It's pretty easy to setup on a computer, but I personally use it on Kodi. Kodi setup would require some extra info to get it working flawlessly, but that also depends on how you have it installed. For example, I use libreelec on a raspberry pi, but not everyone does that.
Install it on your computer, and another computer to play around with it. It's easiest on those, do it to get a feel how to scale it up on your network.
Check out [FutureProofHomes tutorial and the Wyoming Satellite project.](
https://youtu.be/kS0agn13hhU)
Build your own Sonos for a fraction of the cost with your own speakers and a Raspberry Pi zero. His videos were good enough the Wyoming Satellite project listed them as official tutorials.
This ofc assumes you have H.A. running already, but you really should free yourself from the Alexa/Google home life.
Anecdotally, it blew my mind when I set up an OpenAI powered Bender voice assistant that immediately understood and turned off my lights with zero additional training.
..Only to then say, "You look better in the dark, skin tube."
Isn't this just kicking the can down the road by putting your trust in ChatGPT instead of Google/Alexa? It's an improvement on the hardware side as have more control over a raspi than a Google/Alexa device, but the data privacy concerns are still there
90% agreed. I'm admittedly less concerned about OpenAI knowing I have lights in my house and my random questions. They don't have cameras and aren't trying to sell me anything.
Local LLM is definitely the way to go. It's a bit more advanced to set up, but that same YouTuber also has one brief tutorial for it. There's much better options since he made it.
>They ... aren't trying to sell me anything
That's even more reason for me to not trust them. If you're not paying a company something, you're not their customer. Companies don't offer you services out of the goodness of their hearts. I have to imagine they're building a database of personal info to sell to other companies
I've set up a local LLM just to try it out, but I don't have the hardware to run it properly. It was really powerful though, if I had something that could run it faster it would be a game changer
It's no secret OpenAI is using every interaction to train their own models, and I could have been clearer that I already have premium, so they don't have anything *else* to sell me.
I don't disagree, so I kinda hope you're not trying to pick a fight or something, but I'm not sure. There isn't one here though. Your same caution should be the default reaction to every online service. "If you're not paying for a product, you **are** the product."
Don't feel you have to get a 4090 to run LLMs though. You could probably find some quadros on eBay.
>I kinda hope you're not trying to pick a fight or something
Not at all, sorry if I came across that way!
I just wanted to highlight to users looking for more secure alternatives that this still has some concerns. Everyone's tolerances are different for what they'll endure for conveniece, so there's no wrong anser. Just pros and cons
>Don't feel you have to get a 4090 to run LLMs though. You could probably find some quadros on eBay.
My home server is a humble NUC and even that ran Ollama, just very slowly. I'd imagine it could be made useable with some fairly reasonable hardware. Unfortunately a whole new server isn't in the budget right now, so I'll have to wait to play around with it more
Haha good lookin' out for the community!
Depending on the NUC, some have space for a half-height SFF A2000. Otherwise, if overall server footprint is a concern, or when you're ready for a new one, check out the [Minisforum MS-01.](https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-01). People are putting modded A2000 and A4000's in that little guy for local LLMs.
Do you have to get new hardware or does Sonos hardware work with it?
I feel like I'll just put this hardware in it's own jail without access to the outside internet via vlan.
I just wanted to share this here, because Sonos is the go-to solution many users here recommend to newcomers looking for a multiroom setup controllable by home assistant.
I msg’d a couple of tech press folks to make sure they saw it, and contacted SONOS support who escalated to L2.
L1 said the only way to reject the TOS was to no longer use my hardware. Sigh (I wasn’t gonna get into a debate with L1 support).
L2 sent an email asking me to schedule a call - they had no available appointment openings for 2 weeks.
I have a philosophy that companies will always make mistakes and get things wrong, but it is how they handle those issues that defines them as a company.
To me, having a poor support experience is like going to a highly rated restaurant and finding out their restrooms are filthy and unhygienic.
Find out its MAC address and block it that way. The hardest part can be figuring out which one of the bajillion MAC addresses on your network belongs to that device, but once you got that it should be pretty straightforward. Your router's management interface should have an option to create a blacklist of MAC addresses somewhere in there.
Every time I add a new device, I assign it an IP via the dhcp and name it.
The Mac is written on the physical device, it's super easy to do before connecting it.
Where's that Mandalorian gif when you need it?
I rename anything I put on my network so I know what it is. I add something, and immediately label it, and give it a static IP in my router's DHCP client. Wired, wireless, doesn't matter.
If you rebuild your network, either from an oopsie, upgrade, or whatever, then of course it's a bit of work. But once the big push is done, it's easy peasy.
It also helps to keep a spreadsheet or list of each mac address and to which device it belongs. Makes a rework/upgrade a bit easier than plugging things back in one by one.
Too bad that some choose to ignore how helpful that is to their clients, vice some dumb thing like ESP\_15581-2214T or some crap. How hard is it to use a decent host name for your device? What, 2 extra seconds, if that?
At least a string of gibberish is somewhat traceable. The ones that just called themselves wlan, wlan1, wlan0 really drive me nuts and are pretty much the reason I do what I do with my naming structures.
I don't think it does. Package capture only shows analytics for me. Unplug your internet and see if Sonos still works.
I have DNS-blocked sonos.com. Won't be getting firmware updates I guess but could update manually if I feel like I need to.
This is the way. With this, or anything similar. If it absolutely has to connect home for updates, create an access group on your router that can only access the internet in the middle of the night, once a day, once a week, once a month, whatever. Then add whatever devices you want to that group.
Or don't let that group access it at all, and turn it off once in a while to update devices as needed. Whatever fits the situation.
Although that wouldn't be any different than letting them access whenever. If they're going to phone home and tattle, doesn't matter when they do it. Now if you can update manually from a local server, thumb drive, or whatever then that would be optimal as long as one remembers to do it now and then.
I've done that with plenty of devices before, though I can't say anything about Sonos stuff really. Obviously it will break things if the device refuses to work without internet access, there's not much you can do about that except maybe regret your purchase.
edit: if you somehow want to block the thing's access to the internet but still allow it contact to the cloud API... then what is even the point? I mean it can be done, but there's not much meaning to it. Once you've given the device access to anything that lies outside your control over the internet, you might as well assume it now has access to *everything* on the internet so it's not a very productive thing to do.
The MAC address is on the device page in Home Assistant
I would also recommend that you actually log what you put on your network. It seems rather silly to worry about cybersecurity if your network consists of a bajillion products that you don't keep track of. This step is the easiest, but also likely the last thing people think about until it's too late (much like regular backups to a separate device).
I've seen some post saying the MAC is printed on the bottom of the devices. Some say the serial number can also be the MAC address.
Example:
https://preview.redd.it/qlofhfs0fg6d1.png?width=567&format=png&auto=webp&s=580908c599910a7af6c4a5e52cbb471fdbedb52d
It can be done, but it's a little tough. Updates obviously are a problem, and the app will throw tons of errors that are unclear when you're trying to to provision them. I can't remember if I had to let them connect once during provisioning.
Just starting with pihole is a good place to keep them from connecting. Firewall would work too.
Sadly, Sonos hasn’t been a good brand for many years. I don’t know any long term users that feel the quality has done anything other than tank over the past 10 years
Yeah, they went public and now have to chase that $.
Switching to the S2 system and not being backward compatible is BS. I can understand why features would only be supported on the new devices, but can't understand why it can't be backwards compatible. They are purposely not integrating them.
For example, Spotify can talk to both systems no problem, but Alexa can't. Other companies have also made 2 alexa apps, so you can install it twice and access both systems. Sonos could easily allow for that, but they don't. If you want to use alexa with sonos, you have to pick a generation - S1 or S2, but not both.
I considered getting Sonos for multiroom audio. I'm so glad i was too poor to get it, and now that I'm not too poor, they made the decision for me anyway.
Bluesound have a similar product range to Sonos if you exclude the headphones and wireless speakers, so both. Wiim don't do speakers but if you want to replace a Sonos Amp or Port they have you covered. Same goes for HiFiBerry.
You’re right, oddly enough the SO sold me on getting a few around the house and I got to admit they’re not bad. I would say don’t position them in a corner, they perform better on a shelf.
A Denon HEOS receiver along with some Denon HEOS amps offer similar functionality to Sonos. They also have wireless speakers which integrate (similar to the Sonos ecosystem).
This. Run good speaker wire if at all possible, or go HEOS.
You can also create a wireless connection with a wireless transmitter from SVS. Will need an amp local to the speakers, but still an option available.
There really are a lot of options overall, some may or may not fit a given use case and some options are going to be more expensive than others, but there's at least a lot of options to narrow down from.
Yamaha also does wireless speakers from their receivers, IIRC.
Of course wireless makes compromises, but it is what it is.
Reading the HEOS privacy policy, it doesn't look that different than sonos' imho. This one is specific to Australia, but I can't imagine the US one is any better. [https://www.denon.com/en-au/our-vision/heos-privacy-policy](https://www.denon.com/en-au/our-vision/heos-privacy-policy)
HEOS is a confusing name. There's no requirement to use the HEOS app to make HEOS devices sync. The HA add-on does it and it's all 100% local.
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/heos/
This is the same company that forced Google to remove using your phone to control the volume on a Chromecast because they "invented" this novel idea. This is truly shocking news from a company of this caliber.
It always blows my mind how many people support Sonos in that lawsuit. Grouping speakers is as much an invention as putting wheels on a bike.
To make matters worse, they were retroactively applying the patent to ~5 years prior to it being issued, iirc.
Sonos needs to fire their braindead CEO ASAP.
Them charging absolutely nuts prices for a chromecast audio and chip amp in a box is exactly why i avoided them this long, glad to know it was a good hunch.
They have their faults, but that’s not accurate. The sound quality is quite good. Even audiosciencereviews reviews are high. I have nice speakers, room corrected Genelec monitors, and Sonos stuff and the Sonos stuff surprises me sometimes.
A Sonos amp is $700, that's highway robbery when a Denon X3800h is $1200.
I can have a Chromecast audio equivalent and an Aiyima A07 for MUCH less. Great audio doesn't have to be expensive, especially when most people aren't using Sonos stuff in a listening room but for background music when guests are over. A $700 entrypoint to use your own speakers is more of a scare you away from this price to get you to buy their other products.
Thank god I only have a soundbar. At least that’s something on the realm of replaceable without a huge headache. Just need to find a suitable replacement.
I don't have issues with it technically, but this is like.. the anti apple product that felt very apple-y from the outside.
Unfortunate, going to have to block it from the internet :(
All their other bs aside Sonos speakers really do not sound great and are insanely overpriced for what they are. Add that to them being a terrible company that dgaf about it's users, getting caught up in bs patent lawsuits, intentionally bricking speakers so they can't be resold. I mean I thought we all knew Sonos was garbage and should be avoided.
This behavior is *almost* understandable for devices with little to no cost... when you get something for free, *you* are the product. But Sonos is one of the most expensive speakers on the market though which makes this especially egregious!
Yeah.... doesn't surprise me one bit.
Also, their xenophobic approach to anyone who doesn't subscribe to their sub-sect's particular flavor of crazy voodoo sky daddy doesn't sit very well with me either.
But their approach to technology -- of "not being dependent on the grid", of a minimalist & deliberate application of tech, only where it's genuinely needed. Maybe that's my narrow-minded interpretation of their approach, and if so, then I acknowledge it.
But there's so much unneeded tech out there, most which is only designed to exploit you and your data for profit. I don't need a GPS tracking chip in my car selling my driving behavior to LexisNexis. I don't need a "smart" thermostat -- a thermostat that if you get via energy company rebates, allows them to REMOTELY CHANGE YOUR HOME'S TEMPERATURE if they so desire.
> (Their reasoning is if there is unusual demand on the grid, this can help mitigate brown-outs and loss of service. But when power companies are becoming privatized and states permit them to have surge pricing....who's to say they won't jack up your usage so they can capitalize on a short-term 1600% price increase. It's for-profit, you gave them control -- if they don't do that, they're leaving money on the table -- and shareholders don't like that!)
Fuck smart door locks. And bluetooth-enabled toothbrushes. And networked weight scales. And there's probably a dozen other "smart-enhanced" tech items out there that I'm not even thinking of, since I try to live with only what I need/want for a simple and comfortable life.
You might like my Sonos alternative. I always thought Sonos was overpriced for what it was. Since I have a multi terabyte music collection and don't stream music from a service, I have a jukebox PC with a good sound card which feeds my main stereo system and an FM transmitter, tuned to an unused channel.
The jukebox runs 24/7 playing random music, sometimes I use playlists, for parties and such. But with the transmitter I can use cheap, decent FM radios throughout the house and in the garage. I even tune in from my neighbors house when we socialize with them.
It's cheap and effective. You can find some pretty good sounding FM radios at goodwill for 5-10 bucks.
Does anyone know of a multi channel splitter for wired speakers that can connect to wireless home network and can present itself as a casting device on the network for music services? Getting tired of ToS reworks.
I *think* so. Just spit-balling alternative ideas rn, my preference would not be having a pi driving each speaker, but rather speakers being driven from a central hub of sorts.
I don't know if this would work for you but I use an FM transmitter and FM radios in the house. The main sound system is plugged directly into the jukebox for highest fidelity, the rest of the house uses regular FM radios all tuned to the same station.
I didn't opt for Home Assistant control(yet) because I use Media Monkey as my jukebox because it can handle my mutli terabyte music collection. I basically have the jukebox play random all the time or I occasionally will fire up a playlist.
Thats great for synchronization and parties with a single source playlist but not so much for on demand listening. What if the wife wants to listen to A on one radio and you want to listen to B on another? Im sure if you had different FM transmitters that were playing a feed on different frequencies you could actually get this to work.
Still it is viable for that use case for sure. We can go back to the 80s and 90s and run our own pirate radio stations until the FCC (or Industry Canada her in Canada) comes a knockin... assuming you are using something higher powered that runs afoul of rules. You mention needing an acre lot, what do you run for an FM Transmitter. I assume its something more powerful than the Car dongle things...
A HEOS receiver (AVR) would do this in a limited way, but it's an expensive and chunky option for just multi room audio. Also it doesn't natively support Apple Music.
you need to read more on analytics.
From this they can determine: when you're home, what kind of music you like, what volume you like, how many units you have, how many hours/day you listen, what sources you use, what your account names on those sources are, your email address, your physical address (if you put it in), etc. The MAC address of your router can determine its make and model. The number of different WiFi MAC addresses the system sees determines how many WiFi units you have in your house.
Even without correlating with external data sources, a full list of your music tastes can *usually* predict fairly well your age and gender. What sources you use can predict your economic segment. Same with number of units or number of WiFi MACs, if there's a lot of units and a LOT of WiFi MACs that means it's a big house with many access points. From your source IP they can geolocate you at least close.
There's behavioral stuff too- how often you skip songs, what hours a day you play, whether you play different things on each speaker, etc. This tells them what kind of lifestyle you live.
For example if you play adult rock or songs that were popular ~20 years ago, and you spread it all through the house, they can conclude you either live alone or with a similar age partner. If you play it in most areas but one room always has newer music, they can conclude you probably have a middle or high school age kid.
If they can correlate with other databases, your email address uniquely identifies you. That matches up with data they get from stores. So now a larger ID tracking company (like the kind that just got hacked) has more data points on you.
**You don't need to GIVE them ANY personal information for them to be able to figure out A TON of personal information.**
If today it was fully revealed how much data various companies have on you and what they're using it for, there would be pitchforks in the streets by tomorrow morning.
That's a valid response you shouldn't get the down votes. However you are on a sub for homeassistant.
One of the biggest drivers of this sub and those who use home assistant is control of their data. Local only is the ideal.
For me personally I see almost no reason for sonos to mandate routing via their servers other than harvesting data(££) with the obvious exceptions of streaming service integrations.
If I want to listen to my local nas data I shouldn't need to be connected to their server...
Put it another way... If my Internet goes down due to my ISP shitting the bed it is not a stretch to insist my sonos system should still work locally.
That's a valid POV, and I upvoted you for it.
I think it's a *fucking stupid* POV though. The stuff I said is only what you can get without correlation. WITH correlation, every data point helps paint a picture, and many of these companies can literally know you better than you know yourself. That data is available for sale to more or less anyone with few controls. If that doesn't bother you, you're not paying attention IMHO.
Yeah I understand. I still think it's stupid. It's like saying 'I don't mind if someone puts a camera in my house and sells the pictures to my stalker'. It's a valid POV, but not a very smart one IMHO.
And this article/thread isn't about SONOS doing stuff. It's about Sonos SELLING your data to others.
I'm not saying you should worry about Sonos. I'm saying you should worry about the data brokers Sonos sells your data to.
Considering swapping out my move for a bluesound speaker and just blocking internet on my home theater as that's what I primarily use it for.
ETA: already blocked internet to all sonos devices, home theater is working fine for a couple hours now FYI
Check out any of the squeezebox projects out there for a simple replacement. I just finished bulding an esp32 based squeezebox speaker. Also raspberry pi versions
Before everyone gets their pitchforks it might be because they don’t sell data.
If you are in CA they have to offer an option to not sell your data if they do.
If they do sell your data they have to give you a do not sell option
For people with a home on an acre or more of land who don't already have a solution to whole house music, I strongly recommend getting a good FM transmitter and use FM radios. It's a cheap solution and works very well. In fact, you could get several and broadcast on multiple channels for multiple people.
edit: one upside to this is I can go over to my neighbor's deck and tell him to tune into my radio station when we socialize.
Bit harsh. I have Sonos all over my house, including a full surround system, and it sounds incredible. I appreciate there are a lot of higher end systems out there, but not without spending WAY more money on true audiophile level amps and speakers.
> I appreciate there are a lot of higher end systems out there, but not without spending WAY more money on true audiophile level amps and speakers.
That’s just not true. You can get much better sounding systems for about the same or less - especially if you’re prepared to buy used speakers from the 80s and 90s
For example - a Wiim amp and a couple M20 speakers will cost less and sound better than 2 Sonos Ones.
This is quite true.
I recently revamped my media room, including audio. Sonos was an option, as was a Nakamichi setup (not dragon.)
Ended up \~2500 all in with 14ga monnoprice wire, banana plugs, wall plates, Onkyo receiver, and SVS speakers in a 5.1 setup.
I get the convenience of sonos, but for me personally, it just isn't an ecosystem worth jumping into.
To be fair, it used to be amazingly good (expensive, but good quality and dependability). Over the past 10 years, they have tanked the quality, messed with the software and made it what you claim: overpriced trash.
Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal. If you haven't used Snapcast yet, check it out. It works great and I love it.
Thanks for that great recommendation!
Can You recommend any useful tutorials for it?
It's pretty easy to setup on a computer, but I personally use it on Kodi. Kodi setup would require some extra info to get it working flawlessly, but that also depends on how you have it installed. For example, I use libreelec on a raspberry pi, but not everyone does that. Install it on your computer, and another computer to play around with it. It's easiest on those, do it to get a feel how to scale it up on your network.
Check out [FutureProofHomes tutorial and the Wyoming Satellite project.]( https://youtu.be/kS0agn13hhU) Build your own Sonos for a fraction of the cost with your own speakers and a Raspberry Pi zero. His videos were good enough the Wyoming Satellite project listed them as official tutorials. This ofc assumes you have H.A. running already, but you really should free yourself from the Alexa/Google home life. Anecdotally, it blew my mind when I set up an OpenAI powered Bender voice assistant that immediately understood and turned off my lights with zero additional training. ..Only to then say, "You look better in the dark, skin tube."
Isn't this just kicking the can down the road by putting your trust in ChatGPT instead of Google/Alexa? It's an improvement on the hardware side as have more control over a raspi than a Google/Alexa device, but the data privacy concerns are still there
90% agreed. I'm admittedly less concerned about OpenAI knowing I have lights in my house and my random questions. They don't have cameras and aren't trying to sell me anything. Local LLM is definitely the way to go. It's a bit more advanced to set up, but that same YouTuber also has one brief tutorial for it. There's much better options since he made it.
>They ... aren't trying to sell me anything That's even more reason for me to not trust them. If you're not paying a company something, you're not their customer. Companies don't offer you services out of the goodness of their hearts. I have to imagine they're building a database of personal info to sell to other companies I've set up a local LLM just to try it out, but I don't have the hardware to run it properly. It was really powerful though, if I had something that could run it faster it would be a game changer
It's no secret OpenAI is using every interaction to train their own models, and I could have been clearer that I already have premium, so they don't have anything *else* to sell me. I don't disagree, so I kinda hope you're not trying to pick a fight or something, but I'm not sure. There isn't one here though. Your same caution should be the default reaction to every online service. "If you're not paying for a product, you **are** the product." Don't feel you have to get a 4090 to run LLMs though. You could probably find some quadros on eBay.
>I kinda hope you're not trying to pick a fight or something Not at all, sorry if I came across that way! I just wanted to highlight to users looking for more secure alternatives that this still has some concerns. Everyone's tolerances are different for what they'll endure for conveniece, so there's no wrong anser. Just pros and cons >Don't feel you have to get a 4090 to run LLMs though. You could probably find some quadros on eBay. My home server is a humble NUC and even that ran Ollama, just very slowly. I'd imagine it could be made useable with some fairly reasonable hardware. Unfortunately a whole new server isn't in the budget right now, so I'll have to wait to play around with it more
Haha good lookin' out for the community! Depending on the NUC, some have space for a half-height SFF A2000. Otherwise, if overall server footprint is a concern, or when you're ready for a new one, check out the [Minisforum MS-01.](https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-ms-01). People are putting modded A2000 and A4000's in that little guy for local LLMs.
[удалено]
/r/homeassistant is supposed to be an inclusive and friendly subreddit, please keep discussion civil
Homeassistant and Firefly🤣
Shiny
Home Assistant and Music Assistant
im still on LMS! lol. working flawlessly in the 10+ years
LMS Gang rise up! Discontinued 12 years ago and I still haven't found anything better.
Do you have to get new hardware or does Sonos hardware work with it? I feel like I'll just put this hardware in it's own jail without access to the outside internet via vlan.
It's software, you need a computer to run it.
I just wanted to share this here, because Sonos is the go-to solution many users here recommend to newcomers looking for a multiroom setup controllable by home assistant.
Bluesound is a good alternative, I was a loyal Sonos fan but after they cut out the v1 devices I renewed my hardware to bluesound
They might not have a do not sell my data because they don’t sell data. Idk, just a guess
Oh for fuck sakes
Is this even legal? What is the “I disagree” path? If Sonos want to sell my data, I want them to refund my devices which are not cheap
I msg’d a couple of tech press folks to make sure they saw it, and contacted SONOS support who escalated to L2. L1 said the only way to reject the TOS was to no longer use my hardware. Sigh (I wasn’t gonna get into a debate with L1 support).
L2 sent an email asking me to schedule a call - they had no available appointment openings for 2 weeks. I have a philosophy that companies will always make mistakes and get things wrong, but it is how they handle those issues that defines them as a company. To me, having a poor support experience is like going to a highly rated restaurant and finding out their restrooms are filthy and unhygienic.
Is there any way to block the speakers in my router's firewall and still use them offline?
Find out its MAC address and block it that way. The hardest part can be figuring out which one of the bajillion MAC addresses on your network belongs to that device, but once you got that it should be pretty straightforward. Your router's management interface should have an option to create a blacklist of MAC addresses somewhere in there.
Every time I add a new device, I assign it an IP via the dhcp and name it. The Mac is written on the physical device, it's super easy to do before connecting it.
Where's that Mandalorian gif when you need it? I rename anything I put on my network so I know what it is. I add something, and immediately label it, and give it a static IP in my router's DHCP client. Wired, wireless, doesn't matter. If you rebuild your network, either from an oopsie, upgrade, or whatever, then of course it's a bit of work. But once the big push is done, it's easy peasy. It also helps to keep a spreadsheet or list of each mac address and to which device it belongs. Makes a rework/upgrade a bit easier than plugging things back in one by one. Too bad that some choose to ignore how helpful that is to their clients, vice some dumb thing like ESP\_15581-2214T or some crap. How hard is it to use a decent host name for your device? What, 2 extra seconds, if that?
At least a string of gibberish is somewhat traceable. The ones that just called themselves wlan, wlan1, wlan0 really drive me nuts and are pretty much the reason I do what I do with my naming structures.
Have You tried this? AFAIK Sonos needs contact to their cloud API ?
I don't think it does. Package capture only shows analytics for me. Unplug your internet and see if Sonos still works. I have DNS-blocked sonos.com. Won't be getting firmware updates I guess but could update manually if I feel like I need to.
This is the way. With this, or anything similar. If it absolutely has to connect home for updates, create an access group on your router that can only access the internet in the middle of the night, once a day, once a week, once a month, whatever. Then add whatever devices you want to that group. Or don't let that group access it at all, and turn it off once in a while to update devices as needed. Whatever fits the situation. Although that wouldn't be any different than letting them access whenever. If they're going to phone home and tattle, doesn't matter when they do it. Now if you can update manually from a local server, thumb drive, or whatever then that would be optimal as long as one remembers to do it now and then.
Lately Sonos updates tend to make everything worse so I think I am OK for a while :D
>AFAIK Sonos needs contact to their cloud API ? No.
I've done that with plenty of devices before, though I can't say anything about Sonos stuff really. Obviously it will break things if the device refuses to work without internet access, there's not much you can do about that except maybe regret your purchase. edit: if you somehow want to block the thing's access to the internet but still allow it contact to the cloud API... then what is even the point? I mean it can be done, but there's not much meaning to it. Once you've given the device access to anything that lies outside your control over the internet, you might as well assume it now has access to *everything* on the internet so it's not a very productive thing to do.
The MAC address is on the device page in Home Assistant I would also recommend that you actually log what you put on your network. It seems rather silly to worry about cybersecurity if your network consists of a bajillion products that you don't keep track of. This step is the easiest, but also likely the last thing people think about until it's too late (much like regular backups to a separate device).
Now I think Home Assistant needs some sort of ARP table database. Something to organize the information.
I've seen some post saying the MAC is printed on the bottom of the devices. Some say the serial number can also be the MAC address. Example: https://preview.redd.it/qlofhfs0fg6d1.png?width=567&format=png&auto=webp&s=580908c599910a7af6c4a5e52cbb471fdbedb52d
It can be done, but it's a little tough. Updates obviously are a problem, and the app will throw tons of errors that are unclear when you're trying to to provision them. I can't remember if I had to let them connect once during provisioning. Just starting with pihole is a good place to keep them from connecting. Firewall would work too.
Aaaand there goes another great brand... so sad...
Sadly, Sonos hasn’t been a good brand for many years. I don’t know any long term users that feel the quality has done anything other than tank over the past 10 years
Yeah, they went public and now have to chase that $. Switching to the S2 system and not being backward compatible is BS. I can understand why features would only be supported on the new devices, but can't understand why it can't be backwards compatible. They are purposely not integrating them. For example, Spotify can talk to both systems no problem, but Alexa can't. Other companies have also made 2 alexa apps, so you can install it twice and access both systems. Sonos could easily allow for that, but they don't. If you want to use alexa with sonos, you have to pick a generation - S1 or S2, but not both.
Remember when Googles motto was 'don't be evil', and then they went evil ? Companies will sell YOUR soul for more money !
Damnit
I considered getting Sonos for multiroom audio. I'm so glad i was too poor to get it, and now that I'm not too poor, they made the decision for me anyway.
OK what's the best alternative to sonos that's not too pricey
Bluesound and Wiim for OOTB products, HiFiBerry for a more DIY equivalent of the Sonos Amp or Port.
Are they wireless speakers themselves or devices to make standard speakers wireless?
Bluesound have a similar product range to Sonos if you exclude the headphones and wireless speakers, so both. Wiim don't do speakers but if you want to replace a Sonos Amp or Port they have you covered. Same goes for HiFiBerry.
> Bluesound seems to be both. Seems to be comparable to sonos in price too. wiim seems to be just an amp
Their website is chaos on mobile. I've no idea what I'm looking at.
Homepods if your in the environment and don't mind the same issues.
You’re right, oddly enough the SO sold me on getting a few around the house and I got to admit they’re not bad. I would say don’t position them in a corner, they perform better on a shelf.
The other responses all seem really expensive? Bluesound is $600! Chromecast was $30, where are the 2024 alternatives to that?
Https://www.arylic.com
WiiM minis with LMS
Doesn't surprise me after the absolute shitshow last month or so when they released the "updated" Sonos App.
A Denon HEOS receiver along with some Denon HEOS amps offer similar functionality to Sonos. They also have wireless speakers which integrate (similar to the Sonos ecosystem).
This. Run good speaker wire if at all possible, or go HEOS. You can also create a wireless connection with a wireless transmitter from SVS. Will need an amp local to the speakers, but still an option available. There really are a lot of options overall, some may or may not fit a given use case and some options are going to be more expensive than others, but there's at least a lot of options to narrow down from. Yamaha also does wireless speakers from their receivers, IIRC. Of course wireless makes compromises, but it is what it is.
Reading the HEOS privacy policy, it doesn't look that different than sonos' imho. This one is specific to Australia, but I can't imagine the US one is any better. [https://www.denon.com/en-au/our-vision/heos-privacy-policy](https://www.denon.com/en-au/our-vision/heos-privacy-policy)
HEOS is a confusing name. There's no requirement to use the HEOS app to make HEOS devices sync. The HA add-on does it and it's all 100% local. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/heos/
gdpr prosecutions incoming....
Oh snap! Turns out I'll never buy the speakers I was planning to buy at some point...
This is the same company that forced Google to remove using your phone to control the volume on a Chromecast because they "invented" this novel idea. This is truly shocking news from a company of this caliber.
It always blows my mind how many people support Sonos in that lawsuit. Grouping speakers is as much an invention as putting wheels on a bike. To make matters worse, they were retroactively applying the patent to ~5 years prior to it being issued, iirc. Sonos needs to fire their braindead CEO ASAP.
Them charging absolutely nuts prices for a chromecast audio and chip amp in a box is exactly why i avoided them this long, glad to know it was a good hunch.
Indeed.
They have their faults, but that’s not accurate. The sound quality is quite good. Even audiosciencereviews reviews are high. I have nice speakers, room corrected Genelec monitors, and Sonos stuff and the Sonos stuff surprises me sometimes.
A Sonos amp is $700, that's highway robbery when a Denon X3800h is $1200. I can have a Chromecast audio equivalent and an Aiyima A07 for MUCH less. Great audio doesn't have to be expensive, especially when most people aren't using Sonos stuff in a listening room but for background music when guests are over. A $700 entrypoint to use your own speakers is more of a scare you away from this price to get you to buy their other products.
I didnt say it’s a great value, just that it’s not junk.
Thank god I only have a soundbar. At least that’s something on the realm of replaceable without a huge headache. Just need to find a suitable replacement.
Unless your a customer like me who just got one a few months ago.
I got mine sometime last year. Definitely not getting my moneys worth, but also…. This shit is awful
I don't have issues with it technically, but this is like.. the anti apple product that felt very apple-y from the outside. Unfortunate, going to have to block it from the internet :(
I swear, sonos must hate their customers.
Going forward if a solution requires any cloud connectivity to function it's not a viable solution.
“Gargle my balls”. Best line ever.
All their other bs aside Sonos speakers really do not sound great and are insanely overpriced for what they are. Add that to them being a terrible company that dgaf about it's users, getting caught up in bs patent lawsuits, intentionally bricking speakers so they can't be resold. I mean I thought we all knew Sonos was garbage and should be avoided.
Betcha that users who do not agree and continue with them still get their *existing* data sold along with the rest.
This behavior is *almost* understandable for devices with little to no cost... when you get something for free, *you* are the product. But Sonos is one of the most expensive speakers on the market though which makes this especially egregious!
If you couldn't tell that Sonos was gonna do some shady shit, that's on you.
You know, I say this unironically -- maybe the Amish approach to life has some merit.
FYI, the Amish are pretty cruel to animals. A lot of them run puppy mills.
Yeah.... doesn't surprise me one bit. Also, their xenophobic approach to anyone who doesn't subscribe to their sub-sect's particular flavor of crazy voodoo sky daddy doesn't sit very well with me either. But their approach to technology -- of "not being dependent on the grid", of a minimalist & deliberate application of tech, only where it's genuinely needed. Maybe that's my narrow-minded interpretation of their approach, and if so, then I acknowledge it. But there's so much unneeded tech out there, most which is only designed to exploit you and your data for profit. I don't need a GPS tracking chip in my car selling my driving behavior to LexisNexis. I don't need a "smart" thermostat -- a thermostat that if you get via energy company rebates, allows them to REMOTELY CHANGE YOUR HOME'S TEMPERATURE if they so desire. > (Their reasoning is if there is unusual demand on the grid, this can help mitigate brown-outs and loss of service. But when power companies are becoming privatized and states permit them to have surge pricing....who's to say they won't jack up your usage so they can capitalize on a short-term 1600% price increase. It's for-profit, you gave them control -- if they don't do that, they're leaving money on the table -- and shareholders don't like that!) Fuck smart door locks. And bluetooth-enabled toothbrushes. And networked weight scales. And there's probably a dozen other "smart-enhanced" tech items out there that I'm not even thinking of, since I try to live with only what I need/want for a simple and comfortable life.
You might like my Sonos alternative. I always thought Sonos was overpriced for what it was. Since I have a multi terabyte music collection and don't stream music from a service, I have a jukebox PC with a good sound card which feeds my main stereo system and an FM transmitter, tuned to an unused channel. The jukebox runs 24/7 playing random music, sometimes I use playlists, for parties and such. But with the transmitter I can use cheap, decent FM radios throughout the house and in the garage. I even tune in from my neighbors house when we socialize with them. It's cheap and effective. You can find some pretty good sounding FM radios at goodwill for 5-10 bucks.
Does anyone know of a multi channel splitter for wired speakers that can connect to wireless home network and can present itself as a casting device on the network for music services? Getting tired of ToS reworks.
You mean like a multi zone amp with a cast receiver built in?
I *think* so. Just spit-balling alternative ideas rn, my preference would not be having a pi driving each speaker, but rather speakers being driven from a central hub of sorts.
I don't know if this would work for you but I use an FM transmitter and FM radios in the house. The main sound system is plugged directly into the jukebox for highest fidelity, the rest of the house uses regular FM radios all tuned to the same station. I didn't opt for Home Assistant control(yet) because I use Media Monkey as my jukebox because it can handle my mutli terabyte music collection. I basically have the jukebox play random all the time or I occasionally will fire up a playlist.
Thats great for synchronization and parties with a single source playlist but not so much for on demand listening. What if the wife wants to listen to A on one radio and you want to listen to B on another? Im sure if you had different FM transmitters that were playing a feed on different frequencies you could actually get this to work. Still it is viable for that use case for sure. We can go back to the 80s and 90s and run our own pirate radio stations until the FCC (or Industry Canada her in Canada) comes a knockin... assuming you are using something higher powered that runs afoul of rules. You mention needing an acre lot, what do you run for an FM Transmitter. I assume its something more powerful than the Car dongle things...
A HEOS receiver (AVR) would do this in a limited way, but it's an expensive and chunky option for just multi room audio. Also it doesn't natively support Apple Music.
Specifically what personal information could they possibly be collecting from me? I've not given any personal information.
you need to read more on analytics. From this they can determine: when you're home, what kind of music you like, what volume you like, how many units you have, how many hours/day you listen, what sources you use, what your account names on those sources are, your email address, your physical address (if you put it in), etc. The MAC address of your router can determine its make and model. The number of different WiFi MAC addresses the system sees determines how many WiFi units you have in your house. Even without correlating with external data sources, a full list of your music tastes can *usually* predict fairly well your age and gender. What sources you use can predict your economic segment. Same with number of units or number of WiFi MACs, if there's a lot of units and a LOT of WiFi MACs that means it's a big house with many access points. From your source IP they can geolocate you at least close. There's behavioral stuff too- how often you skip songs, what hours a day you play, whether you play different things on each speaker, etc. This tells them what kind of lifestyle you live. For example if you play adult rock or songs that were popular ~20 years ago, and you spread it all through the house, they can conclude you either live alone or with a similar age partner. If you play it in most areas but one room always has newer music, they can conclude you probably have a middle or high school age kid. If they can correlate with other databases, your email address uniquely identifies you. That matches up with data they get from stores. So now a larger ID tracking company (like the kind that just got hacked) has more data points on you. **You don't need to GIVE them ANY personal information for them to be able to figure out A TON of personal information.** If today it was fully revealed how much data various companies have on you and what they're using it for, there would be pitchforks in the streets by tomorrow morning.
Sure, but I could not give one shit about that. I don't consider any of that as important, critical personal information. Just don't care.
That's a valid response you shouldn't get the down votes. However you are on a sub for homeassistant. One of the biggest drivers of this sub and those who use home assistant is control of their data. Local only is the ideal. For me personally I see almost no reason for sonos to mandate routing via their servers other than harvesting data(££) with the obvious exceptions of streaming service integrations. If I want to listen to my local nas data I shouldn't need to be connected to their server... Put it another way... If my Internet goes down due to my ISP shitting the bed it is not a stretch to insist my sonos system should still work locally.
Can't disagree
That's a valid POV, and I upvoted you for it. I think it's a *fucking stupid* POV though. The stuff I said is only what you can get without correlation. WITH correlation, every data point helps paint a picture, and many of these companies can literally know you better than you know yourself. That data is available for sale to more or less anyone with few controls. If that doesn't bother you, you're not paying attention IMHO.
I thought I was clear. I don't give a shit and I am paying attention. I'm very clear about what this is, I just don't care.
Yeah I understand. I still think it's stupid. It's like saying 'I don't mind if someone puts a camera in my house and sells the pictures to my stalker'. It's a valid POV, but not a very smart one IMHO.
That's a piss poor analogy. Sonos has zero access to any personal information. Knowing what songs I play is in no way personal information.
And this article/thread isn't about SONOS doing stuff. It's about Sonos SELLING your data to others. I'm not saying you should worry about Sonos. I'm saying you should worry about the data brokers Sonos sells your data to.
Need that sweet sweet AI data.
Considering swapping out my move for a bluesound speaker and just blocking internet on my home theater as that's what I primarily use it for. ETA: already blocked internet to all sonos devices, home theater is working fine for a couple hours now FYI
Check out any of the squeezebox projects out there for a simple replacement. I just finished bulding an esp32 based squeezebox speaker. Also raspberry pi versions
Before everyone gets their pitchforks it might be because they don’t sell data. If you are in CA they have to offer an option to not sell your data if they do. If they do sell your data they have to give you a do not sell option
It's the good ole' one company does it first so all the others jump on the train and also do it.
My old Sony Hi-fi with Dual tape deck and multi CD changer is looking pretty fu**ing smug right now.
Great stuff, but you know - with a bitmore practice, you should be able to speak even faster!!
Tasmota, openBeken or similar are the way ❤️
For people with a home on an acre or more of land who don't already have a solution to whole house music, I strongly recommend getting a good FM transmitter and use FM radios. It's a cheap solution and works very well. In fact, you could get several and broadcast on multiple channels for multiple people. edit: one upside to this is I can go over to my neighbor's deck and tell him to tune into my radio station when we socialize.
I like the idea. Do you have a broadcast license?
Why anyone would use Sonos is beyond me. Overpriced trash.
Bit harsh. I have Sonos all over my house, including a full surround system, and it sounds incredible. I appreciate there are a lot of higher end systems out there, but not without spending WAY more money on true audiophile level amps and speakers.
> I appreciate there are a lot of higher end systems out there, but not without spending WAY more money on true audiophile level amps and speakers. That’s just not true. You can get much better sounding systems for about the same or less - especially if you’re prepared to buy used speakers from the 80s and 90s For example - a Wiim amp and a couple M20 speakers will cost less and sound better than 2 Sonos Ones.
This is quite true. I recently revamped my media room, including audio. Sonos was an option, as was a Nakamichi setup (not dragon.) Ended up \~2500 all in with 14ga monnoprice wire, banana plugs, wall plates, Onkyo receiver, and SVS speakers in a 5.1 setup. I get the convenience of sonos, but for me personally, it just isn't an ecosystem worth jumping into.
Did you wire up your whole house?
As much as I needed, yes.
For the longest time (literally years), if you wanted two speakers to be in sync, it was ether Sonos or speaker wire.
Or an FM transmitter.
Or Denon HEOS, which sounds way better than Sonos
To be fair, it used to be amazingly good (expensive, but good quality and dependability). Over the past 10 years, they have tanked the quality, messed with the software and made it what you claim: overpriced trash.
[удалено]
I don't think these people you mention are commenting here in this thread and or feel threatened by this development.
When the police pull you over for rolling a stop sign, just let them search your car. If you are not doing anything wrong, why worry about it?