
What cracking open a Sonos One tells us about the Sonos IPO - flashman
https://blog.bolt.io/what-cracking-open-a-sonos-one-tells-us-about-the-sonos-ipo-dcab49155643
======
pascalo
I've got lots of Sonos speakers, one in every room of my house. Before
Soundcloud was an option I wrote my own SMAPI service to get that going for
myself. Then, when I switched from Mac to Linux I created my own client app
[1] to control my speakers.

I feel Sonos have really missed a trick by not opening up their API more. Most
of the features I had a reverse engineer or check from other libraries. Their
own apps have also not exactly gotten better. For example, I _HATE_ the
unified search feature, it makes the search slow and sluggish. Controlling the
speakers from Spotify directly also never worked glitch-free for me. Other
niggles have to do with the grouping features, which are also a tad flaky and
sometimes time out or only partially group. Most of all I am annoyed by the
frequent updates asked for, without the ability to "pin" the speakers to a
version and download a specific version of the client app.

All that said, I love their speakers because they sound good. The old Play 3
and the Amp especially. I feel they should focus their efforts on making the
apps snappier and faster, not much more feature rich.

[1] [https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-
fo...](https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-for-linux)

~~~
pascalo
Also, I forgot to say: There is no way I'd put an Amazon alexa or similar
device in my home, period. I take a "speaker company" instead any day.

~~~
ModernMech
I was sad when they integrated Alexa into the Sonos One. But it did make the
Play:1 cheaper, and there's really not much room to improve on that speaker.
Love it. I just hope they keep making Alexa free options.

~~~
chmars
AirPlay support would be great though … I hate that I have to use the Sonos
app and cannot directly play music from a Mac or iPhone.

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
AirPlay 2 is coming "soon"

~~~
samwillis
But only on their newer devices! Would be ok if it was that you needed only
one new “airplay 2” device on the network to act as a bridge but no, it will
only work on the new ones (or a one and a play:1 in stereo)

~~~
TarpitCarnivore
They said if you have an AirPlay 2 capable device you can use it to pair with
older speakers. It's right in their most recent press release on the matter.

------
rgbrenner
It's cool that Amazon's product is more advanced, and that's interesting
technically... but what does that have to do with the Sonos IPO?

Beats cost $18 to make.. cheap plastic.. nothing premium about them.. they
even put a few pieces of metal in it so they feel sturdy.. People love(d?)
them. Sold for $200/pair. Company sold for $3b.

The bill of materials isn't the sole determinate of success.

~~~
dalbasal
Totally aside... I don't really understand why beats gets singled out so
often, when it comes to cost of components. IDK, I feel like beats doesn't get
enough credit as a company.

First, if you look at a shelf of products (say an airport gadget shop), beats
is not the worst value on the shelf. Most beats products are OK. Half the gear
(in general) in those shops is crap.

Second, Beats did a good job on "product". They understood what price ranges
to target. The understood what each form factor was for, and how to explain
this to consumers. Beats' actual competition was earbuds, not alternative
"studio headphones." They knew which sound qualities (bass, basically)
customers would want, for the music they actually listen to while walking
around a mall.

They aren't always the best price performance across categories, but they
aren't crap either.

Anyway, the reason I think they deserve credit is not that. _They_ understood
the implication of "wearables." _They_ are the ones that managed to build
_that_ company, with a foot in fashion and another one in electronics. Part
authority on what's cool, part predictor of what's cool.

If you do the bill of materials test on versace it won't go well.

Compare beats as the fashion-tech-wearables brand to all the smartwatch
attempts at similar. Beats stands out.

~~~
xzel
I'm sorry but their sound quality is pretty abysmal for the price; there is a
reason they're lampooned. I agree that a lot of the headphone market is poor
but 20 minutes of googling will get you some good headphones for a decent
price. That aside, I certainly agree with you they were able to build a brand,
make mostly junk products pretty fashionable and sold a lot of merchandise.

~~~
dalbasal
You can say that about literally any major electronics brand. About 5 years
ago I googled for the new "oneplus" which turned out to be a great phone at
half the price of Samsung or LG. Unknown brand. Great deal. I was happy.
Bought again.

I also once bought soy sauce that wasn't kikkoman, half price and it tasted
good. Go figure. This doesn't make Samsung or Kikkoman "junk." It makes them a
brand name.

Maybe I should put this differently....

If Beats announced today they are putting major effort into smart watches, I
would expect to soon see lots of people wearing them. I'd beats to make smart
watches that people want because they're relevant piece of culture and
utility.

If boss or plantronics announced the same... I wouldn't.

~~~
xzel
Yes I totally agree people really do buy things because of celebrity
endorsements and don't do their own research before buying most things. Its
mind boggling to me but hey to each his own. Tangent-y but I feel the worst
for the people who have their iPhone/Apple headphones turned up to 11 b/c the
earbuds don't fit their ears well, and you know, everyone in the
bus/metro/subway with them that have to listen to their music bleeding out of
their ears, too.

~~~
dalbasal
I think if we reduce this to " _people buy things because of celebrity
endorsements_ " than there isn't much to talk about.

Xerox invented the modern PC, Apple spent the next 30 years applying celebrity
endorsements and marketing nonsense to make money. That's the story. I think
this is very wrong.

If you are selecting a component to put in a device, this is a mostly
objective question. Price. Objective quality, longevity. For a person to get
value out of a thing, you _must_ cross into more "subjective" territory. If
you refuse to rely on anything that is subjective, nothing about humans makes
sense. Why do people want to look cool anyway? Why are people listening to
music?

~~~
xzel
In fact I think the psychology behind celebrity endorsements and advertising
is particularly interesting and there is a lot to talk about.

Unfortunately, this topic, audio quality, is extremely subjective, yes, like
someone mentioned in another comment to my original post. But objectively the
audio response of Beats are very bass heavy and, in my opinion, the high end
response is lacking, but other people really enjoy their beats headphones so
thats up to them. Although, the divers in Beats, for the price, are
objectively a poor purchase. You can get stronger and clearer drivers in other
headphones at a fraction of the cost. I'm not really sure where the last bit
of your posts ties in with what I've been saying but I totally agree people
will be people, especially when the topic is complex and they can just buy
what Harden/KD/etc. wears and be happy.

------
derriz
This is not directly relevant to the article - more a critique of the Sonos
product which I've wanted to get off my chest.

I was a Sonos skeptic then a convert before becoming skeptical again. I
stopped buying after the third Sonos 3 speaker.

Some basic features are missing which mean that users like me are clearly not
a focus. Primarily I want to play my own, ripped-to-FLAC media.

The most irritating thing is that users have been requesting these features
for 5+ years on the fora.

A random list of grievances:

\- No regain support - this renders the playlist feature useless unless you
want to constantly fiddle with the controller to adjust the volume between
tracks.

\- No cue support (i.e. single FLAC with a .cue file) which allows transitions
between tracks. This breaks play back for lots of classical, Opera, ED music
and classic rock albums like the Beatles' Abbey Road.

\- Multi-disc support is poor - no grouping or separate disc images. 2 CD
boxsets are o.k. but larger (4+) are unnavigable.

\- Can't handle higher than 16/48 digital rips.

\- No airplay, bluetooth, etc. support. This means you cannot use Sonos to
replace all audio speakers in your home.

\- Wierd/undocumented rules for file naming - silently ignores tracks with
quotes, colons and maybe others (these are the ones that hit me)

\- Finally the controller software has gotten worse with every update: poor
album art caching, illogical navigation, confusing search, artist search
cannot find tracks on compilations, etc.

Then again, it seems going the "smart speaker" route has boosted their
revenues. I have no interest in such functionality so I guess I'm not the
target market for Sonos.

This is a pity because much of the package is quite compelling and it wouldn't
take much effort to support libraries (rather than streaming).

(edited for formatting)

~~~
chrisan
> No airplay, bluetooth, etc. support. This means you cannot use Sonos to
> replace all audio speakers in your home.

Not ideal, but you can hookup an AppleTV to line in on a connect:amp and
airplay this way.

Insanely expensive buy in for that feature. I just happened to have the amp as
my first sonos product and an appletv I no longer use (switched to Fires)

~~~
xfitm3
I run airsonos on a local server, which exposes all my Sonos speakers over
Airplay individually.

~~~
chrisan
Ooo thanks for this! Will try it out. I already have a pi running pi-hole,
would be nice to have 1 less device sucking electricity :)

------
joshumax
> "Interestingly, this is the same system-on-a-chip used in the 6th generation
> Amazon Fire HD; maybe Amazon had a few extra laying around?"

A little-known fact about the echo smart speakers is that they run a minimally
modified version of FireOS at their core. In fact, many references to the Fire
tablet lineup can be seen around the echo firmware. Using the same SoC makes
sense in this regard as it allows for a more unified build process by enabling
kernel/driver/firmware blob reuse.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
The original Echo ran something akin to the Kindle e-reader Linux-based OS.
Once the Fire Phone failed, many Android engineers were absorbed into the Echo
projects and the follow-on products seem to have been migrated to FireOS (or
vice versa?).

There are some sparse details about the original Echo floating around[0], but
I couldn't find the specifics.

While they may be able to share some firmware, I'd still wager their
kernels/drivers/firmware blobs are different enough due to drastically
different components interfacing with the SoC. I personally question the value
of putting Android on non-mobile screen-less devices (forgetting about the
Echo Show).

0: [https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-
listenin...](https://labs.mwrinfosecurity.com/blog/alexa-are-you-listening/)

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I'm not sure we should be forgetting about the Show; I can't imagine that
Amazon wants different kinds of Echo to have different operating systems, and
once you've got the screen, it makes more and more sense to reuse your
existing systems.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
You're implying Amazon knows what it wants. They thought the Fire Phone was
going to be huge. They thought the Echo wasn't.

While reuse is nice, optimizing for experimentation and different products is
probably more useful. Given most of the magic of Alexa lives in Amazon's
servers, there seems to be less incentive to use existing solutions over what
makes sense (and is cost effective).

------
jacquesm
I was about to buy some Sonos stuff but asked if I needed to go online to
activate them (I claimed I did not have internet), and sure enough, an
internet connection is a requirement. So sorry Sonos, I am buying an
_appliance_ which I expect to function independent of your company for years
to come. If that can not be guaranteed then my money will stay in my pocket
and I will continue to use my open-source cobbled together solution even if it
is slightly less polished and convenient.

~~~
JOnAgain
I get what you’re saying, but Sonos works differently than a normal speaker.
It is playing the music, not your other device. The app is a control. So if
you turn on music and leave with your phone, the music keeps going. When other
people connect, they see your music and services, not theirs. It’s its own
thing - not just a speaker.

That said, your point about, “will it continue to work if sonos, the company,
is shut down?” Is a valid one.

~~~
mynewtb
All you described is local network, no need to involve the internet.

~~~
ModernMech
It works by streaming the music from the internet. If it's just on a local
network, it has no source of music.

~~~
JackCh
You don't have music on your local network?

~~~
ModernMech
No, I don't. All of my music is on the cloud.

------
jfindley
So he spends what looks to have been a substantial amount of time carefully
disassembling and commenting on the manufacturing processes and material
quality of two speakers, without ever even looking at the actual speaker cones
and housing at all? Seriously? I kept waiting for there to be SOME discussion
of the actual speaker itself, and even went back and re-read, figuring I must
have missed it... but no. Nope. He actually managed to do a teardown of two
speakers without ever actually looking at the most important bits. Wow.

~~~
yc-kraln
you seem to have completely missed the point of the article. it isnt a speaker
review, it is an analysis of the strategy of the company developing the
speaker. the audio quality is not germane

~~~
seizethecheese
Audio quality is _the_ reason why anyone would buy a Sonos speaker over an
echo. It's a core strategy component.

------
mahrain
He correctly identifies the silicon labs Zigbee/Bluetooth chip but then
remarks the Zigbee is not used? It's one of the major selling points of the
Echo Plus and it was sold bundled with a Philips Hue bulb for launch. After
this I doubt this guy really knows what he's talking about. Nice teardown
though.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
I don’t think it matters that the Echo Plus is technically more advanced and
that Amazon owns more of the stack.

If the Sonos One _looks_ better, is heavier, and costs more, then Sonos might
be able to sell the product further up-and-to-the-right on the Veblen good
chart.

Maybe.

I’m not convinced going public for these one trick ponies does anything other
than let the early investors cash out.

I’m just a layperson when it comes to these matters, but wouldn’t Sonos have
been acquired if their product-market fit was believed to be worth something?

~~~
BurritoAlPastor
Acquired by who? It's a luxury niche brand. Acquisition by one of the giants
they integrate with (Apple, Amazon, Spotify, etc) would inevitably result in
vendor lock-in (Apple buys them and now Amazon Music doesn't work anymore),
which would be devastating to their reputation and customer sat. A "neutral"
giant (LG?) could pick them up, but why? Who wants to diversify into luxury
home stereo? That leaves major audio companies (Sennheiser? Bose?), but those
are mostly already luxury brands, and cobranding ("Sonos by Sennheiser") could
get complicated.

The nature of the market Sonos is working in means that whatever P/M fit they
have is potentially compromised by being acquired. Weird, but that's luxury
goods for ya.

~~~
samatman
LVMH perhaps?

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Your comment prompted me to read the LVMH Wikipedia article.[1]

I didn’t realise the group owned so many labels.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LVMH#Subsidiaries)

~~~
skinnymuch
Also didn’t know owner Arnoult catapulted to 4th richest in the world after
last year.

------
kapad
Read this for the interesting deep dive into the parts used and the insights
on manufacturing process and cost of manufacturing.

Wished the article would have also covered the tweeter and midrange on sound
quality. That seems necessary given its a breakdown of a smart Bluetooth
speaker.

Other than that, I don't see much value in the business insights the writer
has reached.

~~~
goldenkey
Aren't most PC speakers ie. integrated amplifier / 3.5mm input (is that what
they are called?) inferior to having a separate amplifier, and a DAC?

I used to buy PC speakers before I realized that I was paying for a new (but
shitty) amplifier everytime I got a new set of speakers.

Audio path is as such:

Digital File -> DAC -> 3.5mm -> Amplifier -> Speakers

Wireless audio path can cut the DAC out in well designed systems.

In any case, I think most people, even smart hackers in our group, think that
they can get amazing PC speakers..audiophile quality. Its a popular
misconception. But once you think about the physics of it, of course a 3.5mm
cable isnt delivering enough voltage to physically move speaker cones back and
forth.. So these "PC speakers" have really cramped amplifiers inside, dealing
with very high voltages.

Invest in a good amp for the main sound setup that you care about. Youll have
to buy new speakers with balanced red and white thick gauge cables but you'll
get much better sound. It saves the environment, optimizes the process.

I recommend Peachtree [1] The amp has wireless streaming, mobile apps, USB
audio from PC, skipping analog conversion. Absolutely stunning quality.

[1] [https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21](https://amzn.to/2ugzrM21)

------
lordnacho
I'm not sure why anything needed to be taken apart for him to reach his
conclusions?

Amazon is manufacturer and retailer (so no double margin), they own the Alexa
IP which does the real work in both cases, and has deep enough pockets to try
out this market (so they don't even need the margin).

If I had to have a reason why Sonos might still be worth something it's the
luxury brand value. Like owning a B&O stereo in its day. Yes you can buy
cheaper but are you a real connaisseur then?

~~~
viraptor
From my quick review, Sonos is actually the most functional device now. I
couldn't find another one which works with multiple (grouped) speakers on
wifi, uses Google Play and Spotify, and allows DLNA input. Are there any non-
luxury brand alternatives which fulfill this?

------
fake-name
I'm deeply confused why the person writing this thinks speakers are a
technology that even _can_ be "disrupted", let alone all the stuff he does
that is for all intents and purposes just reading tea leaves^H^H^H^H^Hspeaker
casings.

Sure, the manufacturing is interesting, and there is some truth to the smart
aspect of the sonos being kind of "bolted on", but the attempt to read an
entire companies outset from the manufacturing processes they use is just
stupid.

As much as software likes to go on about "disrupting" this and "reimagining"
that, manufacturing, particularly large volume manufacturing is
extraordinarily staid, and different companies have in-house experience with
different processes. Switching processes just because something is new and
shiny is just not done, because the retooling costs are enormous, and you may
not _have_ the in-house familiarity with the new processes.

Really, what it sounds like to me is that the engineers at Sonos are far
__better __at designing things for production. They didn 't need to use fancy
new tools, or design extremely exotic moldings. When it comes to cranking out
a product, the LESS fancy new processes you use, the better in almost every
case. It means the processes you're using are more predictable, you have more
vendors you can use (because they're more broadly available), and you're
likely to maybe have a old guy or two in house who's use process XXX for 40
years, and can tell you in excruciating detail _every single little thing_ you
have to worry about _before_ you even start production.

Basically, this is a single decent point (sonos is a speaker company adding
smart shit, and amazon is a internet-of-shit/retail giant adding speakers),
buried in a whole lot of hyperbole and bullshit.

~~~
cm2187
And most of the value added is in the software. The hardware is just an active
speaker with the equivalent of a raspberry pi attached. Not new tech.

I owned a set a Sonos speakers for about 5 years now and I am in the market
for a better replacement. The software has become unusable, the speakers keep
depairing, not managing to read the network drive (and shockingly only support
SMB1). But all the alternatives have moved into stasi-style “a mic behind
every radiator”. I feel slightly out of choice. I just want the music not the
spying.

~~~
Symbiote
I have a Chromecast Audio, plugged into the HiFi amplifier and good floor-
standing speakers I've owned since I was 21. I use BubbleUPnP to control it,
and have MiniDLNA running on a small server to share my music. (Though there
are other ways to expose a music collection from a phone, NAS or whatever, or
skip both of these and use Spotify or similar.)

I don't know if Google log every track I play — the Chromecast doesn't work if
my Internet connection drops — but they haven't got GDPR compliant permission
from me, so perhaps not.

Streaming the audio directly from my MacBook is unsatisfactory, it drops out a
lot. So the soundtrack to a film playing on a laptop can't be done this way, I
would instead plug the laptop directly into the HiFi. The equivalent setup
works on Linux with an ethernet connection, but was a hassle to configure and
get working so I haven't bothered with my new Linux computer.

I only have the one pair of wired speakers, I haven't tried the multi room
feature.

~~~
givinguflac
I find it hilarious that you offer a google product to someone who’s concerned
about spying.

~~~
Symbiote
According to [https://superuser.com/questions/1277872/what-kind-of-data-
is...](https://superuser.com/questions/1277872/what-kind-of-data-is-google-
chromecast-audio-collecting) the logging is easily disabled.

I would prefer a different manufacturer of a similar device, but I don't know
of any.

------
nebulous1
It's interesting that he repeatedly refers to Sonos as a "traditional speaker
manufacturer" which isn't something I would have accused Sonos of being

~~~
CamperBob2
Sonos was a manufacturer of wireless remote speakers in the BC (Before Cloud)
era. They had a good reputation until they got religion and started frog-
marching their users into the cloud against their will. Pretty much every
mention of Sonos I've seen online has been associated with complaints about
that, e.g. [http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their-
users-...](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/sonos-holding-their-users-
hostage-cloud-account-now-required/msg1624717/#msg1624717) and
[https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-
software-228995/s...](https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-
software-228995/save-the-cr100-6800510/) .

So they appear to be a leading-edge wireless speaker manufacturer who woke up
one day and found themselves to be a little less leading-edge than they
thought they were. They are now trying to make up for lost ground by using
Amazon's IP and storefront to compete with... Amazon.

So I can see why the author of the article is bearish on these guys.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
The parents point still stands:

Sonos were always wireless remote speakers, as far as I recall.

Sonos was what you had when you wanted steaming audio around the home well
before it became popular with the advent of these new tangled gadgets.

~~~
tunap
"new tangled gadgets"

Is that a typo or is it a new(to me) adjective? Curiously apropos, regardless.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Damn touchscreens and their auto-incorrect.

It was intended to be _newfangled_.

I coin a new term: _tapographical error_

------
ggm
I don't know if anyone ever looked at the mechanical prowess of b&o back in
the LP day.. but they were basically crap. Crapper than crap. A Garrard
turntable and sme arm beat them hollow. But.. b&o had charisma and marketing.
Bests for profit giant isn't to be best, it's to be sexiest. Sonos is a sexy
brand.

------
oliwarner
Obligatory: SlimMP3/Logitech's Squeezebox[0] was the best.

Very similar line-up to the original Sonos boxes, except they released a lot
more speakerless hardware. Open source server (that could be run from the
Touch model) which is still maintained and improved. Streaming options. House-
wide sync. All for half the price of the Sonos.

It's especially galling reading that list of Sonos complaints. We've got
regain support, good .cue handling, 24/192 and higher playback depending on
your hardware, you could even do bidirectional Airplay and bluetooth (with
some kicking and screaming)... And oh yeah, you could _make your own players_
because it's all open source, open spec.

And a _feature_ (for me), none of this smart rubbish.

For those of us that have a household full of it (and spares) it's still an
amazing system... but Logitech ultimately binned it. I guess only selling one
pile of kit every 15 years didn't seem good enough business for them.

Le sigh.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_play...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_\(network_music_player\))

~~~
detaro
In DIY circles, that ecosystem seems to be still somewhat alive (with client
software running on Raspberry Pis etc), which is pretty telling about the
alternatives...

~~~
oliwarner
Oh definitely. Yeah, I've got 4 real ones and 4 DIY squeezelite's in rotation
at the moment.

And even while you can build you own, the used market is still strong.
Hardware that's been used daily for 10 years selling for 70% its original
retail pricetag. Practically unheard of for consumer tech.

Basically, Logitech are idiots. They could keep selling what they did and
still make money but it'd be trivial for them to step back in and pick up
development, but hey ho.

------
IshKebab
I'm pretty sure the holes in the Echo Plus aren't drilled. That would be
crazy! Perhaps it is injection moulded with an internal draft and then drilled
out afterwards.

~~~
IshKebab
Also I have previously looked at these holes and wondered how they
manufactured it, and the holes are clearly made in 6 groups with the same
angle of hole in each group. This is how you'd do it with injection moulding -
a load of pins attached together.

If you were CNC drilling them you'd use a CNC lathe and the hole axes would
all be normal to the surface which isn't the case.

~~~
iancmceachern
Your description confirms my suspicion. I bet they used a collapsable core. It
is the same way they're able to mold internal threads and such.

------
neya
I have a strong feeling Sonos will end up like Aiwa[1] (the original brand)
because they're in a very similar situation as Aiwa was. Aiwa died because of
a combination of bad technology bets, not being able to cope up with
technology fast enough while simultaneously struggling to fight a then
monopoly (Sony). I did a couple of teardowns and found some interesting
technical choices - The company, even in its last breath didn't let go of its
"signature" design and sound of loudspeakers. They were later acquired by Sony
and shut down for good after failed attempts at rejuvenation.

Audio is an unforgiving market. It will be interesting to see how Sonos
survives.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiwa)

~~~
antoniuschan99
I still have an Aiwa system from 1990-1994. They were almost on par with
Sony/JVC back in the day (~1996)

------
joshstrange
I loved the teardown and the article as a whole but that header was MASSIVE.
On my 13" MacBook I could see very little content. I ended up deleting the
header + nav and that mad it much better but I would have expected it to slim
down or hide once I scrolled down.

------
S_A_P
I think the author misses the point of Sonos somewhat. I don’t think they aim
to dominate the smart speaker market. They seem to be a fashionable upper
midrange device that is as much for status as it is a speaker. They market
Sonos speakers as a fancy home speaker that also happens to support Alexa.
Amazon is more the mass market option and just aims to put Alexa in every
home.

Sonos will never take over the world but will be an established niche player.
I would also agree with the sentiment of no Alexa in my home. I was an early
adopter of Amazon echo but I have given them away and will never have one in
my home again.

------
whoisjuan
I wish the author had focused only on doing a straight-forward teardown and
comparison of both products instead of inserting random comments, jokes and
business opinions.

It felt unnecessarily forced and clickbaity.

------
dawnerd
I used to own a ton of Sonos speakers and absolutely loved them. But the
software was just too damn buggy. Ended up giving them away right around the
time WiFi support rolled out and the speakers refused to stay connected.

I’m hoping for the best for them. Their customer support was absolutely top
notch. Talked on the phone with an engineer from Europe on Christmas Eve
trying to solve a weird bug in the Mac app.

------
quanticle
_Amazon sells nearly all of its Echo products through their own retail
channel, this means they don’t pay a margin to other retailers. I can’t think
of a single consumer electronics company that sells tens of millions of units
directly to consumers like that._

Doesn't Apple sell far more (of its own manufacture) than Amazon, directly to
consumers as well?

~~~
greggman
Apple sells on Amazon, Best Buy, Verison stores, T-Mobile stores etc... lots
of places.

~~~
trollied
The margin on Apple products is tiny though. As a reseller, you'd be lucky to
make 5% if you sold at the same retail price as Apple.

~~~
danpalmer
Yep. I used to work for an Apple reseller. We had a good relationship with
Apple, but selling a £150 iPod and a £15 case, we made more on the case.

Apple margins are non existent. Companies sell Apple stuff because they have
to.

~~~
amelius
So as a salesman, you would be trying to convince customers to buy the other
brand you have on store?

~~~
danpalmer
No, we didn't stock iPod/Mac competitors. There was good competition for cases
and other accessories, but we weren't told the margins between suppliers for
those. All I knew about margins was that Apple stuff was ~6-12% depending on
the product, accessories were great, and software was excellent at 50+% margin
(except for iWork/iLife), but we didn't sell much software.

------
prayerslayer
Somewhat related question: I quite enjoy such articles where people take apart
consumer electronics, although I don't know the jargon ("an extruded plastic
tube with a secondary rotational drilling operation" \- wat?). Does someone
know accessible resources (as in "no dry textbooks") for mechanical
engineering?

~~~
rwmj
Watch AvE take stuff apart on Youtube. His disassembly of the Juicero would be
a good place to start: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-
BGQfpHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cp-BGQfpHQ) or this one
disassembling an overpriced Dyson hairdryer:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8)

------
yeukhon
I own Sonos One. Love it when the wifi connectivity between my
cellphone/laptop and my Sonos don’t die. Iisten Spotify and some radio
podcasts. The sound quality is great, especially the bass is pretty good. I
wish there’s a bluetooth option which would offer better connectivity quality
in short range.

~~~
stevesimmons
I bought a Sonos One for my partner and regret it.

One of our use cases is playing audio from videos of dance classes. But it
can't do this, because the WiFi streaming protocols are set up for linear
streaming, using long buffers. That kills the ability to do frequent seeking
and looping of sections of a video. Yet the most basic of crappy Bluetooth
speakers has no trouble with this.

It never occurred to me that a premium wireless speaker released in 2017 could
not do this. My fault, of course, for not researching it thoroughly enough.
But Sonos's also, for arbitrarily restricting a perfectly sensible use of
generic hardware like a speaker.

~~~
givinguflac
If you still have the One it’s getting AirPlay 2 next week which solves your
issue, assuming iOS user.

~~~
admiralpumpkin
Can you reference that timeframe? I can’t find anything from Sonos announcing
a specific date. Thanks!

------
lykahb
I'm not going to buy Sonos, Amazon Echo, smart TV or any other "smart" device.
They all have some things in common: vendor lock-in, manufacturer having more
control over the device than the owner does, and little control over your own
data.

For many websites it took quite a lot of effort to comply with the GDPR
requirements. Updating the devices firmware is harder. Without OTA
capabilities it may even be impossible. Soon we may hear some news about
manufacturers with unscrupulous practices being fined and kicked out of the
European market.

------
allengeorge
I can’t speak to their “smart” aspirations, but...it’s surprising to me that
the author lauds the Echo. Sounds like that speaker is far more demanding to
manufacture, which...isn’t necessarily a good thing.

------
amaccuish
I just wish the echo had an ethernet port. Its WiFi chip seems real flakey.

------
sg47
How long before Microsoft buys Sonos?

------
2bitencryption
this site format makes me feel like I wasted lots of money on my computer
monitor, because 30% of it is taken up by enormous banners on the top and
bottom of the screen...

~~~
jimnotgym
Have you tried Firefox reading view? No banner, and you still get the teardown
pictures.

~~~
Digit-Al
Odd. When I tried using reader view it only showed the text and not the
pictures.

