Sonos requires access to your location to install a Sonos system
faq.sonos.com
faq.sonos.com
[1] https://github.com/Logitech/slimserver [2] https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?104614-Announc... [3] https://www.picoreplayer.org/ [4] https://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?111217-Announc... [5] https://github.com/CDrummond/lms-material [6] http://penguinlovesmusic.de/
I have players scattered around the house:
- touchscreen players with great graphical displays built with Raspberry Pi 3B's, IQAudio Pi-DAC+, and the official Pi 7" touchscreen. Nice bamboo stands too, but they're hard to find these days. - a headless player in an awkward location built with a pi-zero-w and the IQAudio Pi-DACZero - a playerless head with a Pi 3B and a 7" touch screen (the UI's divorced from the player, this one manages the PiZero from a less awkward location).
Everything supported out of the box by piCorePlayer.
All are plugged into various speakers w/ integrated amps (I'm an AudioEngine fan).
They play in sync throughout the house, or can be independent.
I run the LMS server from a FreeNAS jail, LMS is in the FreeBSD ports tree and/but I have a newer version in my ports overlay: https://github.com/hartzell/freebsd-ports/tree/master/audio/....
Things occasionally hiccup, e.g. the spotify client dies periodically (https://github.com/michaelherger/spotty/issues/18).
Happy to help anyone who's interested in getting things setup.
Backed right out of that one. It's incredible how people would just agree to anything an app asks them to do. If most people didn't proceed past this point, the manufacturer wouldn't be getting away with collecting that data.
How is someone's physical location data required to setup a webcam? So anyway. Same crap.
There are many better ways to do this, for example why not ask users which country they are on? Or, I don't know, maybe let the app figure it out based on the phones configuration?
"This allows Sonos to detect your nearby speakers during the Setup process. If you leave this disabled, you will not be able to setup your speakers."
The iOS explanation that it's only used to auto-fill a zipcode is insane and presumably inaccurate, given the Android permission's description.
Putting the blame for this on Apple/Google doesn’t excuse Sonos’s sleazy data collection here, of course.
Looks like a case of coarse grained access rights required to enable very specific, time bound setup features, but then again that’s what the underlying platforms ask for/provide (like, 5min BLE beacon requires location access, which also grants GPS)
Not being able to complete setup without it though is not OK.
"Updates" deprecate hardware that used to work fine, and... adds advertising for new hardware!!
I was last in their home about two months ago and it was working well.
What hardware have they depreciated?
I’m kind of astounded at how long they have supported the original product line.
I am annoyed by the occasional aggressive updates for the system/android app and the relatively recent requirement to have a "sonos account", but overall the system continues to work well and they keep adding new services (which I mostly don't use -- streaming music from the NAS is my primary use case).
Without the controller a Sonos install is much inferior to a normal HiFi setup that anyone can walk to and use.
But the software is horrible. More often than not we have trouble connecting to the speaker, and sometimes give up in frustration.
For me the software has got so much better.
This isn't sonos' fault.
> Location access is required to detect your nearby speakers during setup and your mobile device’s WiFi network information.
This is what they actually need it for the bit you quoted is a minor convenience but they require it to be able to do this.
In particular, they force this on Android in order to map MAC address from any Bluetooth devices to physical locations. This allows then to track people even when they turn off GPS.
(If you work for Samsung etc and are wondering why I don't buy your wireless headphones, this is the reason. Feel free to show this to your boss)
The idea is that they release one set of GOOD speakers and improve it through software, which they have. In fact my speakers sound better than when I first bought them due to the new functionality they’ve added.
Depreciate is also a matter of opinion, my speakers work better than they did when I first purchased them. So for me they haven't been depreciated with software.
Unfähre = unfairly Ungefähr = approximately
They were cheap and allowed me to setup multi-room audio for listening to audio books / podcasts, but I hate gear that require internet access to setup/work.
It's the same argument that Apple had recently where users were unable to fully switch off location settings on their device through switching applications off manually. It was because they needed to check where the individual was globally to ensure the Ultra Wideband technology was not being used in countries where it was illegal to do so.
They say on the article you have posted that it is only required for setup, which makes sense. After which time you can then switch it off.
Posting an article where an app asks for location permissions is completely useless unless you provide an argument for why they shouldn't do so given their reasoning for requiring it.
The original article seems not to link to the actual wording of their reasoning (and I couldn't find it with a quick browse), but I'm guessing they require a location to ensure that they are licensed to give you the specific content in your area. My opinion: have it fail if they need a location to serve the content and don't have the location. Personally, I think it's pretty stupid anyway since it's hardly impossible to spoof the location on these devices. At some level, you are required to trust the consumer that they are telling the truth. Given that, why not just ask the costumer what country they are in and cut off the service for customers who are obviously lying? Put in your terms of service that you can use it through TOR or other anonymising services that will obfuscate the route of the packets being sent.
I mean, I can think of half a dozen other potential solutions to the problem. They picked one and don't want to think of any other solution. I think it is fair for consumers to judge them on their lack of flexibility on this issue.
You're right, you could do that however in the context of user experience you might choose to remove that from the application such that the user is able to register their devices faster. And if you really only need and use that information during the setup as they said, then what's the problem?
With regards to spoofing, if it is correct that they need the locale in order to know whether they can serve that location. And they implement a location check to satisfy that, then if the end user spoofs the location, surely Sonos don't care because they've done their due diligence. If you choose to spoof the location that's a different story, Sonos if they could would provide the service to everyone its the licensing companies that tell where they can.
My opinion, if you are required to obtain the location of the user as part of the setup process due to determining the radio locale. And you do so only during the setup process as you have stipulated on your website, then I don't think its that big of a deal. Either way I'd have to provide my location using a drop down menu and for the end user its just one part of the overall setup process that is done for you.
For Ultra Wide Band it's even easier because the actual phone manufacturer has control over the dang thing. Got an active SIM connection in an allowed country? Good to go. Even building your GPS system such that it can determine if it is in a UWB allowed country without divulding where it is would be absolutely trivial. I really can go on and on with potential solutions that do not divulge a user's positions. They just don't care about the user's privacy. That's the entire point.
Nah.
PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE
That would really make me refund your product.
They scan the area for Sonos speakers to setup. That BT scan and Wifi info requires location permissions in Android because it can be used as a pretty accurate location sensor.
https://developer.android.com/about/versions/marshmallow/and...
And before you say "but one is private and the other is public", you have no guarantees as to how Sonos will use the data or how securely they will keep it.