Sonos released their new privacy policy a week ago and in it revealed that they were setting up for the introduction of a Sonos smart speaker. Today one such speaker has been seen making its way through the FCC.
With Apple releasing a smart speaker that apparently has high quality sound, traditional speaker companies such as Sonos need to do something to prevent encroachment on their bottom line. Sonos have signalled their intentions to make a speaker that can be used with multiple voice assistants in their privacy policy followed by a spokesperson saying that “it also covers future voice experiences like additional voice assistants and any future products with integrated microphones.”
The FCC filing is for a Sonos speaker that has integrated voice control:
The EUT is 802.11 a/b/g/n (HT20) Client Device. Product model S13 is a high-performance all-in-one wireless smart speaker and part of Sonos’ home sound system. S13 adds integrated voice control functionality with far field microphones. Moreover, the device will support multiple voice platforms and music services, allowing customers to effortlessly control their music on Sonos.
The only included picture shows the controls for the speaker suggesting that there is a button for the mic which is strange — you would expect it to have always listening capabilities such as the Google Home speaker. It may still have these capabilities but it does make you wonder.
On the other hand, imagine a speaker that you could use with any voice assistant you choose (assuming it had always listening capabilities) that provided a high end audio experience. Sonos are not revealing any more than they already have but experts remain hopeful that they will announce it next week at CEDIA 2017.
I’ll take one. Anyone else?
Not touching any Sonos stuff while it still requires the use of SMB1. http://aka.ms/stillneedssmb1
That’s interesting that haven’t changed. Have they given a reason?
Haven’t been able to find a reason at all. The source thread linked on that SMB1 Product Clearinghouse page hasn’t had much beyond the “We’ve logged your feedback” line.
https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990/sonos-support-for-smb-2-0-protocol-6739642/index4.html
Doesn’t seem great for Sonos to not switch over to a more secure protocol. I’m new to this Sonos implementation but from what I read it only affects local streaming from local storage?
“Sonos only uses SMB for sharing your local music library off of a Windows computer or a network attached storage (NAS) drive.”
Is this how you see it?
Yes it would only affect streaming from local libraries stored on a PC or NAS (streaming from Spotify, Google Play Music, etc is unaffected). That being said, SMB1 was used as the attack vector for WannaCry and NotPetya and even MS discourage the use of SMB1 (so much so that it won’t be installed by default on clean installs starting with Windows 10 RS3).