
Sonos Sues Google: It wanted to sue Amazon but could only risk suing one - totaldude87
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2020-01-07-sonos-sues-google.html
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j-pb
I don't have any sympathy left for Sonos.

It used to be about a remote controllable midrange hifi that didn't stop
playing when your phones battery died or your laptop turned off, a system
"that just worked". Right now I have 5k in Sonos speakers littered around the
house that I haven't bothered to setup after a bridge broke because I know
that it's just gonna f __* up again with the next forced update.

Their entire always online bulls __*, their "recycling bricking", and their
general consumer hostility pushed them from a company I wholeheartedly liked
to "avoid like the plague" territory.

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vhold
I feel like Tivo went down a very similar path. Create a beloved product and
then murder it with anti-consumer software updates.

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m463
Why can't companies just make and sell things anymore?

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jeffshek
It’s hard to make rational long term decisions if the CEO is trying to boost
short-term profits for public markets.

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sitkack
I am displeased with Sonos due to their "recycling kill switch". Insert the
stronger language of your choice. They shouldn't have a patent on anything
they have done. Ask anyone who has a degree in signals for a solution to the
problem of multi speaker sound. You will have a pile of solutions in less than
20 minutes.

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audiosyncprart
"synchronizing mp3 playback" (p4sync,) DECEMBER 29, 2002 UPDATED DECEMBER 30,
2017
[https://snarfed.org/synchronizing_mp3_playback](https://snarfed.org/synchronizing_mp3_playback)

Unfortunately, USPTO only searches it's own database for published prior art.
It's up to everyone else to find and show prior published art (and/or explain
obviousness) in order to invalidate a patent being used non-defensively.

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djsumdog
Shouldn't they be suing Apple (airpods)? Who was the first to come up with
bluetooth speakers syncing with each other? Also, who are they going to sue
with multi-device broadcast becomes a Bluetooth standard (as it's currently
being proposed).

Can America et. al. please just ban software patents already like New Zealand
did?

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peapicker
Apple Airport Express, which contains an audio out (which I hook to my stereo
to synch playing music in multiple parts of the house) and does synchronized
streaming, made it to the market one year (2004) before Sonos's first product
did (2005). Apple later remove the WiFi extender and added a speaker and
renamed the product appropriately, but it is and evolution of the same pre-
Sonos technology and probably is why they aren't trying to sue Apple.

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gnicholasgreen
Am I the only one here that doesn't have any problem with my home SONOS
system? My family constantly plays music in most rooms of the house using a
Spotify premium account. It's been a godsend, and it truly makes me feel like
we are living in the future. All the sueing and inter-corporate politics is a
little annoying to hear about, but I still listen to the speakers daily
without giving it all much thought.

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NoPicklez
I don't have a problem with mine at all. I've had Sonos speakers for about 4
years now. Two play 3's, playbar, Sub and a Play 1.

Works better than when I got it, everyone in the house knows how to use it to
play music and watch movies etc. Allows me to play my Spotify playlists and
them to play their Apple music playlists.

The stuff works fine and I update it all as soon as a new update comes out.
I'd like to know if other people are having issues, just to know what to look
out for. But I've had it for quite a while now and it blows people's minds
when they see how it all works and how easily it works.

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ycombm
Let's not forget when Sonos made us create a user account. A lot of us never
wanted any Sonos user account, ever, and we were held hostage. We should have
been offered a full refund if we did not want the account.

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antiterra
Complaint is here: [https://www.scribd.com/document/442035843/Sonos-v-
Goo](https://www.scribd.com/document/442035843/Sonos-v-Goo)

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jpeg_hero
I wish they would have sued Spotify.

Spotify frequently aggressively breaks Sonos for what I assume is anti-
competitive reasons.

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jborichevskiy
> Spotify frequently aggressively breaks Sonos for what I assume is anti-
> competitive reasons.

Any insight as to why they would do that? As far as I'm aware Spotify has no
interest in selling hardware of their own, and Sonos isn't competing with them
on the streaming front.

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Spivak
No, but they do have an interest in getting _their_ software and protocol into
these devices with Spotify Connect.

I'm personally really happy with this because the implementation is really
slick. They're using their leverage on smart speaker makers to support them
rather than the reverse because they can -- and the result from a user
perspective is really nice since there's no weird compatibility issues. You
either speak the connect protocol or you don't.

[https://spotify-everywhere.com/](https://spotify-everywhere.com/)

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jituc
All such useless patents on concept and software functoonality encourage
patent trolls.

