Tag: Sonos

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Mobile Syrup

Changes coming to Google Nest Speaker Group controls, device set-up following Sonos ruling

Following the United States’ Internactional Trade Commission’s (ITC) ruling in favour of Sonos over Google, the Mountain View, California-based tech giant has detailed several changes to how its Nest/Home Speaker Groups and setup process.

Google says that “a small set of users” will need to use the “Device Utility app” to setup devices and install updates. Below is the full statement from the tech giant.

“A small set of users will need to use the ‘Device Utility app’ (DUA) to complete product installation and updates. You may receive a prompt to download and run DUA, and it will ensure that your device is connected to Wi-Fi and receives the most updated software version.”

Further, users will need to adjust the volume of each speaker individually instead of using a group volume controller. It’s also no longer possible to adjust the volume of a Speaker Group from your smartphones physical buttons. However, you can still do this with a single Google smart speaker.

When it comes to third-party Assistant-enabled speakers, Google says that functionality should remain identical other than the volume rocker being disabled.

Given this is a feature I use quite frequently with my Google Home smart speaker setup when listening to music throughout my entire house, this is definitely dissapointing from a user perspective. Devices effected by this change include Pixel smartphones, the Nest Hub, Nest Mini, older Google Home devices, the Chromecast and more.

Below is a full statement from Google regarding third-party devices:

“Most Speaker Groups should continue functioning as expected unless you have a speaker group containing other brands of Cast-based devices, like JBL or Lenovo, they need to be on 1.52.272222 or higher Cast firmware version. Check out this article on how to find your device’s firmware version or contact your device maker.”

In a statement sent to several publications, Google says that though it doesn’t agree with Google’s decision, it “appreciates that the International Trade Commission has approved our modified designs” and that the company doesn’t expect the ruling to impact its ability to import or sell its products.

With this in mind, it’s unlikely that the ruling will have a future affect on Google’s ability to continue to sell or import its devices around the world. The tech giant has 60 days to implement these changes according to the ITC.

You can find Google’s full blog post about the changes coming to its speakers, here.

Source: Google Via: The New York Times 

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Mobile Syrup

Sonos Boxing Week deals start December 24th with $30 off Roam

Sonos will kick off its Boxing Week offers on Thursday, December 24th this year and the deals will run until the 27th. If you’re in the market to pick up a new Sonos speaker, that might be the time to do it.

Ahead of the Boxing Week event, Sonos revealed that it would have its new Roam speaker on sale. The Roam will be available for $199 in Canada, down from the regular $229 price.

Unfortunately, Sonos didn’t share any other details about its upcoming sale, so you’ll need to wait until December 24th to see what other deals the company will have on.

Those interested can learn more about the Sonor Roam by checking out MobileSyrup’s review here.

You can check out all of Sonos products on the company’s website.

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Mobile Syrup

Sonos working to make future products more efficient and repairable

Speaker company Sonos announced plans to make its speakers last longer and use less energy. The plans come as part of the company’s larger effort to make itself more sustainable by minimizing e-waste and pollution that drives climate change.

According to The Verge, improving the repairability of products is a significant part of Sonos’ plans. The company started a ‘Design for Disassembly’ program this year to help guide the development of new speakers in 2023.  The program will include changes like using fasteners instead of adhesives, which will make it easier for consumers to take Sonos products apart and repair them.

Unfortunately, Sonos hasn’t revealed much more about the program yet. So far, it’s unclear if Sonos plans to make replacements parts and repair manuals available to customers.

Still, Sonos’ director of policy and corporate social responsibility confirmed to The Verge that the program will “make it easier to repair, refurbish and, eventually, recycle future Sonos products.”

Sonos will start using recycled plastics in its products

Aside from improving repairability, Sonos plans to start using post-consumer recycled plastic in all its products by the end of 2023. Although using recycled plastics can help prevent some plastics from ending up in landfills, oceans or animals, The Verge points out that recycling has so far not been a great solution for dealing with the worsening plastic pollution problem. Worse, because plastic degrades each time it’s reused, many companies mix in new plastics with recycled plastics. As demand for recycled plastics grows, it could lead to greater demand for new plastics too.

Another goal Sonos has is to include ‘sleep mode’ on all its products by 2023. Sleep mode can reduce power consumption when a device is idle — Sonos first added it to its Roam speaker this year. The company aims for its products to use less than 2 watts while idle.

Interestingly, Sonos says that about 75 percent of its carbon footprint comes from the energy its products use over their lifetime. That differs significantly from other consumer electronics, which see up to 80 percent of CO2 emissions come from manufacturing, according to a Greenpeace report. Factoring in both Sonos’ supply chain and consumers’ energy use, Sonos says it was responsible for CO2 emissions equivalent to 267,528 cars driven over a year.

Relying on carbon offsets to cancel its legacy pollution

Finally, Sonos wants to cut emissions from its products’ energy use by 45 percent by 2040, as well as cancel its entire footprint by that date through a mixture of carbon offsets and tech that removes CO2 from the atmosphere. Again, however, carbon offsets aren’t exactly a reliable solution — this ProPublica report details some of the rampant problems with relying on carbon offsets. Further, technologies that remove CO2 from the atmosphere have not yet scaled up to meet the needs of companies promising to use the tech to erase their legacies of pollution.

All that said, it is good to see Sonos at least make the effort. The company should prioritize reducing its environmental footprint since that will likely have a more immediate impact than relying on carbon offsets to take care of past pollution. Hopefully, Sonos will lead the way in the smart speaker space and drive more companies to adopt environmental policies like sleep modes and other things that reduce carbon footprints.

Source: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Sonos supports lossless music from Amazon, Apple Music likely to follow

It’s taken Sonos some time, but the audio company finally has another app ready to take advantage of its speaker’s high-quality streaming abilities.

Amazon Music joins french streaming service Qobuz and Sonos’ own Sonos Radio HD as one of the few music streaming platforms that supports lossless audio. Select devices like the Sonos Arc and Gen 2 Beam soundbars can also play supported songs from Amazon Music with Dolby Atmos.

Beyond the high-quality 3D audio, Amazon Music supports both 16-bit streams, marked ‘HD’ or 24-bit streams labelled as ‘ultra HD.’ The sample rate also caps out at 48kHz for those interested. However, to get these higher-end streams, you’ll need to use a Sonos speaker that’s compatible with the Gen 2 app (the brown one).

While I’m sure there are lots of audiophiles with Amazon Music, I imagine that there more people using Apple Music, so I’ll be very keen to see when Sonos drops that update. The company hints that it’s coming, in a recent blog post outlining HQ audio terms, but no timeline is given. The audio quality explainer is very interesting if you’re into that kind of thing.

It’s nice to see Sonos expanding to support high-quality audio from more services. Apple and Amazon both added lossless streaming to their services in May 2021 and Tidal has had the feature for ages. Now that many Sonos users are upgrading to the newer speakers that use the new app, it’s nice to be able to stream music in HQ easily.

Source: Sonos

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Mobile Syrup

It looks like Sonos could have plans to release a smaller subwoofer

Multi-room audio company Sonos may have leaked its next product through its app. The latest update to its app mentions a new Sub Mini.

Sonos has yet to reveal the device officially, but its name hints that it will be a subwoofer. This means that it will attach to an existing audio system to provide additional bass. The Sonos app’s ‘Quick Help’ page describes the Sub Mini as cylindrical in shape. This is a stark contrast to the rectangular design the main Sonos Sub features.

The ‘Sub Mini’ is mentioned in the last paragraph.

The regular Sub (Gen 3) costs $949 in Canada, so hopefully, the Sub Mini will be priced under $500. That said, I expect it to fall in the $600-$700 price range.

The existing Sonos Sub is also already pretty reasonably sized, so the Sub Mini is possibly even smaller than the Sonos Move.

Sonos has a pretty solid track record of releasing two products per year. For example, in 2021 the audio company released the Sonos Roam in April. With this in mind, the Sub Mini might drop in the spring of 2022.

Source: Reddit user Via: Android Police 

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Mobile Syrup

It looks like Sonos is going to deliver a voice assistant soon

Sonos may be on the cusp of delivering its own digital assistant if a recent leak on Reddit is correct.

A few years ago, Sonos bought the privacy-focused digital assistant startup Snips. Since then, it’s been widely assumed that the company is working on its own digital assistant to playback music on its speakers. There have even been job listings at Sonos related to digital assistants.

Now, with this leak from Reddit, it appears that we’re getting our first real look at what the logo for the assistant might be. And surprisingly, it also shares the same shape as the text bubble within the Alexa logo. The leak also shows the Sonos assistant logo beside a Google Assistant icon, but it appears that it won’t work at the same time as that version.

The Verge speculates that these images mean that Alexa and the Sonos assistant can run concurrently, but not the Sonos assistant and Google Assistant. This aligns with prior reports claiming that Amazon was open to letting Sonos run both Alexa and Google Assistant at the same time on its speakers, but Google kiboshed the idea.

When it comes down to it, I’m not sure how I feel about Sonos having its own digital assistant. So far, I’ve found either Alexa or Google Assistant are able to cover most of my needs. There is an argument to be made that Sonos can keep all of the voice processing on-device for privacy reasons, but I’d expect most people won’t care.

Source: u/michary Via: The Verge 

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Mobile Syrup

Ikea x Sonos table lamp gets new design and AirPlay 2

Sonos and Ikea are back again with a successor to the Symfonisk table lamp from 2019. The new version of the lamp features AirPlay 2 support, new shade options and better sound quality.

The new shades are more cylindrical than the original version, and there’s a transparent glass option with a fogged centre column that diffuses the light. The other shade fabric features a translucent centre column to help diffuse its lighting. It’s a little hard to explain if you haven’t seen the first-gen table lamp, but this refreshed version looks nicer than the original and I really like the symmetry in the fabric version.

Ikea says that it found most people were using the Symfonisk on their nightstand and that made the company shrink down the base of the lamp to make it easier to place in some instances.

The other change this year beyond the addition of AirPlay 2 and slightly better sound quality, is that Ikea sells the more decorative shades. This means that the lamp costs $160, the glass shade is an extra $40 and the textile option is $20.

Overall, this is one of my favourite Sonos speakers and one that I think more people will likely get use out of compared to the weird wall art attempt from earlier this year.

It will be interesting to see if Ikea sells the bookshelf version of the Symfonisk that was originally priced at $149, just a little cheaper than the new lamp without a shade. The old lamp was priced at $249, so the new version seems to split the middle between the two original Symfonisk speakers. This suggests to me that Ikea will only sell the new lamp and the frame moving forward.

The lamps will start being sold at Ikea Canada locations on October 12th.