Google home speakers are about to get slightly worse because Sonos sued and won
theverge.com
theverge.com
I suspect that the outcome of this where Google devices have to have volume controlled individually isn't due to a patent on that specific functionality, but due to something with the inter-speaker communication system that Sonos pioneered (multiple wireless speakers playing sound in sync with each other, with no audible delay). Google will have had to change how they have speakers talk to each other and the side effect is the lack of group volume control.
A patent on "speaker group volume control" I agree would be silly, but a parent on a wireless control system and protocol for multiple speakers that can be grouped together is far less so.
In classic infringement avoidance ridiculousness, I have no desire to dig into the details... but this superficially feels like it would fail the obviousness test for patentability.
I think the true innovation and problem that Sonos solved when they started was to have synchronised compressed audio streams play on multiple speakers with do audible delay between them. That is not a partially "easy" problem to solve, and bear in mind that when they started they had to implement their own wifi network for the speakers as the wifi standards of the time (from memory) both wouldn't provide the necessary bandwidth but also few people had wifi at the time. The were no smart phones when they stated, they had their own "smart" remotes even.
Sonos aren’t popular here at HN due to some truely awful decisions they have made.
I really like my small system and it works great - mostly.
You hit some seriously rough edges if you have a Unifi network, and Sonos’s use of STP rather than RSTP is system breaking until you realise it. And even when you solve this issue, there will be random outbreaks of dysfunction and failure to connect.
The Sonos app is terrible, and the integration with Spotify occasionally craps out - logging out and then in again can fix it, sometimes.
I like the system but it’s got a way to go.
The Spotify bug when it randomly cuts our is REALY annoying, it seems to happen in a cluster about once a week.
Fortunately we weren't effected by their incredably ill conceived changes to the "legacy" speakers, they deserve criticism for that and I'm sure I would be less charitable if we had been effected.
I'm curious if we could re-invent it, right here in this thread, without looking up how it's done.
Having synchronized their timestamps, the central hub transmits a specific time for playback to begin. At this point you need to make sure that there isn't any unexpected buffering going on, output buffers have to be tiny/realtime or the process of sending signal out has to be again synced to the clock, which means you need control over the firmware/drivers. Worst case you might have to skip or repeat a couple samples once in a while to keep synced up which in a 44000 samples per second signal is not a big deal.
You need a big enough input buffer to play a few seconds of audio, just to be safe, but the output buffer has to be realtime.
That's pretty much how I'd do it, off the top of my head.
Without commenting on the radio side of this, I implemented automatic synchronisation of video playback units to within a few microseconds in 2007 and it was fairly obvious how to do it back then. That's accurate enough for audio as well.
So long as units were playing the same content or equivalent-length content (for video walls, shows etc.) and could receive each other's broadcasts on whatever LAN they were connected to, they would automatically detect each other, form equivalence groups, and adjust timing until the clocks matched each other, and stay locked together across content changes.
There was no master control unit, and no configuration; it was an automatic distributed algorithm that "just worked".
I couldn't find the complete list of patent infringements (Sonos alleges more than 100) but it does seem there's one in particular about controlling volume on multiple speakers / rooms at once.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-google-pate...
Edit: Thought I would point out that when Sonos first filed their claims they made a big noise about Google using the same protocol as they to do to control their speakers. This protocol isn't covered by the patents in question. The reason is that the protocols in question are UPnP standard protocols.
Google are well ahead of this lawsuit, the home speakers have been getting slightly worse since Google lost interest and moved on a couple of years ago.
Say what you will about Alexa, but it is the only voice assistant that seemingly keeps improving, Siri is statically-terrible and while Google Assistant was once good, it is worse now than then somehow (although functionality/integrations hasn't evolved).
My favorite thing right now is that a room can have multiple devices (e.g. screens, speakers, etc) but timers don't belong to a room, they belong to an individual Home device, so your screens don't show your timers if your speaker "eats" them. Makes zero sense. Been like that for over a year.
In general Google as an organization is going downhill fast. Google Search is legitimately bad now, I turn on Verbatim Mode and quote everything just to get a so-so experience (still mostly spam though).
Few years ago I was in indonesia, Bali and asked google 'navigate to ubud' and it showed me how to navigate to some cities in USA. Same with translation when you want to have simple conversation with locals - each time ends up with embarrassment.
I don’t think it’s a fair assessment. Sure it’s the worst out of the 3 but it’s improving, albeit at the speed of 0.3 microgoogles.
My favourite though is asking it to "play Richard the third by Supergrass", Siri responds that it can't find that song on Apple Music, so you ask it to "play Richard eye eye eye by Supergrass" and Siri responds "Now playing Richard the third by Supergrass".
The only things I use Siri for now is to add ONE item to the grocery or set a timer. The timers are useful in the kitchen, but it's hardly worth a Homepad to set a timer.
I wish I had returned it within the return window. At least it sounds great.
For example, asking for specific albums and it will play someone's playlist of the album - in terrible quality because someone uploaded it as a video to YouTube I think part of the problem is that the music catalogue is so poorly maintained/governed on YouTube Music. For example there are many songs that state they are by Little Richard that are actually other artists' songs
"Alexa, play soothing lullaby music"
"Sure, and don't forget that next week is prime week. Get great deals on all your favorite items....."
It seems there are total 5 parents. The multi zone speaker volume one is just one of them.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-google-pate...
I'm not defending any of these, but in general all Software patents are like that. Most of them are obvious solutions to the problem one is working on. It's just that one person/team works on a problem before another, comes at one of the obvious solutions and gets to file the patent.
Due to this a large number of software engineers hate software patents.
Edit: having said that, I will also refer to @samwillis's comment in this thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29841653, as to why some of this may not be as obvious as it seems on first look. And, the fact that Google had partnered with Sonos (again per that comments).
IMNAL, but per my understanding, there is a major difference between patent infringement and willful patent infringement. Which is why a soft engg should never read patents, at least not in the areas one may work at some point in their career.
Our patent system is so broken.
The equivalent in software should be "you can replicate the idea, but not the code behind it". But somehow that became "you can't replicate the idea at all", which is super broken.
same with WD40/KFC/...
IMHO Patents are unethical. Patents for IP are an atrocity and Software Patents are a crime against humanity.
I use Home Assistant a lot and I basically had to learn yet another shitty programming language implemented in yaml.
You can use node-red for automation. Frontend stuff is still yaml but thats not rocket science.
The great advantage of HA is that it can be made to work. This sounds sarcastic but is a huge advantage compared to other systems, apps and devices
- company surreptitiously builds a profile on everything it hears, ostensibly for "training" their ML / AI
- data is viewed by snoopers within the company
- data on public figures is leaked to media / public
- data is sold to other companies you do business with
- data is used to build a "social credit" profile. Say something casuallu offensive? Forget getting that loan!
- data is accidentally leaked. Organized theft rings now know your routine, and the routines of everyone in your city all at once.
Then there are the odd stories of people who are expecting a baby suddenly getting ads for parenting supplies, or gift surprises being spoiled by recommendations, etc.
At the end of the day, FAANG are not my friends. They don't get to know things about me for free, and rarely are the goods they offer worth what they get in exchange.
I make some exceptions, but voice assistants aren't one of them.
I have yet to see any evidence that any voice-command device is transmitting everything it hears. The data sent by the device is too small to contain audio beyond what was said after the wake word was detected. The hardware does not have the necessary chips to do 24x7 voice to text.
You're totally right that they can do a lot with what they do get, from the audio around when you say the wake word, and from other data that you give them through web surfing, location data, etc., and that's totally a legitimate reason to not have one or to limit one's interaction.
The worst part is, when we tell it to stop (potentially flagging it as incorrect), how do we know that conversation isn't being analyzed to "improve" the model? We never used the wake word, so we don't know how long it was listening.
It's hard for me to think of them as anything other than creepy. I want to like them; I like the idea of being able to have the convenience of vocal interactions with technology. But, until I'm convinced that it is entirely on my own terms, that's not going to happen.
That being said, I do unplug my Google Home Minis when they're not in use.
Whether that patent is useful is a different question, but the headline makes it sound like Sonos is the aggressor here. But Google chose to do things this way, and Sonos then reacted.
"Google Home speakers are about to get slightly worse because Google infringed on existing patents and was caught."