Marty McGuire

So our Sonos locked us out this morning until we let it update its firmware.

This is a dark UI pattern which strongly suggests they are holding the system hostage until I agree to let them remove features or add anti-features like sharing what we listen to or surveiling our home network.

Anybody know of an alternative, free/open source Sonos firmware?

🔗 October 25, 2017 at 9:43AM EDT • by

Marty McGuire

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Aaron Parecki at 2017-10-25T07:04:41-07:00 said:

ugh I hate when apps and devices do this. There should always be a "later" option.

Todd Blatt at 2017-10-25T14:03:18+00:00 said:

One time my WiiU said "update, or return me for a refund"

Anthony T Sherwood at 2017-10-25T14:17:00+00:00 said:

See also: every Xbox update.

Ari Douglas at 2017-10-25T14:16:12+00:00 said:

Or pushing security updates...

Aaron Parecki at 2017-10-25T14:04:48+00:00 said:

ugh I hate when apps and devices do this. There should always be a "later" option.

Nathaniel Tyson at 2017-10-25T15:03:34+00:00 said:

What’s the verdict?

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-25T15:38:21+00:00 said:

I was always able to skip the updates, until this one.

Lisa Anthony at 2017-10-25T15:25:01+00:00 said:

Hmm ours doesn't lock us out for the updates. I was able to bypass

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-25T15:37:27+00:00 said:

I started the update and haven't checked back. It has probably taken over my house by now.

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-25T15:59:31+00:00 said:

Sonos desktop app made the same forced update. The “Check for Updates” dialog had a tantalizing “Later” button, but it took me back to this same screen. The release notes for the update to 8.1 say only that it “delivers support for the all-new Sonos One, the smart speaker for music lovers” with a link to buy the new device.

Ethan Hartman at 2017-10-25T19:02:48+00:00 said:

Oddly I don't remember ever updating the firmware on my tube amp...

Ethan Hartman at 2017-10-25T18:57:20+00:00 said:

This is why I don't Sonos

Ethan Hartman at 2017-10-25T18:57:56+00:00 said:

I'm also going to try to buy phones with headphone jacks as long as I possibly can.

Matt Mets at 2017-10-26T05:53:25+00:00 said:

The price was right on those ones, though, yeah? I'm using one of the bigger speakers that has a line in as an amp, and it doesn't even have a hardware button to select the line in function without using the software.

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-26T12:32:23+00:00 said:

Haha, yes indeed. 😅 I am not surprised by the lack of a hardware button on the fancy line-in model, given their other design choices. I feel like Sonos has been balancing it's appearance as a luxury brand with the growing pressures from streaming service business models to mistreat customers. As they lower price points to get into more affordable markets, they behave more badly.

Matt Mets at 2017-10-26T17:03:29+00:00 said:

Most of this could be solved by being more transparent/allowing opt-outs from the update process, right? It's got to be tough to support a multitude of firmware variants against an ever changing target of wifi devices with different chipsets and network stacks, so I can totally understand pushing new client software and deprecating older firmware.I wonder what their business model looks like for supporting these older speakers, and if they're counting on kickbacks from the streaming services to …

Matt Mets at 2017-10-26T17:06:47+00:00 said:

Also, burn them all down and make things that don't connect to networks

Matt Mets at 2017-10-26T17:06:13+00:00 said:

Also, looks like there is an open source replacement for the client: https://github.com/SoCo/SoCo

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-26T17:33:26+00:00 said:

Historically Sonos has always had a way to skip an update notification temporarily so you can just listen to some dang music. I vaguely remember a past update where some service (Amazon Music?) stopped working *until* I allowed an update - which feels much better to me. My guess is that kickbacks from streaming services is a newer or newly emphasized aspect of their business model. Thanks for the SoCo link! I will check it out. This definitely added to my energy meter for building my own …

Matt Stultz at 2017-10-26T22:36:24+00:00 said:

Devils advocate, they could have a security patch that they don't want to leave out there. What if your Sonos is part of a bot farm until you upgrade.

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-26T23:01:51+00:00 said:

Matt Stultz you know better. A) the devil needs no advocating. B) if that were the case they are violating responsible reporting practice because there is no mention of security updates anywhere.

Matt Stultz at 2017-10-27T01:02:08+00:00 said:

Meh, just saying it's possible, also they could know of a security flaw but don't want to report it because there is no current exploit. I guess we will know if your theory is correct when you update and fond out if any features are missing.

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-27T02:58:19+00:00 said:

Thanks, you've given me a lot to think about.

Matt Stultz at 2017-10-27T03:24:28+00:00 said:

Marty McGuire Thanks, I needed some snark today :)

Marty McGuire at 2017-10-25T11:56:09-04:00 said:

My Sonos desktop app made the same forced update. The “Check for Updates” dialog had a tantalizing “Later” button, but it took me back to this same useless screen. The release notes for the update to 8.1 say only that it “delivers support for the all-new Sonos One, the smart speaker for music lovers” with a link to buy the new device.