Sonos - S2 - without internet

I think we can assume, without specific statements, that as S2 currently seems to need it to start up, it will need a connection to do so going forward. 

I, too, am in a similar, internet precarious situation, for at least a minimum of two more years, and potentially longer, before I can get better internet service.  I’m going to continue to use S2, since my internet ‘down’ time is, while not zero, infrequent. It’s just music, after all. And if power is out anyway, so is internet.

 I suspect the number of customers in this type of situation are not significant enough to make a blip on Sonos’ radar, and invest any code time on. 

I’ll try and remember to test that amongst things I’m testing over the next few days.

In an ideal world, even though the app appears to need Internet atm, it it’s a hard requirement it should cope with internet outages. That may mean needing to checkin periodically, but still operate locally when the internet is unavailable.

I think certain features need internet to be enabled to show in the app, there are internet calls to a feature-update endpoint and in a thread about using dns/ad blockers an endpoint was identified as required access for in-between update feature switch on.

Right now, you might want to wait if primary usage is going to be from a NAS. There are still some bugs and improvements needed which may impact you.

I can’t find the post, but when search was first added back for local libraries it did require an active internet connection to work. This was to be changed in a future release. I didn’t spot anything in the recent release notes to say that has changed yet.

Thanks for responding. When we started with Sonos - back in maybe 2006/7 - being able to play music from a NAS was pretty much the primary use case; I guess that's now become a legacy use case that, as you write, maybe is no longer worth their investment.

Spence talks about a product roadmap but, of course, that's not something shared with customers. There's no point in us investing in the upgrades I mentioned if NAS / ‘local only’ will no longer be available.

We invested in a generator a couple of years ago, so we can still ‘function’ when we have a utility outage.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

That would be great - in the absence of clarity from the company, a real-world test would be very helpful; understood that it would simply be a moment in time / current release test, of course.

We certainly won't be pulling the upgrade trigger right now.

As an aside, I wonder if bringing back a senior developer - name escapes me - is an indication that Sonos may be reviewing their architectural choices for the May release. If they truly have moved volume control to require some type of cloud interaction, that might explain the issues people are seeing with those functions - round-trip lag, volume / group state maintenance issues, etc.

Thanks again for your input.

Sounds like all that hardware can run S1, which for your use case seems like the best plan to guarantee functionality without an internet connection.

Well, right now, we don't have problems running S1 - just unclear to me what the path for that version looks like; not to mention what happens when the hardware starts to cr*p out (we are still using a couple of boxes - ZP80 and ZP100 - from our initial 2007 purchase; talk about well-made - makes me wonder if the new generation Port and Amp products will have that type of longevity).

It's not lost on me that our 2007 investment is well-amortised at this point!

Maybe I should just start hunting down legacy ZPs🤔

Thanks for your input.

I have mom on S1 and it will take a major dumpster fire to get me to update her. It just works, the one service she uses works and she knows how to use it.

Pretty good for a lady ticked off that Lego says she will be too old to use them next month. Also got an attitude that the Lego “Birthday Cake” she has had for years only goes to 99, the spouse is working on a fix for that using our spare Lego pile.

Once Sonos clears the current mess I may look into getting her a Ray or a Beam for TV use but she just isn’t up for any new aggravations or major changes without a good reason.

I certainly have had no issue running music from my NAS while on S2, except of course when there is no power for either the speakers or the network. There has been zero indication that Sonos is ‘withdrawing’ support for local libraries. 

Thanks for your input👍

Good for her! 99 is the new 70😉

And the devices you mention will work on S1, so that obviates the need to migrate to S2.

It would be fascinating to know how many S1-only devices are still being used - Sonos obviously have the data - and how that plays into the expected life of S1.

Thanks for responding.