The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 23, 2020
570 replies
22877 views

I will start this thread with a few caveats:

First, this thread is not for rants. There are plenty here for those, and there is no bar on opening new ones.

Second, the thread is directed for the subset of users that have a large investment in legacy products, and are content to see their Sonos systems as music systems that offer stable streamed music from either a NAS or from the net, and have no expectation of more bells and whistles - just that things continue to work as they are working today. I happen to be in this boat as well, as someone that has three out of six zones running very well on legacy products that I simply cannot afford to jettison until the hardware dies.

Third, this thread is based on facts, some of which have been coming to light only over the last 48 or so hours. It is therefore incomplete to an extent, and may even be wrong in places. Feel free therefore to clarify/correct/add as necessary - and I specifically invite @Ryan S to do so. But, no rants please - they have a place, but this is not it.

All that said, this is the solution I intend to proceed with and recommend here:

Opt for a legacy system operation in May, that will run legacy and modern products, exactly as these run today; no faffing around with two networks. No more enhancements, but expecting Sonos to honestly fulfil their recent promise of all bug fixes that the legacy products can accommodate. Ditto for what needs to be done to accommodate changes driven by at least the mainstream service providers.

By a happy coincidence, all legacy products have line in jacks. So if something even happens at the streaming service end that cannot be accommodated in legacy products, I am confident of finding some device that can be wired to the line in jacks of these, that will still allow streaming from the culprit service to work including in grouped mode with all other products in the system.

The streaming from the local NAS will not have any issues in this mode, other than hardware failures including that of the NAS, and a key assumption here is that NAS changes will not need a Sonos software update.

Although Sonos has said that new products can be added to such a system, I do not see how this is possible once new products come installed with versions that are beyond the frozen legacy system one. Unless Sonos is not going to sell any new products in future with versions beyond the 2020 legacy one - I doubt that. And once a product comes with the latest version, adding it to a legacy system without rendering legacy products inoperable is going to be tricky because it will involve first separating the one system into two; I also admit to being a little fuzzy with this bit. In my case, this is all moot; I have no need for another zone. As an aside, I am someone therefore that is not of much interest to Sonos!

I also assume that if anyone at any time in the future wanted to jettison legacy products for any reason, all they will need to do is leave all such products powered off, invoke updates and the result will be a Sonos system updated to the day they do the invocation. The concern here for me is different - I need to have an ironclad way of NOT updating my system before I am ready to separate or jettison legacy products, and this needs more insights into how things will work on this front in future.

I am pretty sure that this way ahead will work in my use case and I suggest it will also work for many that are heavily invested in Sonos legacy products, that do not want to write it off or to trade up to new products just to retain all existing functionality.

Yes, it involves losing future enhancements/features, but once we accept that these essentially are music boxes that will keep doing all they do today, that should be an acceptable trade off, I suggest. It is to me, for sure.

So this way, this event will be just a minor inconvenience, and I expect to be able to use all my existing products till the hardware fails.

What this event has convince me though is to now look at/recommend smart systems that are truly modular in the sense that the smart bits can be periodically replaced at low cost, while the core “dumb” electronic hardware can be of such build/after sales support, that it justifies the higher investment in the consequent price, if better sound quality is also needed than what the smart front ends can alone provide. But that's for the future.

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chicks

Assuming you have a good, solid mesh WiFi network in the home, which is quickly becoming a commodity today with 3-packs under $150, the Linkplay system is an inexpensive way to go. They support Amazon Music, Spotify (via Spotify Connect), Qobuz (by far the best integration, including all their “hi rez” offerings), Deezer, Tidal, TuneIn, etc.

https://linkplay.com/

There are dozens of companies using their tech, most prominently Audio Pro, but also third-tier companies like KEiiD, Arylic, OSD Audio, etc. There are dozens of apps based on the Linkplay prototype, but the Audio Pro app is by far the best, and it works with any of the Linkplay-based hardware products.

https://www.arylic.com/

Most of these inexpensive devices do multiroom, and support DLNA, AirPlay 1, Spotify Connect and BlueTooth.

Not a match for Sonos by any means, but lots of low cost options.

Also, the ancient Logitech Media Server (LMS) allows you to integrate all and all of your Chromecast, Sonos (UPnP), DLNA and AirPlay devices into a single system using their pretty nice new Material Design UI. You won’t get the perfect sync that you get with Sonos, or the TV integration, but… well, you get what you pay for.

chicks

Sonos speakers with nice artist/album info via the new LMS Material UI.

chicks

Sonos speakers with phone UI on browser. Swipe up/down to control volume.

chicks

The MConnect app (free Lite version shown) will play lossless FLAC from your NAS, Qobuz and Tidal to your Sonos, Chromecast and UPnP renderers. Phone and tablet versions available. No LMS or any other server required, just the app and your renderers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t recognize Stereo pairs of Sonos speakers, which gives LMS an edge, though LMS is considerably more complex to implement.

K

KumarAuthor

On a personal level, what I will be exploring now is how to get my Echo Show to play music from my NAS, with album art as the icing on that cake, that can then be served up to Sonos zones.

An update here on success on the quoted front, because at USD 5 a year, this solution is definitely both pragmatic and not advanced. Since I was not completely familiar with Mac security and sharing settings, set up needed lots of handholding from @castalla , and some of the gyrations are posted in the companion advanced thread and can be seen there. There were many more via PM/emails:-).

But the solution that is now up and running is one that is very useful, and not just as a post Sonos Brexit thing. It allows NAS music to be commanded by Alexa to start play and where display equipped Echo devices are present, to also display album art. Neither of which is something any Sonos unit can do on its own today, so this vaults a legacy set up to ahead of the present modern unit/system capability. And post Brexit, this functionality just needs Sonos hardware to work via signal sensing and autoplay via Line In jacks, in otherwise dumb mode.

One needs to download the mymedia app to the computer and point it to the NAS location. It then indexes the tracks in its servers, and serves up, from the NAS files, voice commanded songs, albums, or playlists to Echo devices. The computer does need to remain awake, though not in the music play loop, which is direct from NAS to Echo and thence to Sonos Line In. So at sometime I may look to moving the app to a Raspberry device that can replace the desktop computer for this service. For me, that will be an advanced project.

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KumarAuthor

One has to thank Sonos for surfacing what was a not so widely known issue with all integrated smart things - and the linked article explains how this bears upon cars in the future, including driverless ones:

https://onezero.medium.com/why-dead-sonos-speakers-mean-youll-never-own-a-driverless-car-9ec2d8fa3763

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KumarAuthor

An amusing and equally, a gratifying event - I recovered a pair of Sonos Line In jacks today, for free; something that is gold dust for the post May 2020 days.

Some years ago, when I sold my big rig HiFi, a Connect became redundant and I passed it on to my daughter to use with also passed-on HiFi kit. I discovered today that she is now using the Connect as a signal passthrough for a Echo Dot!

The Connect had been wired at her home by me to an amp for one set of speakers and via the amp’s line out, to another amp for another speaker pair, thus giving her prefect sync music in two zones with one Connect when needed, for parties. She did not want to undo what looked like complicated wiring, so she took the simple approach - wired the Dot to the Line In jacks of the Connect:-). Effectively rendering the Connect to just do signal pass through with AD and DA conversion thrown in, because she finds the Echo UI to be far more usable than the Sonos controller. As soon as I saw this little addition, I told her that I am taking back the Connect - leaving her with a shorter simpler signal path( not that she cares ), and me with a gift of a welcome pair of Line In jacks to add to the three I have today.

Lesson in this somewhere, me thinks.

K

KumarAuthor

The above referred Connect has filled in the only hole where the Alexa India integration was missed - it has replaced a wired Bridge unit in the remote bedroom used for getting robust Sonos net there, and the line in jacks on it also allow a Echo Spot to be wired to it, to allow the Spot to show album art while piping the audio through the play 1 pair in the room. So all boxes ticked for free - voice command, album art and play 1 pair quality sound.

I highly recommend to folks that have modern units in addition to legacy ones, to buy a Connect or two in the used market ASAP - they should now be cheap, but make sure you get units that have not been bricked by recycling. Get them just for the line in jacks, never mind that you have no use for its audio out jacks. By allowing access to third party devices that will not lose streaming service functionality in the way that Sonos says legacy system units will do, these will give legacy systems that have modern units that do not have line in jacks a way to keep playing music till the hardware dies.

Connects can also serve as WiFi N class Sonos net extenders - wired or wireless. Another reason to bag a few if found for USD 50 or so.

K

KumarAuthor

I find that every post I make these days goes for moderation, so this is just a test...

K

KumarAuthor

That one went for moderation too. One more attempt.

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