6 ms·

Three open source Sonos projects: efficient embedded development in Rust

135 points by lukastyrychtr 6y ago

echelon 6y ago
Tract looks neat, and I agree that making inference with rich signal support would be a killer app. I'd love if they did this with pytorch. Tensorflow is quickly falling out of favor. Deploying models in Rust makes a lot of sense. It's a little rough around the edges, though. (I use Rust bindings to libtorch for https://vo.codes https://vo.codes ) Sonos has done some scummy things in the past (bricking units to prevent resale or refurbishment, deactivating old hardware, etc), but they operate in a very hard business sector against giants with monopolistic loss leaders, and this is a really cool open source release. I'm not aiming to buy more Sonos equipment, but I like them a little more now.
- hobofan 6y ago
  Tract supports ONNX models, which you can export from pytorch. See nnsplit[0] as an example for a project that trains with pytorch and serves the model via tract-onnx. [0]: https://github.com/bminixhofer/nnsplit https://github.com/bminixhofer/nnsplit
  - narrationbox 6y ago
    Tract looks incredible, I am surprised that it can support Wavenet on the Raspberry Pi Zero.
  - imglorp 6y ago
    We were unable to get Tract to work at $job but there's another project, I think called onnxruntime-rs that we did get working with our models.
  - aldanor 6y ago
    You can also export them from LightGBM and XGBoost (see sklearn-onnx) for forests and tract will handle them! // well, almost... I need to finally find some time and finish my tract PR :)
- woodson 6y ago
  I believe it also supports what it calls "pulse" models converted/imported from Kaldi for low-latency ASR/keyword spotting (though this may have changed, I haven't checked in a while).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
corbet 6y ago
If they were to give me access to the Linux system running on my Sonos devices, I'd be rather more inclined to buy the idea that Sonos is a supporter of open source. There are many things in need of fixing there, and their customers would be most inclined to help, but no such luck.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  No customers want to write code for the devices they buy. They just want them to work. HN is such a bubble
  - detaro 6y ago
    What's the point of a comment like this? Do you really think parent doesn't know that this is a niche interest? Custom integrations etc basically always are only done by a very small number of people, used by a lot larger (but typically still small number), that doesn't make them worthless. There's even an obvious example in the same niche, see the ecosystem around what was the Logitech squeezebox.
  - stblack 6y ago
    Disagree. Code is leverage, and leveraging valuable property is a great passtime, and smart for people in tech. If one percent of SONOS owners use the code, and a fraction of one percent contribute to code, the sky is the limit for all present and future SONOS owners.
    - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
      > If one percent of SONOS owners use the code I've worked at companies that added APIs for enthusiasts to use for home automation and other projects. I can tell you from experience that the number of customers who use those APIs is far less than 1%. The number of people who might actually compile code and run it on their device, if given the chance, is vanishingly small. The real problem, though, is that no matter how hard you try to tell your customers that customizations and custom integrations won't be supported, your customer support channels will be flooded with obscure requests from these customers. As soon as something goes wrong, they want you to fix it. It doesn't take long before they start taking to Amazon reviews to vent their frustrations. It doesn't matter how many warnings you add, how many times you insist that aftermarket modifications won't be supported, or how much you plead with the enthusiasts to take responsibility for their own modifications. A subset of the hackers will make things miserable for your support and RMA teams, and that's enough to sink these initiatives. Finally: Once you advertise an API or support for customer modifications, you're on the hook for supporting it forever. Need to re-architect the software for some new features or upcoming products? If it breaks compatibility with customer hacks or integrations then prepare for some of the most vile, angry feedback you've ever received. The hacker community has zero tolerance for losing features or access, so once it's out there you'd better be prepared to support if forever. This might not sound bad at first, but it doesn't take long until you're making choices between advancing the product line and not upsetting the <0.1% of vocal customers who use the APIs/integrations.
stblack 6y ago
I'm thrilled to see all the mentions of SONOS networking in the article. These devices form their own mesh network, right? Also SONOS devices phone home, a lot. I'd love to see all that mapped and, ultimately, open code committed by the community at large.
swiley 6y ago
I'm still not sure what problem these open source devices really solve. The sorts of people that would be interested can probably already just ssh into their desktop/raspberry pi and don't need anything more interesting than that.
da39a3ee 6y ago
The projects sound really interesting. I'm a Rust programmer, and I clicked through to their careers page. When is this going to end? Why do we think that creating a better world requires plastering our communications with these meaningless word-salads of business speak mixed with faint touches of academic cultural theory? Why do we think that the under-represented groups we rightly seek to encourage to the workplace would be attracted by such shit? > Diversity and inclusion > We believe that fostering an equitable environment where people feel a sense of belonging as their authentic selves creates a culture for people to do their best work. Diverse teams, when supported by this culture, produce more creative solutions, innovative products, and inclusive experiences.
squarefoot 6y ago
Given their history of pissing off customers and their zero respect for privacy, my answer is thanks but no thanks. https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-policy-speakers-cease-to-function/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-polic... https://www.vice.com/en/article/3a8dpn/sonos-makes-it-clear-you-no-longer-own-the-things-you-buy https://www.vice.com/en/article/3a8dpn/sonos-makes-it-clear-...
WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
Let’s not forget these projects come from the same company that 1) had a so-called recycle mode in their devices that bricked them with no undo option, 2) lately requires you to create an account on their site just so your networked speakers may work at all. You know how many internet accounts I need to take a raspberry pi, a USB DAC, hook those to a fine pair of Edifier speakers and run shairport-sync? NONE AT ALL.
- rozenmd 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
  - seg_lol 6y ago
    Heh, the thoughts are similar but not that similar. https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync It actually does implement multi-room synchronized audio. This was the one thing keeping me from running an OSS audio solution using RPis. I like that it runs AirPlay, so it can "just work" using existing devices, and not a crazy uncle solution.
- ViViDboarder 6y ago
  And they acquired and killed Snips.

135 points by lukastyrychtr 6y ago

Tract looks neat, and I agree that making inference with rich signal support would be a killer app. I'd love if they did this with pytorch. Tensorflow is quickly falling out of favor. Deploying models in Rust makes a lot of sense. It's a little rough around the edges, though. (I use Rust bindings to libtorch for https://vo.codes https://vo.codes ) Sonos has done some scummy things in the past (bricking units to prevent resale or refurbishment, deactivating old hardware, etc), but they operate in a very hard business sector against giants with monopolistic loss leaders, and this is a really cool open source release. I'm not aiming to buy more Sonos equipment, but I like them a little more now.

hobofan 6y ago
Tract supports ONNX models, which you can export from pytorch. See nnsplit[0] as an example for a project that trains with pytorch and serves the model via tract-onnx. [0]: https://github.com/bminixhofer/nnsplit https://github.com/bminixhofer/nnsplit
- narrationbox 6y ago
  Tract looks incredible, I am surprised that it can support Wavenet on the Raspberry Pi Zero.
- imglorp 6y ago
  We were unable to get Tract to work at $job but there's another project, I think called onnxruntime-rs that we did get working with our models.
- aldanor 6y ago
  You can also export them from LightGBM and XGBoost (see sklearn-onnx) for forests and tract will handle them! // well, almost... I need to finally find some time and finish my tract PR :)
woodson 6y ago
I believe it also supports what it calls "pulse" models converted/imported from Kaldi for low-latency ASR/keyword spotting (though this may have changed, I haven't checked in a while).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

corbet 6y ago

If they were to give me access to the Linux system running on my Sonos devices, I'd be rather more inclined to buy the idea that Sonos is a supporter of open source. There are many things in need of fixing there, and their customers would be most inclined to help, but no such luck.

mav3rick 6y ago
No customers want to write code for the devices they buy. They just want them to work. HN is such a bubble
- detaro 6y ago
  What's the point of a comment like this? Do you really think parent doesn't know that this is a niche interest? Custom integrations etc basically always are only done by a very small number of people, used by a lot larger (but typically still small number), that doesn't make them worthless. There's even an obvious example in the same niche, see the ecosystem around what was the Logitech squeezebox.
- stblack 6y ago
  Disagree. Code is leverage, and leveraging valuable property is a great passtime, and smart for people in tech. If one percent of SONOS owners use the code, and a fraction of one percent contribute to code, the sky is the limit for all present and future SONOS owners.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    > If one percent of SONOS owners use the code I've worked at companies that added APIs for enthusiasts to use for home automation and other projects. I can tell you from experience that the number of customers who use those APIs is far less than 1%. The number of people who might actually compile code and run it on their device, if given the chance, is vanishingly small. The real problem, though, is that no matter how hard you try to tell your customers that customizations and custom integrations won't be supported, your customer support channels will be flooded with obscure requests from these customers. As soon as something goes wrong, they want you to fix it. It doesn't take long before they start taking to Amazon reviews to vent their frustrations. It doesn't matter how many warnings you add, how many times you insist that aftermarket modifications won't be supported, or how much you plead with the enthusiasts to take responsibility for their own modifications. A subset of the hackers will make things miserable for your support and RMA teams, and that's enough to sink these initiatives. Finally: Once you advertise an API or support for customer modifications, you're on the hook for supporting it forever. Need to re-architect the software for some new features or upcoming products? If it breaks compatibility with customer hacks or integrations then prepare for some of the most vile, angry feedback you've ever received. The hacker community has zero tolerance for losing features or access, so once it's out there you'd better be prepared to support if forever. This might not sound bad at first, but it doesn't take long until you're making choices between advancing the product line and not upsetting the <0.1% of vocal customers who use the APIs/integrations.

stblack 6y ago

I'm thrilled to see all the mentions of SONOS networking in the article. These devices form their own mesh network, right? Also SONOS devices phone home, a lot. I'd love to see all that mapped and, ultimately, open code committed by the community at large.

swiley 6y ago

I'm still not sure what problem these open source devices really solve. The sorts of people that would be interested can probably already just ssh into their desktop/raspberry pi and don't need anything more interesting than that.

da39a3ee 6y ago

The projects sound really interesting. I'm a Rust programmer, and I clicked through to their careers page. When is this going to end? Why do we think that creating a better world requires plastering our communications with these meaningless word-salads of business speak mixed with faint touches of academic cultural theory? Why do we think that the under-represented groups we rightly seek to encourage to the workplace would be attracted by such shit? > Diversity and inclusion > We believe that fostering an equitable environment where people feel a sense of belonging as their authentic selves creates a culture for people to do their best work. Diverse teams, when supported by this culture, produce more creative solutions, innovative products, and inclusive experiences.

squarefoot 6y ago

Given their history of pissing off customers and their zero respect for privacy, my answer is thanks but no thanks. https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-policy-speakers-cease-to-function/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-polic... https://www.vice.com/en/article/3a8dpn/sonos-makes-it-clear-you-no-longer-own-the-things-you-buy https://www.vice.com/en/article/3a8dpn/sonos-makes-it-clear-...

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago

Let’s not forget these projects come from the same company that 1) had a so-called recycle mode in their devices that bricked them with no undo option, 2) lately requires you to create an account on their site just so your networked speakers may work at all. You know how many internet accounts I need to take a raspberry pi, a USB DAC, hook those to a fine pair of Edifier speakers and run shairport-sync? NONE AT ALL.

rozenmd 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
- seg_lol 6y ago
  Heh, the thoughts are similar but not that similar. https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync It actually does implement multi-room synchronized audio. This was the one thing keeping me from running an OSS audio solution using RPis. I like that it runs AirPlay, so it can "just work" using existing devices, and not a crazy uncle solution.
ViViDboarder 6y ago
And they acquired and killed Snips.