NOSON - short term work-around, long term opportunity?

  • 10 May 2024
  • 6 replies
  • 112 views
A
Userlevel 5
Badge +10

I’m one of those smug, self-satisfied people who has auto-update turned off, and who expected to be able to stay with the old app until this mess has been sorted out. But no - even with auto-update set to “off” my app has been updated and now my TuneIn stations won’t work and my Network Shares won’t work. Just the helpful error message “Something went wrong”.

However… the open source client NOSON still appears to work perfectly. I can still play tracks from my Network Attached Server, can set alarms, can play all of my TuneIn based radio stations - can even play music from the PC’s local disks.

Of course it’s only a solution if you already run one of the common versions of Linux (you can install a current version of NOSON for free straight out of the standard repositories), or with Windows/Mac, if you’re willing to run it under something like VMWare - not technically difficult but a bit of a pain to have to do.

But it did make me wonder - if a one-man development team can do such a great job and keep NOSON running and updated for a decade, is it possible that someone could port it onto Android? That would give a long-term fallback, in case this current debacle is not just ineptitude on the part of Sonos, and instead an attempt by them to show us, the customers, that they control our devices, and not us?

6 replies

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Been using it here for a long time, mostly set up what is playing from my tablet but pause/play/volume from my Linux system is a lot more convenient that pulling out the tablet to do them.

https://janbar.github.io/noson-app/

 

I use the flatpack version as it auto-updates with the rest of my Linux system.

  • Package Flatpak

    Noson is published in the flathub repository and it can be installed on any others Linux using flatpak. Go to noson in FlatHub for further details.

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Don't know much about how to implement it, but Termux provides a Linux implementation for Android (the F-droid repository has a viable Termux version).   Sorry to be so sketchy - it's very late here and I'm not too alert.   I may get more info over the weekend. 

It's the courageous bee's knees 🐝🐝🐝
Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Noson doesn’t need Android, it runs on my KDE OpenSuse with no issues.

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Noson doesn’t need Android, it runs on my KDE OpenSuse with no issues.

I know.  But not everybody has a Linux pc.  Termux puts Linux on an Android tablet.   One example is people can run Logitech Media Server using Termux on a smartphone and/or tablet.  Maybe Noson too?  I don't have skills but perhaps somebody else might. 

It's the courageous bee's knees 🐝🐝🐝
A
Userlevel 5
Badge +10

Agreed - NOSON won’t be a solution for many people.

I’m lucky to be an Android user and not on IOS - just been able to roll back to version 16.1 and everything is working OK, though I hate downloading an app from somewhere like apkmirror.com - that website tries to trick you into installing all sorts of crypto trading apps instead of what you want to install.

I don’t trust them, but where else (trustworthy) would you get an APK file for an old version of the Sonos app?

M

Just one GIANT thumbs-up for NOSON. My Sonos speakers are old, so I remember the drama of Sonos gamble that they could obsolete however many millions people had bought … and get them - ha! - to buy replacement speakers.

Fast forward to 2024 - I much prefer my old desktop PC to nothin’-but-phones, and for a bunch of reasons, I’m giving Linux a very serious try. The Sonos app has been ported to Linux (mine is Debian, but I think that means Ubuntu for sure & likely several others in common use), but it’s buggy on a PC that’s got enough oomph so I was disappointed on that one.

Then along came - courtesy of Google - NOSON, and I’m a very happy camper. It is, one has to say, the furthest thing from commercial software, but it DID/DOES provide me a bridge from here to there, so I’m VERY glad to have re-discovered it.

Here’s the only “value add” here. I’ve long loved “internet radio,” and it looks like one need not subscribe to Spotify to have ad-free music in the background whenever you want. The buzzword is “Internet URL,” and NOSON handles those streams like a champ! Think “Sirius” with literally thousands of choices! Yes, you could spend hours looking for one(s) you love, but in a minute or 2, I found someone’s link to Swiss Radio Jazz, and in jukebox terminology, it’s like somebody found a way to keep it playing without feeding in quarters! Now, there’s a reasonable chance my Sonos WILL last (and be a source of joy) forever! I’m sure they hate “open source” just as Apple does, but I guess their engineers simply COULDN’T build a wall high enough or a moat wide enough.

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