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Comment by jakobegger

6 years ago

I was going to buy a Sonos speaker, but this changed my mind. I'm not buying a device that was built to be bricked.

I would have bought a Sonos instead of an Apple Homepod because I thought they were more "open". But if the manufacturer can just make my device useless, I'm not interested.

Audio and Hifi gear is extremely versatile and virtually everything is compatible. High end devices easily last for decades. This feature makes it clear that Sonos has no intention of following that tradition.

8 comments

jakobegger

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callmeal  6 years ago

>I was going to buy a Sonos speaker, but this changed my mind. I'm not buying a device that was built to be bricked.

I had a complete sonos setup that I rage donated after moving and accidentally connecting it to the internet at which point sonos wouldn't let me play my music until I "upgraded" the software with alexa enabled. Forget about recycle mode, sonos is one of the most intrusive privacy invading companies that I know off and I'm so happy they're getting all this bad press, because when I went to their forums with my complaints the whole response there was "meh" and "how can you run with old software?".

  • BillinghamJ  6 years ago

    All voice assistant service options are entirely disabled until you go into the settings and set one of them up. The update may well have made it possible to set up Alexa, but it would not have done so.

kristianc  6 years ago

> I would have bought a Sonos instead of an Apple Homepod because I thought they were more "open". But if the manufacturer can just make my device useless, I'm not interested.

Nope, it’s just iOS updates that brick HomePods.

  • jakobegger  6 years ago

    Yes. Just to be clear, I'm going to buy neither a Homepod nor a Sonos. I think I'm going to get dumb speakers and a Raspberry/Hifiberry. Shairplay does 90% of what I want a smart speaker to do, and I think a Raspberry is a pretty future proof device.