zlacker

Are you joking about Sonos? They force you to have account with them to use speakers and you have to enable location sharing on your app to connect (!!). They know more about people than their parents do.

>>mirekr+(OP)
Sonos are also agressively pushing out app updates that sunset older models of their speakers, as we all arbitrarily doing things like blocking streaming of audio from your phone.

Sonos might have been good in the past when they were selling a way of streaming your ripped mp3s around your house, they are no longer good now that they think they own the content too.

>>mirekr+(OP)
> Are you joking about Sonos? They force you to have account with them to use speakers and you have to enable location sharing on your app to connect

Tangential PSA: Red Sea (aquatics) does/did this too. I can't control the lights on my fucking aquarium without all four of them being connected to the internet over wifi and managed through an account registered with an app with location sharing enabled. Only the iOS app worked; the Android version was completely broken.

The app lets you group lights and model the lighting curves however you want but there's no reason this couldn't have been done over Zigbee. I assume my LAN is now part of some Mossad botnet.

>>coremo+q11
Plus Sonos really hasn't kept up. No support for RSTP, no ability to cast audio.

I have many devices and use them every day - but if I had a clean slate I don't think I'd buy them again.

>>mirekr+(OP)
And yet they're one of the few (only?) smart speaker that does locally processed commands. You and everyone else downvoting me are unknowledgeable clowns.

>>coremo+q11
> Sonos are also agressively pushing out app updates that sunset older models of their speakers

Sonos has a ~10 year support timeline on their speakers. That's longer than even Apple supports any of their devices, and they're often considered the gold standard of long support of tech products.

I hate being made to defend Sonos twice as it makes me feel like a shill, but it is truly how it is.

>>jorvi+4Q2
Man, it's a speaker.

Get Bose or something similar - they'll just keep working without strings attached/tracking/on-the-road/etc forever.

ps. I'm happily using 10y+ old iMac 27" with popOS - works great.

>>mirekr+Qr3
Sonos doesn’t have tracking. That’s my entire point. And it’s extremely ironic you call Bose “no strings attached”, that’s what Sonos is about in the most literal sense.

You pay a huge premium in trade for less wires, great multi-room audio, decent sound and a long support timeline.

I will say that I hope Sonos and Google bury the axe at some point, and the Cast (or at least DIAL) protocol gets added.

>>jorvi+QM3
On the planet I live on, Sonos does obnoxious tracking. There is no direct communication between client and speaker at all - everything calls/is routed via home. Moreover client on mobile requires and will refuse to run setup until you grant it precise location permissions. It's a spaghetti of strings attached.

Bose and other bluetooth speakers don't have any strings attached because:

* you don't have to be connected to the internet to use it

* you don't have to have account with them to use it

* you don't have to grant tracking permissions to use it

* manufacturer can decide to discontinue product or go bankrupt - it doesn't matter, you can still use product as you did before, you're unaffected

* you don't have to worry about software deprecation - new versions of sonos client for iOS require recent versions of Apple devices - you can't install client on older phones/tablets to use your speaker