The Sonos Brexit and pragmatic ways past it

K

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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570 replies

K

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

 

K

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

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

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

K

That one went for moderation too. One more attempt.

K

@Ryan S says that individual targeting isn't possible; unless, may I speculate, the filter has turned rogue like HAL...

K

Indulging my curiosity to see if I am still being targeted by the tech here, seeing that all my posts anywhere here have not made it through without significant delays and one is still missing.

A

Indulging my curiosity to see if I am still being targeted by the tech here, seeing that all my posts anywhere here have not made it through without significant delays and one is still missing.

It’s a bit bizarre - you’d have thought that they’d have a whitelist of trusted users - or rules to achieve the same objective...

K

It is bizarre in many ways - I have to reach Ryan via PM, he then clears the post. Except for the last two above - the last one was not caught and the one preceding surfaced immediately thereafter. All this at a time when Sonos resources are under pressure to manage things other than these antics. And the continued existence of nonsense like this spam subject that is more than three years old leads one to think that intelligence levels of marketing/support management are not much higher than that residing in the spam filter AI. Which also probably the reason for the legacy units fiasco.

On the thread topic itself, with Echo Dots/Shows wired to Sonos Line in jacks, I am sorted. And the Connect that I recently received means that I do not now much care if the Alexa India integration is not released before May. Indeed, if it does not allow for artwork to be displayed on Echo Show as it presently does not anywhere in the world, I have no use for it. Once accustomed to the artwork presence, it is missed when absent.

Getting the NAS to play via Echo Show voice commands with album art is working fine too - I just need to move that solution to a Raspberry so that the solution can run with no need of my Mac which I do not want to leave awake 24/7. Yes, that does need internet to work, but isn't any less pragmatic for that even in India - stable high speed broadband now is pretty much 24/7 here.

A

It is bizarre in many ways - I have to reach Ryan via PM, he then clears the post. Except for the last two above - the last one was not caught and the one preceding surfaced immediately thereafter. All this at a time when Sonos resources are under pressure to manage things other than these antics. And the continued existence of nonsense like this spam subject that is more than three years old leads one to think that intelligence levels of marketing/support management are not much higher than that residing in the spam filter AI. Which also probably the reason for the legacy units fiasco.

Yes… AFAICS, all the problems surrounding this come down to the original decision to go with inSided - it’s probably pointless to speculate as to ‘why’, but it seems to stagger from the initial ‘totally inadequate’ to ‘still deficient’. Oh, well, NMP…

As to the thread, although I’ve been interested in following the legacy fiasco, it doesn’t really affect me at all. I didn’t like the way that Sonos was going (for my use) a couple of years ago, so locked down my system. Consequently, nothing that they do can affect my music system any more. In addition, using a similar approach to yours but with Chromecast Audio on the Play 5s and Chromecast on my AV receiver, I can keep things going until the hardware fails.

In some ways, the legacy approach actually works for me, as I could stay on a stable version yet still be able to add new kit if I wanted to - so I could probably open up access again with less risk. I’d lose the use of a Kindle Fire, but the next Black Friday sale on Amazon would soon sort that out.

As we’ve both said before, at least this announcement has crystallised my views on separating the ‘smart’ from the (expensive to replace) ‘dumb’. I won’t fall for that one again, hopefully :grinning:

 

K

A question for those with Raspberry experience: Suppose I were to copy a subset of my existing NAS to a SSD USB stick of 128 Gb, and park that stick in the Raspberry, directing the mymedia for Alexa to scan the folders on that SSD stick for serving Echo devices. Will that work well? That way, I do not need to power up my main NAS that is used for Sonos, everytime I want to use Echo devices to play that subset of NAS music which sees use more often than the many tracks on the main NAS that I never listen to.

This isn't a Sonos question - Sonos will remain pointed to the main NAS. It is a Echo+mymedia for Alexa+Raspberry 3B+ question.

K

The question in the preceding post is answered by doing exactly this, using a Raspberry Pi 3, with a USB stick parked in it. The Pi is ethernet wired to a nearby play 1 unit - thank goodness it has that jack - to allow the Sonos to do the heavy lifting of wireless propagation of the music that is voice commanded to play from Echo Show/Spot in different parts of the home, with album art. AIFF/ALAC/AAC all play with a transcoding thing enabled in the mymedia app.

The only fiddly thing about the mymedia app is playlist building, but I think there are some workarounds there that I have not discovered yet.

The 128Gb USB stick contains 4000 tracks of my 20000 strong main NAS, that is now left powered off. The Pi can be powered off, and on reboot, is ready to serve music in the few minutes the reboot needs. No intervention needed.

I was hesitant about this Pi thing, but I am now sold on it, and not just for this application. I have used more of the Mac Terminal in the last four days than in the last ten years.

A brand new hobby, courtesy of the Sonos legacy event. A Pi camera module is on order:-).

Many thanks to @castalla for all the handholding. 

I would recommend starting this with a USB keyboard/mouse, and a HDMI cable supplied TV - this is a much easier way to get going to those of us who have never seen command line inputs. Even if it has to be bought, the keyboard/mouse is very cheap and worth the investment, for beginners.

K

A question, which does not deserve a thread of its own:

If I wanted to take a similarly loaded USB stick, is there a way to use another Pi to make playlists from it, and command the Pi to play these with album art via the HDMI port to a TV?

The next doable step would be to pipe the audio from the TV to Sonos line in jacks - that works fine for both Spotify and You Tube music videos, supplied to a HDMI port on the TV via Chromecast, so it would work for this as well.

The advantage would be to get access to local music, with album art on display on a wall panel, and sound via grouped Sonos speakers, all wired to the router to ensure music play stability. Without needing the internet for this - the WiFi would be needed for smartphone control.

K

And since a picture is better than words, here are two - one of the source in a remote bedroom and one of one target zone in the large open space. Now that this set up works so well for NAS as well, I don't see any reason to have a split system and will stay in legacy mode as long as the Sonos hardware keeps working. Even streaming service degradation is not a problem for zones that do not have line in jacks and the play 1, to which the Pi is ethernet wired, will not lose its ability to propagate a wired + wireless Sonos net carried stream to everywhere in the home.

Source:

 

Target zone:

 

 

But, it does need the internet to be available, since the Echos that are part of the set up will not work without that.

K

A word about sound quality after two days of use - no discernible change from the way my Rudy Van Gelder jazz remasters sounded via a high end CD player back in the day and how they sound today run through a Pi/Echo/Sonos Line In jacks - through the same/similar speakers. Now, this is obviously from memory and no blind tests have been done, but with all the numerous times the signal stream must be going through ADC to DAC, there seems to be no audible evidence left in its wake. Since I am getting the sound I expected from these old AIFF rips, there doesn't seem any point in delving further on this aspect. Whatever little there may be lost on sound quality is probably more than made up via album art as far as the listening experience goes, which is much better overall.

K

Question after raspberry use - I have read warnings about dire trouble possibilities to the Pi if it is shut down at the mains, without first shutting it down via GUI/Terminal. 

I have never come across such for turning off Sonos, which can only be turned off by pulling the mains power. Why is Sonos not susceptible to similar issues, containing as it does, a computer?

F
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Sonos, like most consumer electronics, run shutdown routines on power off. RPi, on the other hand is a much simpler animal. You can buy switches for the Pi that will run these routines as they operate. I generally use Terminal if I need to shut down, but as my Pi is stable I rarely need to do so.

Any damage that might occur is to the SD card, so I have spare cards with backup copies of my Pi systems. All I need to do is to replace the card and I’m good to go. Etcher makes backups simple.

K

@FarFromGruntled : yes, for Pi I am sorted, I have figured out a few ways to shut it down properly, so based on what is most convenient, I can do that.

A question though - I have my NAS for Echo on a USB stick in the Pi USB port and the files on that NAS are backed up in a two other places. But the mymedia solution and the playlists that I have created laboriously are on the SD card - and I would really like a way to back those up. So, what do I have to do to make an exact copy of the SD card so I can replace it just as you have suggested? Pull it out after power off and find a way to use balena to copy one image to the spare card? Any special routine needed?

As to Sonos, where will it get the power to run those routines you refer to, once the mains power is turned off?!

K

I found the back up thing on Google, but the Sonos question remains!

F
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It might be that my assumption that Sonos has a shutdown routine is wrong. Other devices such as Chromecast seem to work fine after a power pull. Knowing that SD card damage is the weakest link in RPi has got me wondering.

I know that it is possible to boot some models of RPi from a USB device instead of from the SD card. I have read that this is preferable because USB sticks and USB external drives used for this purpose are said to be more stable than SD cards. Maybe it’s as simple as that. It’s not the Pi per se that’s the problem, just the card. I haven’t tried it myself but I’m sure that some people here have and can comment.

K

While you are correct about the SD card where the Pi is concerned, that is because that is all that can suffer the damage from a power pull if no USB card is in use! And I remember reading this to be true of computers in general - they do not like to have the power pulled on them. One gets so used to battery equipped laptops and iPad like devices, that this ceases to be an issue.

But logically, this also should then be an issue for Sonos that no one seems to talk about - all that is said here as far as I know is that electronic kit usually lives longer when not power cycled, but that is a different issue/aspect.

So my question is now not Pi but Sonos directed.

 

Ken_Griffiths

RPi is not something I personally use, but thought it seemed plausible to schedule the 'proper shutdown' of the device, so perhaps see if  this link may ‘possibly’ help as an alternative…

https://ediy.com.my/index.php/tutorials/item/105-raspberry-pi-schedule-reboot

My thoughts being to change the command mentioned from 'sudo reboot’ to 'sudo shutdown’ and set an appropriate time to shutdown the RPi each evening, when you are done for the day.

Better than a manual solution to shutdown, at least.

C
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Investigate cron as a way to run scheduled tasks.

Another way to shut down is the command:

sudo halt -p 

K

There is choice of commands for power off, including sudo poweroff - but the thing is that since I prefer to also not have the red light showing on a powered down Pi, that means a manual turning off the mains power switch - and that also has to be done manually to turn the Pi on again after a shut down even if the power switch is left turned on, so I do not need a schedule for just the Pi shut down command. 

All very minor things in what is now proving to be a very stable set up. And the mymedia being ready automatically to serve after a power cycle is also working fine, so this is a very neat solution to getting NAS to play via voice command with album art on display equipped Echo devices. Whether the downstream unit then is a Sonos speaker or something else is irrelevant.

Which is why I treated myself to a new Echo Show last week - the larger 8 model. It also does a better job of You Tube music videos, via downstream quality speakers.

K

This, by Sonos, is massive; the recycling nonsense to get the 30% discount is discontinued.

https://www.engadget.com/2020/03/05/sonos-kills-its-device-bricking-recycle-mode/?guccounter=1

At least a month late, but better late than never.

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