So Spence says sonos are thinking of making sonos updates automatic. Maybe it was all the emails he got over the death of the Cr100
Most of my other stuff does auto updates, skyQ, google home, LG tv you can toggle on or off. (Not playstation4 you still have to agree.)
Auto updatest ensures only 1 version of the software is being used out there, latest security patches, easier support etc etc .
People asked for a legacy version for their Cr100, and some have tried to lock down to keep them working.
That would not be as easy with auto updates, as sonos could in effect sneak them out at the dead of night.
With auto updates, Sonos could ensure all current customers could always buy new stuff, and not isolate themselves.
On the down side, you would come home one day and find your controller no longer is supported, and no longer works as there was an update while you were out the house.
Automatic updates - good or bad thing?
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The controller is issue is somewhat of a one off scenario. By that I mean that it shouldn't be a day to day concern with auto-updates. Sonos would need to give advanced noticed to the best of their ability when changes like that are coming.
From a day to day point of view, I have a little bot of concern as I'd like to control the timing. Clearing, I wouldn't want the sound to go for update in the middle of a movie. I also would want to postpone an upgrade for a day or so if got a party planned or something like that. Since there is a chance there will be IP conflicts and such that occur (not Sonos fault) after an upgrade, I'd rather not have to deal with that till after the event where I want to use the system heavily is over.
Those could be solved though, if the customer has the ability to schedule patching or something like that.
From a day to day point of view, I have a little bot of concern as I'd like to control the timing. Clearing, I wouldn't want the sound to go for update in the middle of a movie. I also would want to postpone an upgrade for a day or so if got a party planned or something like that. Since there is a chance there will be IP conflicts and such that occur (not Sonos fault) after an upgrade, I'd rather not have to deal with that till after the event where I want to use the system heavily is over.
Those could be solved though, if the customer has the ability to schedule patching or something like that.
I'm kind of in the middle, here. From a support standpoint, I completely agree that having everyone on the same version makes a lot of sense. And frankly, I'd prefer to have the update happen on my system while I'm not there....but as melvimbe says, in the middle of something would be bad. And that's the situation I'm occasionally in anyway, I want to sit down and listen to music, or watch a movie, but have an update that needs to be done. Not frequent, of course, but it does tickle a bit of my OCD, so I don't skip the update and do it while it's nagging me, rather than skipping through.
So maybe if it happened if the system hadn't been exercised in an hour, or something? It's certainly an interesting thought.
So maybe if it happened if the system hadn't been exercised in an hour, or something? It's certainly an interesting thought.
If I can schedule my updates for Mondays at 1 AM CST, I'm good. It would be nice to be able to put updates on hold too, but I can live without that.
While having automatic-ish updates and keeping customers on the one supported version make sense, there are certain user experience concerns. We've all seen Windows try to update and trash your unsaved work while you're away from the keyboard for a few minutes, or had games consoles force lengthy updates when you just want to do some single-player or Netflix. And given that Sonos haven't exactly done themselves any favours with the unfinished features and lack of attention to core functionality of the last few releases, some of us fear the updates...
iOS-style nagging, even Microsoft-style week-long-window-before-forced-update might work, but when I come home I want to stick on the Sonos immediately, not deal with an unplanned update.
iOS-style nagging, even Microsoft-style week-long-window-before-forced-update might work, but when I come home I want to stick on the Sonos immediately, not deal with an unplanned update.
+12If it works as well as Apple’s Mac OSX updates, i’ve no issue with the concept. There should be an option to ‘opt out’ however. It makes a lot of sense for any online speaker to download the updates in the background.
+21I would imagine that they could look at a variety of variables before updating one's system... look at usage patterns... is there a period of time that the system is consistently not used? An alarm set for daily use in the morning? Maybe do it during that time, but only after the system has been idle for a couple of hours to ensure it's not being used.
Example... On an average day, Joe goes to sleep at 10:00p and wakes up at 7:00a. Sonos is able to see that there is usually no usage from 11:00p (1 hour sleep timer) to 7:00a (alarm). So they have an 8 hour window that they could perform the update. An update comes out on a Friday night (BTW, you NEVER release updates on Fridays!!), but the system is being used at 11:00p because Joe has some friends over. Sonos could wait for the system to be idle for two hours before performing the update... so if it stops being used at 12:30a, the update could start at 2:30a. If something plays during that two hour window, the window resets. Can't make it happen one night? Repeat the same the next night. Eventually it'll happen.
The only problem would be those who play white noise (or brown noise or whatever) through the whole night... though maybe through their usage analysis, they could run the update during the day instead while everyone is at work/school/etc.
Example... On an average day, Joe goes to sleep at 10:00p and wakes up at 7:00a. Sonos is able to see that there is usually no usage from 11:00p (1 hour sleep timer) to 7:00a (alarm). So they have an 8 hour window that they could perform the update. An update comes out on a Friday night (BTW, you NEVER release updates on Fridays!!), but the system is being used at 11:00p because Joe has some friends over. Sonos could wait for the system to be idle for two hours before performing the update... so if it stops being used at 12:30a, the update could start at 2:30a. If something plays during that two hour window, the window resets. Can't make it happen one night? Repeat the same the next night. Eventually it'll happen.
The only problem would be those who play white noise (or brown noise or whatever) through the whole night... though maybe through their usage analysis, they could run the update during the day instead while everyone is at work/school/etc.
+17SkyQ release new updates in batches, wait for feedback on problems, before releasing to another batch of customers. Although they currently have a problem with differences between v1 and v2 of their Qbox and certain tvs out there.
Of course SkyQ has it's own hard button remote controller, whereas I think sonos would have to give a warning, like they did with the cr100, if an update would effect any controller.
Of course SkyQ has it's own hard button remote controller, whereas I think sonos would have to give a warning, like they did with the cr100, if an update would effect any controller.
Unless Sonos can do seamless background downloading and applying of updates, there's no way to implement truly "automatic updates" without interrupting users mid-song, because Sonos hardware tends to be running 24/7 - whether Sonos did a worldwide roll-out and users in certain timezones were just unlucky, or just having the update triggered by opening or closing the desktop/mobile controller app. The only practical way is to handle the previous version living on for a while, with a grace period and warnings while users accept the update - days/weeks/months, or until the listening session is probably over, but just detecting when a Sonos system is in use or not might be tricky, and there's all those controller apps to deal with...
Small batched "canary" releases to a small number of (lucky?) users helps identify any bugs before a mass roll-out. Updates applied on the user's schedule is the smart move. If Sonos were to implement some form of enforced updates to simplify support, I'd hope they'd actually consider the user experience of software updating.
Small batched "canary" releases to a small number of (lucky?) users helps identify any bugs before a mass roll-out. Updates applied on the user's schedule is the smart move. If Sonos were to implement some form of enforced updates to simplify support, I'd hope they'd actually consider the user experience of software updating.
I would suggest that the "small batched 'canary'" releases are what is called "beta" in Sonos' world.
+21And I agree with this fully.
BTW, in the US, the cable companies refer to them as a "soak" test... they roll it out to a small area, or maybe a couple of small areas in different geographical parts of the country, then let it "soak", monitoring customer service calls for a week or so to see if anyone has any issues related to the rollout. No calls? Roll it out nationwide. They do it for modems and internet gateway devices too, if your cable company upgrades modem firmware (some do all, some only update the firmware for devices they rent). Smaller local or regional cable providers might pick a neighborhood or suburb town to test in, if they are able to limit the rollout in that manner.
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