Sonos: users must accept new privacy policy or devices may “cease to function”

Convenience, everybody's favorite little shoulder devil.

It doesn't seem like a terrible deal (http://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy).

What part of the privacy policy do you specifically have an issue with?

Individuals haven't owned much in a very long time; we've been physical serfs living on someone else's land for even longer.

You only "own" something so long as you pay taxes (aka rents) for the right to do so, otherwise someone, usually the government, will take it from you. Even if you don't want to play along, you can only be somewhere public for so long until you're loitering and subject to fines (more rents), confiscation (again, more rents), or removal.

The whole system is pretty blatantly anti-competitive [1], detrimental to individuals [2][3], and rotting the system from the inside out [4][5].

1. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too...

2. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-22/us-economy-perverte...

3. https://hackernoon.com/rise-of-the-rent-seeker-how-the-subsc...

4. https://devinhelton.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-economy/

5. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-13/banks-and...

Another view:

Too many hardware products are being tethered to opaque "updates" delivered via untrusted computer network, namely, "the Internet". Security issues of the delivery mechanism aside, purchasers of these products are given no options on whether and how they may choose to "update" the manufacturer's software, or replace the manufacturer's software with an open source alternative.

For example, if the manufacturer's software is closed source, the purchaser cannot verify what is in an "update". The manufacturer is under no legal obligation to tell her. As such, she may not be in a position to decide

   [ ] YES, I could use this modification or 
   [ ] NO, this modification serves me no benefit

The modification may serve some benefit to the manufacture, e.g., collecting data, but no benefit to the purchaser.

It may be bundled with some other modification that benefits the purchaser but the purchaser cannot choose to accept or reject the modifications individually.

Or the manufacturer may simply state a possibility that breeds fear among certain purchasers: that if purchaser does not accept all updates, then the hardware may "cease to function". Consideration by the purchaser of whether this is actually probable may be superseded by a perceived risk of not being able to use the hardware to its full capabilities.

(For example, a router company may inform the purchaser that only the router company's software will allow certain performance specificatons to be met. If the purchaser installs an open source alternative software, then she will not be able to obtain the same performance. Of course there may be other benefits to the open source alternative besides performance, but the perceived "loss" of not reaching the performance specs advertised by the manufacturer is enough to convince many purchasers to tether the router to the manufacturer's "updates".)

Purchasers own the hardware they purchase. It is the software, including "firmware", pre-installed by manufacturers that gives rise to these shenanigans. The less access and control, including choice of alternatives, that the purchaser has to such software, the better for the manufacturer who wishes to continue to exploit the sale of the hardware well-beyond the purchase date.

When the purchaser of hardware is forced to accept the manufacturer's software, then I tend to agree with the comment. Regardless of whether the purchaser owns the hardware, if the manufacture controls the software, e.g. the manufacturer can "update" it at will or break it at will for anyone who does not "update", then with all due respect I submit that the manufacture ultimately controls the hardware. Thought experiment: Apply the above view to every item of hardware you have ever purchased. Consider whether it will apply to the next item you purchase.

Open Source, Open Hardware, Open Protocols

That is the only way

The answer is, nobody does.

They implicitly agree under duress, because their time is worth far too much to even read 10 pages of fine print for every product they use. I'm not being flippant; it bloody well is.

I'm not sure why courts consider that to hold any weight; to me it goes against the whole notion of informed consent in binding agreements. And to be fair, often the courts don't consider to hold any weight.

For someone like me, my decision making for any electronics I buy is "how extensible is this thing, how much control can I exert over it, and how much control does it exert over me".

My willingness to have a poorer experience is unfortunately not as strong as some FOSS enthusiasts. I'm happy to relinquish some control to Apple so long as they continue to provide me with positive experiences (AirPlay, for instance). Fortunately everyone is piling into the "works with everything else" crowd, so you don't really have to opt for something particularly power-user-oriented anymore. HomeKit doesn't fall too short of an ISY-99i based system, for instance.

I can only imagine if I wasn't excited by FOSS and linux to begin with. There is zero hope of escaping the cloud-trap for someone who doesn't have the knowledge or willingness.

Because no one really makes such a deal in an informed manner...imagine if products had a big warning label "future software updates are not included"

This is so true. I refused to update a second generation Apple TV when after several updates I realized the "updates" added zero functionality to then end user. They were just occasions to put new paid-placement crapware on the home screen. I kept up this refusal to update partly out of stubbornness and partly as an experiment. Eventually, after a few months Apple just applied the update without asking. It was at this moment that I realized "I may have purchased this device but I certainly don't own it."

If the units are also wifi connected (sonos mesh networking), then either only plug in one of them to ethernet, or fiddle with your switch spanning tree cost values. As I recall, sonos uses the older standard spanning tree values, and until I fiddled with my managed switch settings, the sonos were regularly bringing down my local network, and/or winning the elections so that large amounts of my lan traffic went over their wireless mesh network.

Pretty crappy default configuration on Sonos' part (using old default cost values), if you ask me.

I bought a LibraTone [0] and love the thing. With its inbuilt battery, it's a portable hifi system. You can take it anywhere. Sound quality is 5*. Integrates seamlessly with all Apple devices.

[0] https://www.libratone.com/

Turn off the wireless interfaces.

Instructions I followed which solved everything: https://bsteiner.info/articles/disabling-sonos-wifi

Sonos's spanning tree implementation is problematic (and anachronistic: last I looked, it was using classic STP not RSTP). In a similar situation I've watched them flap away merrily, spitting constant topology change BPDUs at each other through both interfaces. It's not a pretty sight.

They seem to me to be totally in denial about it, judging by their forums. Lots of blame-the-customer and blame-someone-else's-device, and very little (or no) technical documentation. I think they are a speaker manufacturer first, a streaming audio interface second, and a networking company a very distant third.

I have 2 Play 1's, Play 5 and Play Soundbar. They have worked fantastically and I've never had a problem once in several years. The idea that they can be bricked has me extremely upset right now.

5 Play:1s and they all work flawlessly on WiFi. It doesn't seem they're intended to work wired, from what I've seen.

I've had one tiny but annoying bug: Occasionally a podcast will show 0:00 to 0:00 on the scrubber and nothing -- not rebooting the whole system and my phone -- will fix it. It can be frustrating to be unable to scrub to the 40 minute mark on a podcast where I've already listened to half of it.

The devices don't persist groups across reboot, so if they power-cycle (which can happen if they update), you have to regroup everything.

Whatever the rationale, the posts's core statement - that either people accept new contract terms or their device will brick the next time they change the API - is correct.

[edit] apparently the models have a line-in socket? In that case, I agree, them turning into regular speakers is better than bricking. However, I still think the article is relevant as it highlights the problem of ownership and terms of sale with IoT devices. (The conditions under which you bought the device can change arbitrarily after the sale)

Found the Sonos employee. They've been extremely good about updating their software? I had to join the beta program and wait a year to get Spotify integration to work even after they advertised it as a feature. If you think they're the gold standard you've never seen their support forums..

In this specific case: if you own a sonos, try to get your money back over this.

Have you even read what data is being collected? Sonos is not a scum company, though the article is providing badly inaccurate info.

You violate HIPAA, and it's severe. So there's already a precedence for sensitive data. We just need to ensure all our personal data is considered under a sensitive data infrastructure of some form. That would hopefully also disincentivize home gadgets from constantly dumping everything to their mothership.

My degree is in mechanical engineering, but I work in software development. Software is eating the world for good reasons.

How many gates would it take to have a pure hardware decoder for ATSC?

A microcontroller-based dishwasher timer is much cheaper to design and manufacture, and wears out more slowly under many conditions, than a mechanical timer.

I wouldn't be surprised if a micontroller could wring another 1% efficiency out of your refrigerator vs. an analog or mechanical controller.

A microcontroller inside the speaker could perform some digital signal processing to account for the speaker's frequency response, so that the receiver doesn't have to know any details about the speakers.

Now, I do see little reason to make any of the non-TV appliances you mention reliant upon network connectivity or anything outside themselves apart from power and physical consumables (soap, water, etc.). Ideally, the television itself would be split into a screen with only HDMI in, and a small box or dongle that performs ATSC reception, decoding, and any smart TV functionality. The television itself should be something like a Chromecast.

The sentence is if you don't pay for the product, you are the product. But Sonos isn't exactly free. It isn't exactly cheap either.

Read the policy. It clearly states they don't sell data and you can opt out from usage info. Where does that make the user a product?

Why wouldn't the market help? This is a great opportunity for a competitor to offer privacy features and capture market share with a better offering. Promise privacy in perpetuity or your money back, and if consumers care then they will switch.

Which makes your options 'roll it yourself' or 'do without'. Just because somebody chose door #3 doesn't mean they should be expected to get shafted at every opportunity.

It's so good but still so buggy. Very much a love-hate relationship.

That was my first thought as well. It's clearly not reasonable to assume a customer bought a product without any knowledge of arbitrary future changes in the legal terms but understood that the product could cease to provide the same functionality they bought it for later if they didn't accept those unrelated changes. This ought to be grounds for returning these devices to vendors as unfit for purpose and demanding that either they are fixed to continue working properly or some fair level of compensation is paid.

Also, since we're getting some new data protection laws across the EU next year that are heavily weighted against organisations that process data, someone who is upset by this could probably annoy Sonos by doing things like accepting the policy, getting whatever updates they need to keep their device running, and then immediately giving notice that they withdraw their consent for processing any personal data.

In the long term, I think consumer education may be the best solution to the problem of normal devices depending on fragile remote facilities. It is illegal to sell cigarettes in my country without showing very obvious warnings about how smoking is harmful to your health. Perhaps it's time that any software or electronic devices that rely on someone else's servers or remote hardware to function have to have 1/3 of their packaging (including 1/3 of the total screen area for any web pages or app purchase screens) used for a big statement that this may cause the software or device to stop functioning at any time, or to give an actionable guarantee about how long such support will be provided for as a minimum, and that any advertising for such things has to describe the "purchase" in terms of being a rental rather than buying something.

My parents have a couple of Sonos devices in their home. The support is amazing. But this "Accept the new policy or we brick your shit remotely" thing needs a HARD and FAST response, this cannot be a "Well eventually the market will-" NO, FUCK THAT. If we allow manufacturers to do this sort of shit, that's the final nail in the coffin for IoT. It's already a dumpster fire in terms of software.

Plus this is no way to treat a customer if you want them to be repeat customers.

I am considering a complaint to the ACCC here in Australia. It's possible this sort of thing violates our consumer protection laws.

If anyone is on the same boat here's the best non-smart/IoT/lock-in tech I've come up with for a single room setup with wireless speakers:

1) 4 to 1 HDMI splitter with audio out: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/HDSW4-HDMI-Switch-4X1-With-A...

2) Connect all your sources through HDMI (your PC, your TV box, a Chromecast, a raspberry, etc). There are versions with more inputs if you need that. That one has a nice simple remote.

3) Connect the HDMI splitter audio output to a RF audio transmitter: https://www.altoproaudio.com/products/stealth-wireless

4) Use some powered studio monitors with one of the RF receivers each (there are plenty to choose from)

This way if you're streaming audio+video everything syncs up because the RF link adds very little latency (unlike the Sonos that adds 70ms). The chromecast gives you easy streaming of audio and video from all your apps and if you are only streaming audio you can just turn off your TV/projector and the audio still works fine. The speakers can be placed anywhere there's power. It doesn't have the fancy multi-room and 5.1 possibilities of the Sonos nor the good industrial design.

I'm really interested to know what specifically you're concerned about. This article is just inaccurate. You can opt out of usage data, so what is the privacy issue for you personally?

look into the squeezebox ecosystem.

You can get multiple different Linux SBCs for under $10. Grab one, put ffmpeg on it, be happy.

I would be shocked if the commercial offerings were significantly better than most open source stuff (except for iphone interoperability...)

Could you recommend some alternatives?

It's not that simple if you've already bought the devices and the terms change.

Yes I will tell my friend who has sonos players for around 2000 USD, I'm sure he will listen.

Thanks Captain obvious. It's not simple at all for people who have dropped $1000+ on speakers all over their house.

Once you get past library installation problems, RPis are great for this type of thing.

There are a good amount of IoT devices that work offline and don't use public internet at all.

I specifically buy devices that aren't bound to the Internet and I've found a good amount.

Sonos keeps playing if your phone moves which is a pretty huge plus, especially if you know people and don't lead a life of solitude. Their hardware also has a wealth of hardware features like analog and digital inputs, zero-delay input monitoring which makes them suitable as TV or computer speakers, the ability to monitor those inputs from any zone, even if you aren't listening to them on the physically attached player, phase-locked multichannel playback, a zero-config self-extending wireless network, multiuser queue management, and twelve years of flawless software support (so far).

The idea that you get the same thing from a raspberry pi, an android, and some hacks is strictly for those valuing their own time at zero.

So, even in a 1100sqft house, I consider the multiple-zone streaming to be of great utility. In fact, I almost NEVER use my Sonos setup without all 5 speakers going. Yes, you can always blast the audio in one room in order to hear it well in others, but it's quite nice to be able to listen at a comfortable volume in all rooms. It allows one person in the house to call out to another and still be heard, for example.

I have it set to wake me to the local streaming radio, so that's a nice feature, but of course it could be replicated.

I can throw my phone into a passing cement mixer and the music keeps playing in the house, and then I can open the controller on my laptop and hit "next track". In this way it's fairly analogous to the Spotify controller where I can change the music from any device in the house, but the "playing" happens on the device itself; it's not actually streamed from my phone or computer.

Also, until sometime in the past couple of years Bluetooth was godawful unusably unreliable. It's gotten REALLY good lately though, and suddenly I love it.

Top things for me are: Excellent sound quality. The fact that Sonos has its own network means I can queue up internet radio or a playlist and it no longer needs to communicate with the phone to continue streaming all day. I take advantage of the multi-room support daily outside the context of a house party, simply so my music follows me from room to room. I do agree the privacy policy is a downer but am pretty sure your smart phone is subject to the same risk.

Hardware vs. software.

Declining update and choosing to live without new features vs. ceasing to function.

* Shared playlist/queue between all users of a household.

* No need to have a second device present to stream music. That is, I can start up music with the controller on my phone, and go to the store, but the music still plays since all the streaming is handled by the sonos speaker.

* No need to pair your phone/computer to the device every time you come home. Just get on the wifi, and you're set.

Those are the big ones for me, and honestly they're huge.

On the flip side, the biggest pain point is that you're beholden to whatever music services they include in their controller, and you have to use their controller to play music. So while they support Apple Music, I can't use the Music app on my phone to play it. I have to drill through the Sonos app and find what I want. It works pretty well, but it's annoying. Also, I can't stream Audible books, or Overcast podcasts since they aren't supported by the Sonos controller.

Sonos offers synchronization between speakers, better range, music still plays when your phone is off, easier for multiple devices to control the music, plays more music sources (e.g. from a NAS).

(Disclaimer: I used to work for Sonos.)

You can setup a network of them so they can play the same thing throughout the house. Phones can usually only stream to one bluetooth speaker.

If you are only interested in having one speaker, I would probably agree that bluetooth is the better choice. Much more flexibility. Sonos is better when you've got a whole house full of speakers. Grouping rooms together, playing different stuff in different rooms, and the ability for anyone on your network to interact with all of it is where Sonos shines.

I have both. I have no home music or home theatre use case for which Bluetooth is simpler or otherwise better in any other fashion.

In particular, non-technical users appear to be vastly more comfortable with the Sonos system.

There is a Sonos app for iOS, though? But agree using the Spotify app to manage it is pretty lousy but then I just switch to the Sonos app.

Plex just updated their privacy policy to infuriate users before walking it back after many people complained loudly.

I'm torn between two responses...

1) RMS is always right.

2) RMS is that you?

> So worst case is they turn into regular speakers.

If I wanted regular speakers, I would have bought regular speakers.

> I find it hard to believe

.... until it does happen as they promised ...

> sound systems that may eventually "cease to function".

Not just some part of it but all of it.