Sonos is killing a family Xmas tradition.

  • 14 December 2023
  • 15 replies
  • 286 views
S

I have been a Sonos owner for 10 years now.  In that time I have accumulated quite a bit of gear which I actually enjoy and, in the past, have recommended to others.  But over time it has become quite apparent that we have different goals.  First the S1/S2 debacle which was no more than an attempt to push voice assistants everywhere and kill the analog hole.  (Funny how my original Play:1 still works on S2 but the connect:amp won’t and the voice apps are still crap)  Now I have just discovered that last spring they killed off playing personal music from android devices.  How I discovered this is that my family, like many, have accumulated a large collection of holiday music over the years.  Many of the albums are not mainstream and some have been in the family for generations.  Long ago they were ripped from vinyl to digital and now reside on an android tablet.  A device that a year ago worked fine but not now.  No holiday gathering listening to unique music handed down from grandparents, but feel free to stream generic commercial offerings that have commercials.

 

Does Sonos realize that they have devolved existing systems from the equivalent of a high end stereo system to being just a nice table top radio?

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15 replies

G
Userlevel 7

There are some alternative options for your family to play your collection of holiday music on your Sonos speakers:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/play-music-stored-on-your-android-device

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi
Ken_Griffiths

@ssmieja,
There’s no reason why a compatible UPnP/DLNA Player App can’t be used to play tracks, stored on an Android device, to a Sonos player.

I believe the chart below helps show why a Play:1 can be used with S2 and an old Connect:Amp can’t due to its memory limitation.

 

S

@GuitarSuperstar 

Couple of things. I have an S1 system at the main house and S2 at my condo. No Bluetooth or line-in equipment at the condo so that means sharing my collection with the cloud, or buying a nas device or buying a new piece of Sonos equipment. Also the time involved takes away from my holiday. 

 

@Ken_Griffiths 

Interesting chart.  My amp is the later model but lack of storage makes sense.  

Ken_Griffiths

 

@Ken_Griffiths

Interesting chart.  My amp is the later model but lack of storage makes sense.  

It seems clear that this was at least one of the reasons for the S1/S2 split - memory/storage and processing power were likely limiting the product development and smart-home features. It’s reasonable to think that’s why some features and controller hardware were obsoleted like CR100/200.

The chart (curtesy of @controlav) shows just how much the new players now have, by comparison, and the new 802.11AC WiFi adapters are much more robust and faster aswell. The S2 system here is as solid as a rock. I now run all on WiFi instead of SonosNet and most devices (except Home Theatre products) are using the much faster 5Ghz band. I can’t recall the last audio interruption here that some users occasionally talk about and the Plume WiFi mesh setup I use around the Home, works well with Sonos and all the other (smart/non-smart) network devices about the place.

I still have an old S1 system going strong (touch wood), but really happy to have upgraded to S2. 

W
Userlevel 5
Badge +6

I have some music not on streaming services as well.  I opened a free iBroadcast account, uploaded my music, and linked the service to my SONOS account.  It was easy, free, and I can now listen to my dad’s old vinyl anywhere I want on any device.  It works very well for us.

Ken_Griffiths

I have some music not on streaming services as well.  I opened a free iBroadcast account, uploaded my music, and linked the service to my SONOS account.  It was easy, free, and I can now listen to my dad’s old vinyl anywhere I want on any device.  It works very well for us.

Yes, I use this service too, but pay their small monthly subscription to get the higher bitrate.. in my case I’ve uploaded my library at 320 AAC and that provides reasonable playback - it took nearly two weeks though to upload 25k+ tracks, so it’s rather slow to get everything up-to their cloud. Works great though with Sonos. I’m surprised Sonos do not provide this type of service themselves and do away with local storage playback altogether (oooOOh…I’m being controversial!!🤔)

W
Userlevel 5
Badge +6

I have some music not on streaming services as well.  I opened a free iBroadcast account, uploaded my music, and linked the service to my SONOS account.  It was easy, free, and I can now listen to my dad’s old vinyl anywhere I want on any device.  It works very well for us.

Yes, I use this service too, but pay their small monthly subscription to get the higher bitrate.. in my case I’ve uploaded my library at 320 AAC and that provides reasonable playback - it took nearly two weeks though to upload 25k+ tracks, so it’s rather slow to get everything up-to their cloud. Works great though with Sonos. I’m surprised Sonos do not provide this type of service themselves and do away with local storage playback altogether (oooOOh…I’m being controversial!!🤔)

My library was not nearly that large, just my dad’s and granddad’s vintage Christmas albums because of the childhood memories. I also had some tracks recorded by my two sons that I like to listen to occasionally.  I started the process, and they were all available in just a few hours.

106rallye
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

You state “First the S1/S2 debacle which was no more than an attempt to push voice assistants everywhere and kill the analog hole.” I think voice control also works on S1 devices (they were there before the S1/S2 split), so that could not have been the reason.

jgatie

You state “First the S1/S2 debacle which was no more than an attempt to push voice assistants everywhere and kill the analog hole.” I think voice control also works on S1 devices (they were there before the S1/S2 split), so that could not have been the reason.

 

Of course it’s not the reason.  Voice control started October 2017.  The S1/S2 split was almost 3 years later, in August 2020.  Care to try again OP?

J

Please @ssmieja - there are already hundreds of posts on here proposing ridiculous and false theories about the S1/S2 split.  We really didn’t need another such post*   The units that could only continue under S1 had only 32MB of RAM.  It was actually a miracle that Sonos kept these working with later devices, as the system’s capabilities expanded, for as long as they did.

  • Perhaps I should give you credit, though, for finding a new angle: Sonos as the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.
S

I concede The S1/S2 split was over memory.  Although as someone who dabbles in programming IoT devices I know that you can do an awful lot in 32meg.  My gripe is that Sonos found it necessary to kill off the local file feature on android devices.  I'm sorry but blaming the OS platforms when dozens of other music players don't have an issue playing local files is a weak argument. 

jgatie

I concede The S1/S2 split was over memory.  Although as someone who dabbles in programming IoT devices I know that you can do an awful lot in 32meg.  My gripe is that Sonos found it necessary to kill off the local file feature on android devices.  I'm sorry but blaming the OS platforms when dozens of other music players don't have an issue playing local files is a weak argument. 

 

See, you are wrong again.  The Sonos app isn’t a music player.  It’s a remote control.  You could start music playing and toss your phone in the ocean and the music will still play.  As such, the music files are not being played on the phone, they are being played on the Sonos device, and Google/Apple have prevented third party devices from accessing files on the phone due to security reasons.  So you see, the blame does lie with the OS platform for restricting access by 3rd party hardware. 

Ken_Griffiths

I concede The S1/S2 split was over memory.  Although as someone who dabbles in programming IoT devices I know that you can do an awful lot in 32meg.  My gripe is that Sonos found it necessary to kill off the local file feature on android devices.  I'm sorry but blaming the OS platforms when dozens of other music players don't have an issue playing local files is a weak argument. 

Again you’re mistaken - The Sonos App is not a music player and the only way to play music stored on an Android device is either by using ‘Casting’, ‘Bluetooth’ or ‘UPnP’ music players and you can (still) use both the latter two playing methods to play locally stored files to Sonos speakers.

For Bluetooth you need a compatible speaker, or a BT RX, linked to line-in,  but all Sonos products are UPnP compatible. Just use a compatible music player from the Google App Store. 

The reason the ‘On this device’ feature was removed is because Google followed what Apple did a couple of years ago, and that is to stop the device file share/playback over WiFi due to security concerns that were outside of their control and they just firmly shut that door to ensure their casting/bluetooth etc. methods, took back that control. So you need to raise this issue with Google, rather than pointing your finger at Sonos. 

The Sonos App would need to become a music player to achieve what you’re looking for here, rather than a remote control. Personally speaking I prefer the ‘remote’ App option anyway, as that allows me to play numerous LAN/WAN audio sources direct from source to my Sonos devices, rather than having to play things indirectly ‘through’ the mobile device.

buzz

 Although as someone who dabbles in programming IoT devices I know that you can do an awful lot in 32meg.  My gripe is that Sonos found it necessary to kill off the local file feature on android devices.  I'm sorry but blaming the OS platforms when dozens of other music players don't have an issue playing local files is a weak argument. 

Back in the dawn of personal computers I bought a computer that was to be delivered in two months. Documentation was shipped immediately -- in a big box. My printer was not supported, but clear documentation allowed me to write my own driver. I had 128 bytes available for my code. This was a simple dot matrix printer operating out of a serial port. The computer chip supported 64K of RAM and with a simple trick this could easily be expanded to 128K.

This sort of system is not practical for the masses. Not many people would buy a system that could not support their printer, requiring the user to custom code a driver. Once the operating system is expanded to support hundreds of potential printers with one side or double side printing, portrait or landscape, with options to print subsets of the file, or stack multiple pages on a single side, the memory footprint of this print driver is somewhat larger than 128 bytes. 

In SONOS each of the players contains a copy of the SONOS music library index, a customized copy of the Linux operating system and data cache large enough to ride through temporary network stalls. You might have noticed that if the network goes down, play will often continue until the end of the current track. Unless you want to store music on a NAS drive or computer, SONOS does not require any external storage.

Internally SONOS uses the Linux operating system to manage things. The Linux system used for S1  is dated and does not support features that modern users demand. For example S1 does not have the capability to run SMBv2 which most computers and NAS drives now demand. Unfortunately, there is not enough RAM available in the older systems to replace and run a more current version of Linux that can handle SMBv2 and more complicated wireless. Maybe a newer version of Linux could be installed, but the process would be similar to changing socks while running.  Plus, the new Linux is larger, reducing the memory available for buffering and supporting other modern features. Even without the new features replacing the Linux system is not something that could be accomplished with a single click. This would require user interaction with the system that is not appropriate for a product intended for non technical users. Units would need to be sent to a service center for the update.

Note, I have corrected the original version of this post that incorrectly referenced Android, not Linux

 Sorry for the typo.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Kids these days and their fancy dot matrix printers. I was ever so happy to replace my Teletype with a Selectric I/O Writer. The wire-wrapped Z-80 translator (ASCII to magnet code) and magnet driver card had a whole 1K of memory and another of EEPROM.

Folks talking about how much you can do with what amount of memory really need to step back and do some simple math to discover the minimum requirements of the embedded operating system before deciding just how much room there is left for application code.

I’m not going to go back and look it up again but the old S1 gear didn’t have the memory needed to support the newer Linux kernels that were needed to move beyond SMB v1, much less fancier application code.

 

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