So there are alternatives to Snips but, what could be suitable alternatives to SONOS for an open, multi room sound system?
Logitech Media Server aka Squeezebox. Logitech stopped making the hardware some time ago, but it is still available second hand, and you can make your own very simply.
It is well integrated with HA.
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I have a feeling the company Sonos itself will shut down / acquired by one of the big tech company… soon
Volumio is a great lossless audio system that has very light hardware requirements and is supported by HA.
How is synchronisation between players in volumio?
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I personally have not tried it but there is this plugin on my radar that is still in active development that claims synchronization.
I run a single volumio system and audio is very good.
So is squeezebox and it can sychronise many players together.
Nothing worse than the player in the next room being ahead or behind.
The question was about a multi room sound system.
What a sad story! I was really keen on using Snips for my home automation. Good that I didn’t spend any effort in Snips yet!
I was also hoping that SONOS will open their APIs (for mic) so that Snips could use that. The strategy of SONOS was anyway strange to me and now it’s more or less clear: It was just a good way / politics to destroy a potential competitor to Amazon Alexa or Google home! :-/
Really sad what huge market leaders can do just with a lot of money!
I will sell my existing SONOS devices (I bought them for trial) in order to get rid of this manufacturer! I hope, many people will follow and do NOT SUPPORT this kind of politics!
For long-term these companies are just looking for a way where they can constantly monitor our private live (mic in your living room with internet connection).
I hope there will be good and powerful alternatives like Snips in the near future so that this kind of politics will be boycotted!
@Rand Hindi, please come back with your second life!
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Maybe Bose is not yet bought by the big players (Amazon/Google) and could develop an independent and open hardware for such offline voice assistant toolkit. It could be the perfect alternative to SONOS. We should give them a hint!
I use Snapcast ( https://github.com/badaix/snapcast/ ) with it’s Spotify Connect plugin and Mopify for radio. Works great for me atleast.
For hardware I use whatever I have available in the room, eg. a HTPC with a Receiver in the livingroom, and RaspberryPi’s with HiFiBerry on some other rooms.
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And how does synchronisation go with that?
With Snapcast? Works like a charm, all my audio-devices are in perfect sync according to my ears at least.
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Thank you, I suppose I could have clicked on your link and seen for myself 
Managed to install snapcast on my volumio. And setup an old tablet, laptop, and Android tv box as snapcast clients. Synchronization is impressive 
. Every time i read a new thread on this forum i find another rabbit hole to venture down. Starting to crave lettuce and carrots.
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I hope most people are wise enough to judge SONOS products as such and not some “kind of politics”. Why are you not blaming Snips themselves that they agreed to be sold? I wish people wouldn’t create such provocative topics in attempt to manipulate other’s opinions and create some anger 
Sonos employee?
Don’t be silly. You can have a supportive opinion without a material interest.
For the record I have used Sonos almost since it began and it is exceptionally good. Well, maybe not exceptionally now but when it came out it was light years ahead of anything else.
I lost some love for it when it started focussing so much on Apple. I think they aligned themselves far too much to the ‘superior style’ of Apple products.
And they do things now that annoy me too but hey, they’ve become a huge brand and that’s what happens.
I find HA (as a nebulous concept) somewhat hypocritical sometimes when ‘it’s people’ (notice the quotes) berate so many of these companies for practises they don’t like and then flock to Google and Amazon when the technology use suits them.
And yes, that is a massive generalisation, not directed at anyone in particular (and certainly not at @nickrout). And it’s a big subject. Bigger than this thread can stand…
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Hi Alex, SONOS is a great hardware as such and has a good sound. But to me SONOS doesn’t seem to be just a multimedia manufacturer anymore. I’ve been watching these companies for a while now. Just look at the facts, that normal customers (unfortunately) don’t care about.
By integrating proprietary software, the user is dependent on Sonos’ corporate policy and software.
Sonos is criticized for collecting unnecessary data from users. In 2017, the company once again expanded its scope by revising its privacy policy. If a customer refuses to deliver, software updates are no longer available, which, according to Sonos spokesman, means that the devices will no longer function as usual. [8] [9]
In July 2018, Sonos introduced compulsory registration for all its devices. A reuse of the speakers is since then no longer possible without a customer account, which angered many customers. [10] [11]
The Sonos system forces the use of SMB1 / NTLMv1 for local music libraries [12], whose security problems have become internationally known by WannaCry.
Source: https://dewiki.de/Lexikon/Sonos_(Unternehmen)
We can call it “politics” or “strategy”. But for me it is the same and has a bad taste for customers in terms of privacy.
Amazon and Sonos have entered into a “long-term strategic collaboration,” accoriding to Engadget, that essentially makes Alexa the primary voice interface for Sonos’s line of speakers.
Source: http://www.aftvnews.com/alexa-enabled-devices-will-be-able-to-control-sonos-speakers-in-2017/
… … … please read my next post since I am only allowed to post max two links …
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… … …
Amazon, as a company which is known for collecting user / customer data, and SONOS together develop a huge potential for collecting private data. Keep in mind: “data is the new oil, but information is the new gold” (source: https://www.it-daily.net/it-management/big-data-analytics/17846-daten-sind-das-neue-oel-aber-informationen-sind-das-neue-gold)
People asked why SONOS did not open their microphone APIs in the past so that Snips etc. could just use it. It would have been an amazing combination for offline usage (without private data collection!): SONOS speaker + mic with Snips.
End of 2018 Snips suddenly stopped their great project to offer own hardware Snips Air, which could have become a strategic competitor to other voice assistants like Amazon Echo / Alexa. Now we can ask ourselves why they stopped this project.
Source: https://medium.com/snips-ai/5-lessons-from-a-failed-token-sale-410e47a66647
Now lets come back to Snips, since you asked me to blame them that they agreed to be sold. Let’s assume the following situation (we don’t say that this happened!): When such global players (Amazon, Sonos, etc.) put a lot of political pressure on you … you cannot concentrate anymore on your core business, since you spend much energy on politics … finally they offer you $37.5 million. Would you say NO?
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