amazon knows what it wants. They thought the Fire Phone was going to be huge. They thought the Echo wasn't. While reuse is nice, optimizing for experimentation and different products is probably more useful. Given most of the magic of Alexa lives in Amazon's servers, there seems to be less incentive to use existing solutions over what makes sense (and is cost effective).

fake-name 8y ago

I'm deeply confused why the person writing this thinks speakers are a technology that even can be "disrupted", let alone all the stuff he does that is for all intents and purposes just reading tea leaves^H^H^H^H^Hspeaker casings. Sure, the manufacturing is interesting, and there is some truth to the smart aspect of the sonos being kind of "bolted on", but the attempt to read an entire companies outset from the manufacturing processes they use is just stupid. As much as software likes to go on about "disrupting" this and "reimagining" that, manufacturing, particularly large volume manufacturing is extraordinarily staid, and different companies have in-house experience with different processes. Switching processes just because something is new and shiny is just not done, because the retooling costs are enormous, and you may not have the in-house familiarity with the new processes. Really, what it sounds like to me is that the engineers at Sonos are far better at designing things for production. They didn't need to use fancy new tools, or design extremely exotic moldings. When it comes to cranking out a product, the LESS fancy new processes you use, the better in almost every case. It means the processes you're using are more predictable, you have more vendors you can use (because they're more broadly available), and you're likely to maybe have a old guy or two in house who's use process XXX for 40 years, and can tell you in excruciating detail every single little thing you have to worry about before you even start production. Basically, this is a single decent point (sonos is a speaker company adding smart shit, and amazon is a internet-of-shit/retail giant adding speakers), buried in a whole lot of hyperbole and bullshit.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Your comment would be better without the name calling. My thought was: interesting teardown but where’s the support argument. Scroll, scroll, scroll, ah! Three points at the end, Ben reckons Amazon will win because: 1. OEM & retailer 2. More of the stack 3. Diversification But, you don’t have to win to be successful.
- fake-name 8y ago
  What name calling? The thing is, all those points are true, but they have zero to do with the hardware design. If the guy want's to make those points, make those points. Don't pretend to extract them from the hardware with some sort of bizarre hardware phrenology.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

I don’t think it matters that the Echo Plus is technically more advanced and that Amazon owns more of the stack. If the Sonos One looks better, is heavier, and costs more, then Sonos might be able to sell the product further up-and-to-the-right on the Veblen good chart. Maybe. I’m not convinced going public for these one trick ponies does anything other than let the early investors cash out. I’m just a layperson when it comes to these matters, but wouldn’t Sonos have been acquired if their product-market fit was believed to be worth something?

BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
Acquired by who? It's a luxury niche brand. Acquisition by one of the giants they integrate with (Apple, Amazon, Spotify, etc) would inevitably result in vendor lock-in (Apple buys them and now Amazon Music doesn't work anymore), which would be devastating to their reputation and customer sat. A "neutral" giant (LG?) could pick them up, but why? Who wants to diversify into luxury home stereo? That leaves major audio companies (Sennheiser? Bose?), but those are mostly already luxury brands, and cobranding ("Sonos by Sennheiser") could get complicated. The nature of the market Sonos is working in means that whatever P/M fit they have is potentially compromised by being acquired. Weird, but that's luxury goods for ya.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Yeah true, thanks for your taking the time to point that out.
- samatman 8y ago
  LVMH perhaps?
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    Your comment prompted me to read the LVMH Wikipedia article.[1] I didn’t realise the group owned so many labels. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries

yeukhon 8y ago

I own Sonos One. Love it when the wifi connectivity between my cellphone/laptop and my Sonos don’t die. Iisten Spotify and some radio podcasts. The sound quality is great, especially the bass is pretty good. I wish there’s a bluetooth option which would offer better connectivity quality in short range.

stevesimmons 8y ago
I bought a Sonos One for my partner and regret it. One of our use cases is playing audio from videos of dance classes. But it can't do this, because the WiFi streaming protocols are set up for linear streaming, using long buffers. That kills the ability to do frequent seeking and looping of sections of a video. Yet the most basic of crappy Bluetooth speakers has no trouble with this. It never occurred to me that a premium wireless speaker released in 2017 could not do this. My fault, of course, for not researching it thoroughly enough. But Sonos's also, for arbitrarily restricting a perfectly sensible use of generic hardware like a speaker.
- givinguflac 8y ago
  If you still have the One it’s getting AirPlay 2 next week which solves your issue, assuming iOS user.
  - admiralpumpkin 8y ago
    Can you reference that timeframe? I can’t find anything from Sonos announcing a specific date. Thanks!
- yeukhon 8y ago
  Exactly. Changing songs manually is totally disaster. But in general its WiFi just sucks. Otherwise, like I said, totally rock.
givinguflac 8y ago
Bluetooth has bad audio quality compared to WiFi, it would only make it worse.

dawnerd 8y ago

I used to own a ton of Sonos speakers and absolutely loved them. But the software was just too damn buggy. Ended up giving them away right around the time WiFi support rolled out and the speakers refused to stay connected. I’m hoping for the best for them. Their customer support was absolutely top notch. Talked on the phone with an engineer from Europe on Christmas Eve trying to solve a weird bug in the Mac app.

rgbrenner 8y ago

It's cool that Amazon's product is more advanced, and that's interesting technically... but what does that have to do with the Sonos IPO? Beats cost $18 to make.. cheap plastic.. nothing premium about them.. they even put a few pieces of metal in it so they feel sturdy.. People love(d?) them. Sold for $200/pair. Company sold for $3b. The bill of materials isn't the sole determinate of success.

saagarjha 8y ago
To be honest, Beats was probably bought because of its streaming services rather than its brand image, though of course that's a nice bonus.
- rgbrenner 8y ago
  They had 1.5b in revenue in 2013 (the year before apple acquired them). Apple started talks just 4 months after beats music launched, and was said to put a price on it of $500m (out of the $3b): https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-paying-just-under-500-million-for-beats-music-streaming-service-1401403287 https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-paying-just-under-500-mil...
- skinnymuch 8y ago
  It was talked about when it was acquired. Beats streaming was mostly just their MOG acquisition at the time. The streaming service was a fraction of the purchase price.
dalbasal 8y ago
Totally aside... I don't really understand why beats gets singled out so often, when it comes to cost of components. IDK, I feel like beats doesn't get enough credit as a company. First, if you look at a shelf of products (say an airport gadget shop), beats is not the worst value on the shelf. Most beats products are OK. Half the gear (in general) in those shops is crap. Second, Beats did a good job on "product". They understood what price ranges to target. The understood what each form factor was for, and how to explain this to consumers. Beats' actual competition was earbuds, not alternative "studio headphones." They knew which sound qualities (bass, basically) customers would want, for the music they actually listen to while walking around a mall. They aren't always the best price performance across categories, but they aren't crap either. Anyway, the reason I think they deserve credit is not that. They understood the implication of "wearables." They are the ones that managed to build that company, with a foot in fashion and another one in electronics. Part authority on what's cool, part predictor of what's cool. If you do the bill of materials test on versace it won't go well. Compare beats as the fashion-tech-wearables brand to all the smartwatch attempts at similar. Beats stands out.

lordnacho 8y ago

I'm not sure why anything needed to be taken apart for him to reach his conclusions? Amazon is manufacturer and retailer (so no double margin), they own the Alexa IP which does the real work in both cases, and has deep enough pockets to try out this market (so they don't even need the margin). If I had to have a reason why Sonos might still be worth something it's the luxury brand value. Like owning a B&O stereo in its day. Yes you can buy cheaper but are you a real connaisseur then?

viraptor 8y ago
From my quick review, Sonos is actually the most functional device now. I couldn't find another one which works with multiple (grouped) speakers on wifi, uses Google Play and Spotify, and allows DLNA input. Are there any non-luxury brand alternatives which fulfill this?
- givinguflac 8y ago
  Nope, but the hate circle jerk usually doesn’t include a whole lot of logic.
KozmoNau7 8y ago
B&O has the benefit of great sound quality, in addition to the fancy design language. Sonos just looks and sounds mediocre. Disclaimer: I'm a former B&O employee, from before they started going downhill.
jccalhoun 8y ago
"I'm not sure why anything needed to be taken apart for him to reach his conclusions?" I would guess because he wanted to talk about the manufacturing and this gave him an excuse. It is an interesting approach but I do agree that it isn't a necessary one.

kapad 8y ago

Read this for the interesting deep dive into the parts used and the insights on manufacturing process and cost of manufacturing. Wished the article would have also covered the tweeter and midrange on sound quality. That seems necessary given its a breakdown of a smart Bluetooth speaker. Other than that, I don't see much value in the business insights the writer has reached.

goldenkey 8y ago
Aren't most PC speakers ie. integrated amplifier / 3.5mm input (is that what they are called?) inferior to having a separate amplifier, and a DAC? I used to buy PC speakers before I realized that I was paying for a new (but shitty) amplifier everytime I got a new set of speakers. Audio path is as such: Digital File -> DAC -> 3.5mm -> Amplifier -> Speakers Wireless audio path can cut the DAC out in well designed systems. In any case, I think most people, even smart hackers in our group, think that they can get amazing PC speakers..audiophile quality. Its a popular misconception. But once you think about the physics of it, of course a 3.5mm cable isnt delivering enough voltage to physically move speaker cones back and forth.. So these "PC speakers" have really cramped amplifiers inside, dealing with very high voltages. Invest in a good amp for the main sound setup that you care about. Youll have to buy new speakers with balanced red and white thick gauge cables but you'll get much better sound. It saves the environment, optimizes the process. I recommend Peachtree [1] The amp has wireless streaming, mobile apps, USB audio from PC, skipping analog conversion. Absolutely stunning quality. [1] https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21 https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21

whoisjuan 8y ago

I wish the author had focused only on doing a straight-forward teardown and comparison of both products instead of inserting random comments, jokes and business opinions. It felt unnecessarily forced and clickbaity.

nebulous1 8y ago

It's interesting that he repeatedly refers to Sonos as a "traditional speaker manufacturer" which isn't something I would have accused Sonos of being

CamperBob2 8y ago
Sonos was a manufacturer of wireless remote speakers in the BC (Before Cloud) era. They had a good reputation until they got religion and started frog-marching their users into the cloud against their will. Pretty much every mention of Sonos I've seen online has been associated with complaints about that, e.g. http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their-users-hostage-cloud-account-now-required/msg1624717/#msg1624717 http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their-users-... and https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/save-the-cr100-6800510/ https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/s... . So they appear to be a leading-edge wireless speaker manufacturer who woke up one day and found themselves to be a little less leading-edge than they thought they were. They are now trying to make up for lost ground by using Amazon's IP and storefront to compete with... Amazon. So I can see why the author of the article is bearish on these guys.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  The parents point still stands: Sonos were always wireless remote speakers, as far as I recall. Sonos was what you had when you wanted steaming audio around the home well before it became popular with the advent of these new tangled gadgets.
  - tunap 8y ago
    "new tangled gadgets" Is that a typo or is it a new(to me) adjective? Curiously apropos, regardless.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      Damn touchscreens and their auto-incorrect. It was intended to be newfangled. I coin a new term: tapographical error

IshKebab 8y ago

I'm pretty sure the holes in the Echo Plus aren't drilled. That would be crazy! Perhaps it is injection moulded with an internal draft and then drilled out afterwards.

IshKebab 8y ago
Also I have previously looked at these holes and wondered how they manufactured it, and the holes are clearly made in 6 groups with the same angle of hole in each group. This is how you'd do it with injection moulding - a load of pins attached together. If you were CNC drilling them you'd use a CNC lathe and the hole axes would all be normal to the surface which isn't the case.
- iancmceachern 8y ago
  Your description confirms my suspicion. I bet they used a collapsable core. It is the same way they're able to mold internal threads and such.

quanticle 8y ago

Amazon sells nearly all of its Echo products through their own retail channel, this means they don’t pay a margin to other retailers. I can’t think of a single consumer electronics company that sells tens of millions of units directly to consumers like that. Doesn't Apple sell far more (of its own manufacture) than Amazon, directly to consumers as well?

greggman 8y ago
Apple sells on Amazon, Best Buy, Verison stores, T-Mobile stores etc... lots of places.
- trollied 8y ago
  The margin on Apple products is tiny though. As a reseller, you'd be lucky to make 5% if you sold at the same retail price as Apple.
  - danpalmer 8y ago
    Yep. I used to work for an Apple reseller. We had a good relationship with Apple, but selling a £150 iPod and a £15 case, we made more on the case. Apple margins are non existent. Companies sell Apple stuff because they have to.
    - amelius 8y ago
      So as a salesman, you would be trying to convince customers to buy the other brand you have on store?
      - danpalmer 8y ago
        No, we didn't stock iPod/Mac competitors. There was good competition for cases and other accessories, but we weren't told the margins between suppliers for those. All I knew about margins was that Apple stuff was ~6-12% depending on the product, accessories were great, and software was excellent at 50+% margin (except for iWork/iLife), but we didn't sell much software.

neya 8y ago

I have a strong feeling Sonos will end up like Aiwa[1] (the original brand) because they're in a very similar situation as Aiwa was. Aiwa died because of a combination of bad technology bets, not being able to cope up with technology fast enough while simultaneously struggling to fight a then monopoly (Sony). I did a couple of teardowns and found some interesting technical choices - The company, even in its last breath didn't let go of its "signature" design and sound of loudspeakers. They were later acquired by Sony and shut down for good after failed attempts at rejuvenation. Audio is an unforgiving market. It will be interesting to see how Sonos survives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa

antoniuschan99 8y ago
I still have an Aiwa system from 1990-1994. They were almost on par with Sony/JVC back in the day (~1996)

ggm 8y ago

I don't know if anyone ever looked at the mechanical prowess of b&o back in the LP day.. but they were basically crap. Crapper than crap. A Garrard turntable and sme arm beat them hollow. But.. b&o had charisma and marketing. Bests for profit giant isn't to be best, it's to be sexiest. Sonos is a sexy brand.

prayerslayer 8y ago

Somewhat related question: I quite enjoy such articles where people take apart consumer electronics, although I don't know the jargon ("an extruded plastic tube with a secondary rotational drilling operation" - wat?). Does someone know accessible resources (as in "no dry textbooks") for mechanical engineering?

rwmj 8y ago
Watch AvE take stuff apart on Youtube. His disassembly of the Juicero would be a good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ or this one disassembling an overpriced Dyson hairdryer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8
whoisjuan 8y ago
IFixIt documents teardowns. They are very interesting and easy to read.

derriz 8y ago

This is not directly relevant to the article - more a critique of the Sonos product which I've wanted to get off my chest. I was a Sonos skeptic then a convert before becoming skeptical again. I stopped buying after the third Sonos 3 speaker. Some basic features are missing which mean that users like me are clearly not a focus. Primarily I want to play my own, ripped-to-FLAC media. The most irritating thing is that users have been requesting these features for 5+ years on the fora. A random list of grievances: - No regain support - this renders the playlist feature useless unless you want to constantly fiddle with the controller to adjust the volume between tracks. - No cue support (i.e. single FLAC with a .cue file) which allows transitions between tracks. This breaks play back for lots of classical, Opera, ED music and classic rock albums like the Beatles' Abbey Road. - Multi-disc support is poor - no grouping or separate disc images. 2 CD boxsets are o.k. but larger (4+) are unnavigable. - Can't handle higher than 16/48 digital rips. - No airplay, bluetooth, etc. support. This means you cannot use Sonos to replace all audio speakers in your home. - Wierd/undocumented rules for file naming - silently ignores tracks with quotes, colons and maybe others (these are the ones that hit me) - Finally the controller software has gotten worse with every update: poor album art caching, illogical navigation, confusing search, artist search cannot find tracks on compilations, etc. Then again, it seems going the "smart speaker" route has boosted their revenues. I have no interest in such functionality so I guess I'm not the target market for Sonos. This is a pity because much of the package is quite compelling and it wouldn't take much effort to support libraries (rather than streaming). (edited for formatting)

unixhero 8y ago
Seems like you've had a lot of experience with the products from Sonos. When it comes to file naning, no same system wants to handle colons and other special characters. I know Macosx and classic has allowed it, and taught users bad manners.
- derriz 8y ago
  I agree that for shells, some scripting languages and the like, file names with punctuation and other special characters can be challenging. But Sonos doesn't have to do any "handling" here - the user never gets to interact with the network paths/file names so they should (I think) be treated as opaque identifiers.

pascalo 8y ago

I've got lots of Sonos speakers, one in every room of my house. Before Soundcloud was an option I wrote my own SMAPI service to get that going for myself. Then, when I switched from Mac to Linux I created my own client app [1] to control my speakers. I feel Sonos have really missed a trick by not opening up their API more. Most of the features I had a reverse engineer or check from other libraries. Their own apps have also not exactly gotten better. For example, I _HATE_ the unified search feature, it makes the search slow and sluggish. Controlling the speakers from Spotify directly also never worked glitch-free for me. Other niggles have to do with the grouping features, which are also a tad flaky and sometimes time out or only partially group. Most of all I am annoyed by the frequent updates asked for, without the ability to "pin" the speakers to a version and download a specific version of the client app. All that said, I love their speakers because they sound good. The old Play 3 and the Amp especially. I feel they should focus their efforts on making the apps snappier and faster, not much more feature rich. [1] https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-for-linux https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-fo...

pascalo 8y ago
Also, I forgot to say: There is no way I'd put an Amazon alexa or similar device in my home, period. I take a "speaker company" instead any day.
- wgx 8y ago
  Agree entirely. Sonos 3 sounds fantastic even to more discerning ears. And, I’d never allow an always-on smart speaker from in my home.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- ModernMech 8y ago
  I was sad when they integrated Alexa into the Sonos One. But it did make the Play:1 cheaper, and there's really not much room to improve on that speaker. Love it. I just hope they keep making Alexa free options.

oliwarner 8y ago

Obligatory: SlimMP3/Logitech's Squeezebox[0] was the best. Very similar line-up to the original Sonos boxes, except they released a lot more speakerless hardware. Open source server (that could be run from the Touch model) which is still maintained and improved. Streaming options. House-wide sync. All for half the price of the Sonos. It's especially galling reading that list of Sonos complaints. We've got regain support, good .cue handling, 24/192 and higher playback depending on your hardware, you could even do bidirectional Airplay and bluetooth (with some kicking and screaming)... And oh yeah, you could make your own players because it's all open source, open spec. And a feature (for me), none of this smart rubbish. For those of us that have a household full of it (and spares) it's still an amazing system... but Logitech ultimately binned it. I guess only selling one pile of kit every 15 years didn't seem good enough business for them. Le sigh. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_player) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_play...

detaro 8y ago
In DIY circles, that ecosystem seems to be still somewhat alive (with client software running on Raspberry Pis etc), which is pretty telling about the alternatives...
- oliwarner 8y ago
  Oh definitely. Yeah, I've got 4 real ones and 4 DIY squeezelite's in rotation at the moment. And even while you can build you own, the used market is still strong. Hardware that's been used daily for 10 years selling for 70% its original retail pricetag. Practically unheard of for consumer tech. Basically, Logitech are idiots. They could keep selling what they did and still make money but it'd be trivial for them to step back in and pick up development, but hey ho.
- rwmj 8y ago
  It's certainly alive. I have two of the hard players (including an original ethernet SLIMP3!) and two soft players. You can turn any spare smartphone/tablet you have lying around into a player by hooking it up to a cheap BlueTooth speaker dock and installing an Android app. The "downside" of course is you have to run your own server. For those of us who want to have control, want to maintain our own music libraries, and want everything to be open source, this is an advantage. But I can see why this is not for everyone. You can pick up the old players on eBay although some of the rarer/better ones are not cheap.

mahrain 8y ago

He correctly identifies the silicon labs Zigbee/Bluetooth chip but then remarks the Zigbee is not used? It's one of the major selling points of the Echo Plus and it was sold bundled with a Philips Hue bulb for launch. After this I doubt this guy really knows what he's talking about. Nice teardown though.

jacquesm 8y ago

I was about to buy some Sonos stuff but asked if I needed to go online to activate them (I claimed I did not have internet), and sure enough, an internet connection is a requirement. So sorry Sonos, I am buying an appliance which I expect to function independent of your company for years to come. If that can not be guaranteed then my money will stay in my pocket and I will continue to use my open-source cobbled together solution even if it is slightly less polished and convenient.

whichdan 8y ago
Your approach definitely isn't a bad one; a few weeks ago I had trouble connecting to Sonos's network, so I couldn't stream anything from Spotify/Amazon/etc, even though they worked on my network for me. It's worrying how easily these (expensive) speakers could become bricked. I still love them, mind you, I would just be hesitant to invest in them further.
auxbuss 8y ago
Take a look at Libratone [0]. I love my Zipps. Bonus is the inbuilt battery; so you can take it anywhere. Appears as an audio output on all Apple devices, so can be used for anything. Also works standalone with internet radio stations. Nice bit of kit. Should be better known. [0] https://www.libratone.com/ https://www.libratone.com/
JOnAgain 8y ago
I get what you’re saying, but Sonos works differently than a normal speaker. It is playing the music, not your other device. The app is a control. So if you turn on music and leave with your phone, the music keeps going. When other people connect, they see your music and services, not theirs. It’s its own thing - not just a speaker. That said, your point about, “will it continue to work if sonos, the company, is shut down?” Is a valid one.
- subway 8y ago
  I'm not sure why any of the things you describe require a Sonos operated service. An app on the smartphone should be able to communicate directly with your Sonos via Bluetooth or local WiFi. The Sonos can then (over the local protocol) inform the app of what services and media are available on that Sonos unit. A not-so charitable guess would be that Sonos keeps close tabs on what you listen to.

sg47 8y ago

How long before Microsoft buys Sonos?

joshstrange 8y ago

I loved the teardown and the article as a whole but that header was MASSIVE. On my 13" MacBook I could see very little content. I ended up deleting the header + nav and that mad it much better but I would have expected it to slim down or hide once I scrolled down.

allengeorge 8y ago

I can’t speak to their “smart” aspirations, but...it’s surprising to me that the author lauds the Echo. Sounds like that speaker is far more demanding to manufacture, which...isn’t necessarily a good thing.

jfindley 8y ago

So he spends what looks to have been a substantial amount of time carefully disassembling and commenting on the manufacturing processes and material quality of two speakers, without ever even looking at the actual speaker cones and housing at all? Seriously? I kept waiting for there to be SOME discussion of the actual speaker itself, and even went back and re-read, figuring I must have missed it... but no. Nope. He actually managed to do a teardown of two speakers without ever actually looking at the most important bits. Wow.

yc-kraln 8y ago
you seem to have completely missed the point of the article. it isnt a speaker review, it is an analysis of the strategy of the company developing the speaker. the audio quality is not germane
- seizethecheese 8y ago
  Audio quality is the reason why anyone would buy a Sonos speaker over an echo. It's a core strategy component.

amaccuish 8y ago

I just wish the echo had an ethernet port. Its WiFi chip seems real flakey.

lykahb 8y ago

I'm not going to buy Sonos, Amazon Echo, smart TV or any other "smart" device. They all have some things in common: vendor lock-in, manufacturer having more control over the device than the owner does, and little control over your own data. For many websites it took quite a lot of effort to comply with the GDPR requirements. Updating the devices firmware is harder. Without OTA capabilities it may even be impossible. Soon we may hear some news about manufacturers with unscrupulous practices being fined and kicked out of the European market.

S_A_P 8y ago

I think the author misses the point of Sonos somewhat. I don’t think they aim to dominate the smart speaker market. They seem to be a fashionable upper midrange device that is as much for status as it is a speaker. They market Sonos speakers as a fancy home speaker that also happens to support Alexa. Amazon is more the mass market option and just aims to put Alexa in every home. Sonos will never take over the world but will be an established niche player. I would also agree with the sentiment of no Alexa in my home. I was an early adopter of Amazon echo but I have given them away and will never have one in my home again.