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The semi-future is that some of the Sonos gear supports Airplay 2 (and possibly some Google format, but I wouldn’t know.) I only ever use them with Airplay 2,

The semi-future is that some of the Sonos gear supports Airplay 2 (and possibly some Google format, but I wouldn’t know.) I only ever use them with Airplay 2, and they are firewalled off from the Internet. I also don’t have the Sonos app installed on any of my devices, so it can’t brick my speakers and insist on my signing a new TOS to get an update I didn’t ask for to provide features I didn’t ask for. I fell right out of love with Sonos the first time they pulled the “your devices will have limited functionality until you agree to our update TOS” stunt, especially because that TOS seemed to be all about agreeing to even more data collection. Then they stated shipping speakers with microphones, and it was clear which direction they had chosen as a company. They aren’t a hardware company. They’re now a surveillance capitalism company that uses hardware to collect data.

ljm 7y ago
I bought an Apple HomePod, foolishly thinking it'd have some hardware inputs as well. Obviously that's not the Apple thing to do these days. But it has Airplay 2, so I figured there'd still be a way to interface with it easily. My macbook worked fine, but there was a 2 second delay for every input unless you used Siri. Funnily enough, my Windows computer streams to the HomePod in real time, so now it's a pretty overpowered gaming speaker. But at least that's all it does; there's no bespoke Apple software that has to be installed and updated. And it's fairly dumb in terms of what you can manage with it (none of this stuff like yelling your shopping list at it.) Before I found that particular software, I was about ready to return the thing and switch to a Sonos... until I remembered what they were doing with legacy devices. It would be nice to know if there's a way to build anything custom for it at some point though, since it's just a massive speaker with iOS inside it. If you ask me, there should be regulations about providing a reasonable fallback when selling physical products that depend on some internet service to work. If the service is shut down, the device should be made functional without it (or with a custom thing you can host yourself).
- wh1t3n01s3 7y ago
  The HomePod has it’s own ios fw that is updated via OTA like all the other apple ios devices
alasdair_ 7y ago
Isn’t the point of the microphone to allow the speakers to adjust based on the placement of the other speakers in your toom? Oh and also for alexa integration if you enable it?
- braythwayt 7y ago
  Well, when I first set my speakers up, they used the Sonos app and my phone’s microphone for setup. I don’t believe the speakers I own have microphones (although there is probably some way to hack the speaker into detecting sound, after all... It has a coil, a magnet, and a diaphragm that moves...) And I’m now extremely wary about buying devices with cameras and microphones, especially for my home.

ljm 7y ago

I bought an Apple HomePod, foolishly thinking it'd have some hardware inputs as well. Obviously that's not the Apple thing to do these days. But it has Airplay 2, so I figured there'd still be a way to interface with it easily. My macbook worked fine, but there was a 2 second delay for every input unless you used Siri. Funnily enough, my Windows computer streams to the HomePod in real time, so now it's a pretty overpowered gaming speaker. But at least that's all it does; there's no bespoke Apple software that has to be installed and updated. And it's fairly dumb in terms of what you can manage with it (none of this stuff like yelling your shopping list at it.) Before I found that particular software, I was about ready to return the thing and switch to a Sonos... until I remembered what they were doing with legacy devices. It would be nice to know if there's a way to build anything custom for it at some point though, since it's just a massive speaker with iOS inside it. If you ask me, there should be regulations about providing a reasonable fallback when selling physical products that depend on some internet service to work. If the service is shut down, the device should be made functional without it (or with a custom thing you can host yourself).

wh1t3n01s3 7y ago
The HomePod has it’s own ios fw that is updated via OTA like all the other apple ios devices

alasdair_ 7y ago

Isn’t the point of the microphone to allow the speakers to adjust based on the placement of the other speakers in your toom? Oh and also for alexa integration if you enable it?

braythwayt 7y ago
Well, when I first set my speakers up, they used the Sonos app and my phone’s microphone for setup. I don’t believe the speakers I own have microphones (although there is probably some way to hack the speaker into detecting sound, after all... It has a coil, a magnet, and a diaphragm that moves...) And I’m now extremely wary about buying devices with cameras and microphones, especially for my home.