Privacy statement concern

Yes, in that regard, they are referring to how the product is physically situated. The Play 5 also offers multiple orientations.

I'm curious about only the "Product Orientation" aspect of all that. Everything else makes perfect sense to me, especially as the collection of that data allows their support groups to help people here on these boards and elsewhere. Is the Product Orientation just a bit about how the Playbar is situated? It's the only device I can think of that would have something like that available. I'm pretty sure there's no way for Sonos to know that my Play:1s in my kitchen are mounted upside down....oops, I just told them. Dammit! :)

Except for components (Connect & Connect:AMP) and the Boost, all Sonos products come with a built-in orientation sensor.

Edit: just checked my zone players again. Pardon me, it's just the Play:5 which has an orientation sensor activated, though the support menu of each Play: speaker contains a section for said 'gravity sensor', even if not applicable. I suppose this is due to os programming.

The ExtremeTech article is the single worst bit of clickbait on this change that I've seen. It provides almost no actual information, but it does manage to work some outright lies in.

Not to mention almost being unreadable. Next week there will be millions of third greaders writing "What I Did Over the Summer" essays using better grammar skills than that article.

Ah, I'd forgotten about the Play:5 orientation doohickey, good point. It does recognize which way it is tilted and modifies the output accordingly. Thanks for the reminder.

I meant "third graders". Good thing I wasn't criticizing their spelling. 😳

“If a customer chooses not to acknowledge the privacy statement, the customer will not be able to update the software on their Sonos system, and over time the functionality of the product will decrease,” a company spokesperson told ZDNet. “The customer can choose to acknowledge the policy, or can accept that over time their product may cease to function.”

I am surprised more people aren’t outraged at this. Many people have purchased Sonos components for the capabilities on the box. We don’t care about voice control or really any of Sonos’ growth strategy.

When I purchased and set it up, I agreed to the policies. If I didn’t want to, I could put them back in the box and returned them. Their lies the issue, because now I need to accept a policy that is substantively different. Importance, or specifically if the revised terms are a “big deal” or much different is irrelevant, they are changing the rules and I no longer have the choice to put them back in the box and get my money back.

And by the way, if it wasn’t such a big deal, they wouldn’t make everyone sign it and require regular updates because “over time” the components “may cease to function”. I suspect (this is pure conjecture), that these terms are somehow mandated/related to their partnerships with firms like Amazon. I can't imagine this is a debate any company wants to have (look at Plex and their privacy policy backlash...)

I’ve contacted Sonos support, and I needed to go back and forth a few times because they were evasive and said things like "in my opinion you shouldn't...." and "it's essentially the same policy...". Which was not my concern. I finally did verify that the components regularly need an active connection to the internet, and the policies must to be accepted for the components to continue to function. For anyone going to buy some Sonos today, all of that is fine, if you don’t like these policies, don’t buy it. Those of us who have already purchased components have no such option.

Much of this has been said before. My reason for posting, was my surprise that people aren't more outraged. It takes much less in the internet troll age to get people all fired up.

I finally did verify that the components regularly need an active connection to the internet, and the policies must to be accepted for the components to continue to function.

I can't imagine the local library will ever stop functioning regardless of Internet connectivity. I take a portion of my Sonos gear and my local library with me on the road in my RV, which nine times out of ten doesn't have an Internet connection. The local library not playing over the Sonos kit with no Internet connection would be a huge problem for me, and I'd think for Sonos also.

I finally did verify that the components regularly need an active connection to the internet, and the policies must to be accepted for the components to continue to function.

I can't imagine the local library will ever stop functioning regardless of Internet connectivity. I take a portion of my Sonos gear and my local library with me on the road in my RV, which nine times out of ten doesn't have an Internet connection. The local library not playing over the Sonos kit with no Internet connection would be a huge problem for me, and I'd think for Sonos also.

Exactly, same as installing a Playbar/Playbase and then disconnect it from the network, it will always continue playback from the TV without updating. It's changes in online services (e.g Spotify around 6.0 release) that can require an update to continue functioning.

People aren't outraged because they actually read the privacy policy terms, and realize that if they do not choose to activate the voice control features, then the new conditions do not apply. In other words, acknowledging the privacy policy and performing the update in no way forces you to comply with the new data collection. That only occurs if you voluntarily activate voice control. Also, the data shared via the voice control partnership is the same exact data Sonos has been collecting all along; nothing new is being collected. In other words, it is much ado about nothing.

People aren't outraged because they actually read the privacy policy terms, and realize that if they do not choose to activate the voice control features, then the new conditions do not apply. In other words, acknowledging the privacy policy and performing the update in no way forces you to comply with the new data collection. That only occurs if you voluntarily activate voice control. Also, the data shared via the voice control partnership is the same exact data Sonos has been collecting all along; nothing new is being collected. In other words, it is much ado about nothing.

Maybe unexpectedly, but I don’t strongly disagree with anything you wrote, you are just missing my point.

The (potential) outrage is around existing customers required to agree with a substantively different (for lack of better wording) value of goods and interaction model. It is unheard of for a consumer goods company to demand a customer who has paid for the goods, do something new for that company or their goods will no longer function.

jgatie, you have 13869 replies; if you spent (at least) a minute per post, that’s almost one full day of your life on a Sonos support platform. Hopefully you are enjoying your speakers when typing away, with their policy, Sonos can probably figure out what room you are replying in and other details….. 🆒