Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
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Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#2I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason.
I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should use them. I already had a soundbar that I could stream music to. I now, out of politeness, had to use these new "wireless" speakers that demanded a constant wifi connection but still required their own Very Visible power cables along with its own dedicated app which was nothing but a wrapper for music services that logged me out after every software update. I couldn't even use it as a dumb speaker and operate it as part of my main sound system so now I have a soundbar that is nicely mounted to the wall and additionally these speakers that clutter my living room. Lovely.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#3I recently set up shairport-sync[0] on a pair of Raspberry Pi's w/ USB DACs and nice speakers to get multi-room audio from Apple music. It's pretty nice!
It definitely was a bit of a process to set up, but well documented and much less painful than what this sounds like.
I also put headless plexamp on one, which lets me play my music from Plex, although I haven't gotten around to putting it on the other one yet for multi-room audio.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#4Enshitification will continue until morale improves.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#5I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason. I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should…
I don't mind devices that have "smarts" added (e.g. wireless audio can be convenience even if I have to have a wire for power) but I despise devices which don't check the "dumb" boxes before trying to be "smart". Sonos speakers are like you say, there are even plenty of Sonos models with line in but you still need to set them up in app. Getting smart devices without that kind of functionality is like getting a TV without an HDMI input - even if you don't think you'd need it day 1 you'll likely one day regret it.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#6Sonos owner; I strongly dislike it. I disliked it on the old app, too. Will get Apple homepods next.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#7What's the current best whole home audio setup that doesn't locks you into a specific brand/product line? Must work on iOS/Android/PC, sorry AirPlay.
I'm okay with smart dongle-y things that don't fit the criteria so long as they could run on a set of passive speakers. Because if they turn to shit I just pitch them.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#8From the reddit post:
> Alarm functionality as a highlight feature wtf, dude I can write bash scripts that handle alarm systems reliably on an IoT network, NO PROBLEM … Queue logic systems are the most basic shit I've ever seen. Are you serious?
I don’t know what to make of this.
While the app may be a disaster claiming alarms are nothing more than a bash script on a distributed IOT system seems odd.
Networked queues with multiple clients is not as simple as the author implies either.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#9My Sonos experience has been fine eight years now 10+ devices.
That said I do dislike the new app rollout.
I do feel like there has been 500ms to 2 seconds of added lag in certain actions. I can't quite place what's going on though. Not enough to be a deal breaker yet.
I feel the surround sound experience has been very hit or miss but can't tell if it's Sonos or the media platform I'm watching videos on.
Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company
#10What's the current best whole home audio setup that doesn't locks you into a specific brand/product line? Must work on iOS/Android/PC, sorry AirPlay. I'm okay with smart dongle-y things that don't fit the criteria so long as they could run on a set of passive speakers. Because if they turn to shit I just pitch them.
Roon perhaps