Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/google-is-intentionally-making-its-products-worse-for-users-reason-might-surprise-you.html

by alistairSH • 5 years ago

218 292 5 years ago

inc.com

taubek• 5 years ago

Can you block devices from getting an "upgrade" which is basically a "downgrade"?

jdavis7033• 5 years ago

You can, but you’d then be personally violating the patent. That’s illegal, and then you too could also be sued.

CommanderData• 5 years ago

I'm not sure if blocking an update for whatever reason would count as patent infringement on part of a end-user.

alistairSH8• 5 years ago

Or does the consumer have any recourse with Google? I suspect not in the USA, but maybe in the EU (assuming Google rolls this feature removal out globally)?

ocdtrekkie3• 5 years ago

There's a reason Google operates an entire stack for completely encrypted end-to-end communication to Google datacenters, including now encrypted DNS. Essentially anything connected to the Internet, Google can establish a completely unblockable communication with directly, provided you intend to allow it to connect to Google servers at all.

thatguy0900• 5 years ago

I really wish there would be some kind of overhaul in patents. Why was a patent for "The technology in question relates to the ability to connect speakers in groups and control their volume." ever granted? That seems like the very first thing you would do when connecting two speakers. Unless this is some kind of ai that tracks where you are and dynamically changes volumes to maintain a surround sound feel or something where is the novelty at?

nailer2• 5 years ago

Came here to say the same thing. I'm the last fan of Google but "the ability to connect speakers in groups and control their volume" is obvious to conceive of and implement to any engineer with sufficient expertise in the field.

Bud5• 5 years ago

It's not obvious at all, for wireless speakers, especially in complex multi-room setups. If it were obvious and easy, then everyone's wireless audio products would handle this as well as Sonos does. But they don't. I bought two Sonos One SLs and had them set up as a stereo pair that my Apple TV could talk to almost instantly. Then recently I got a Sonos Beam soundbar and wanted to use my One SLs as surround speakers. I expected a long, painful setup similar to what I've experienced with competing products. Instead it was seamless, easy, and delightful, and I haven't had to touch or mess with the setup at all since.

There are also a lot of details like how to handle time delays with a large set of wireless speakers so that sound is synced with a TV picture, comparative volume adjustments for a given acoustic, etc.

Did you read the patents or any other reporting on the patents or this case? For instance:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/01/in-a-flashpoint-for-...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-loses-sonos-p...

smichel17• 5 years ago

Or to anyone who uses an old-fashioned audio receiver ("amp") with wired speakers. Turn the dial, both speakers change volume. Obviously what I want.

I have not read anything besides this article, though, so it's possible the patent is being misinterpreted here.

jdavis7033• 5 years ago

Sound engineers and technicians have been controlling speaker group volume for probably a century now. The Sonos patent is more than just an obvious invention. Otherwise the courts would’ve tossed it out.

dhosek• 5 years ago

From the article, I gathered that the patent isn't on the idea of doing so but the specific implementation. In short, Google took the knowledge they gained from the internals of how the Sonos speakers worked and copied that directly. This is a bit different from, say a patent on a virtual shopping cart where it's more the idea than how it's implemented.

readams• 5 years ago

All patents are on the specific implementation, but patent attorneys work hard to ensure that the claims in the patent (the only part that matters) cover as broad an area as possible.

neuronic• 5 years ago

Yep, Google just blatantly copied Sonos engineering like some Chinese scammer and expects to get away with it.

Bud5• 5 years ago

Might be good to read the patents before posting this comment. The patents in the suit are far, far more detailed than Inc's throwaway one-line description in this article. Sonos' tech here also involves seamless automatic wireless setup and automatically assessing relative speaker volume for a given space, and all kinds of other things. If you've set up a group of Sonos speakers, versus any of the competitors, you know how much better their tech is.

It's not merely "ability to connect speakers in groups". Inc just did a terrible job here.

davweb• 5 years ago

One the relevant patents [1] does just appear to be describing connecting speakers in a group.

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2/en

mattmcknight4• 5 years ago

If the patent didn't cover adjusting the volume for a group of speakers, why did Google have to disable it? While the patent portfolio did include other things, Google is being forced to disable the basic, obvious feature.

AnIdiotOnTheNet• 5 years ago

I've had to set up Sonos equipment in our corporate network (because President gonna President) and frankly I wasn't that impressed. I imagine it works a lot better for home users, but here I had to downgrade WPA3 to WPA2 to get them to see each other on the network, you have to use an IGMP proxy if you want a client to be able to connect from a different VLAN, and things get very confused if you have two different versions set up (because older hardware isn't supported on the newer versions).

s1mon• 5 years ago

The synchronization of multiple zones is definitely non-trivial. Many years ago I had a few Apple Airport Expresses which had audio out. In theory you could use Airplay with these to do much the same thing as Sonos for a lot cheaper. In a one-bedroom apartment, we have 3 zones (bedroom, living room, kitchen) which are all close enough that there's a lot of opportunities to hear sound from 2 or 3 systems at the same time. With Apple it was never in sync. Small delays make the sound miserable. I finally bit the bullet and bought 3 Sonos units. They just work when it comes to the sync.

There are other aspects which made Sonos far superior to just using Apple's Airplay and iTunes, but those are not covered in the patents in question.

My assumption is that if getting 3 devices to stay in sync - with what I assume is UDP streams and WiFi latency hiccups - was easy or even somewhat difficult, Apple would have been able to solve it. But they couldn't. There must be some special sauce here that Sonos developed and patented.

techsin1012• 5 years ago

i doubt this is the end of it, i hope this gets overruled.

strictnein2• 5 years ago

I too hope the 1.82T dollar company doesn't have to pay the company that's roughly 500x smaller than it is.

techsin1012• 5 years ago

this is patent trolling, stuff getting patented is control volume on speakers, swipe on mobile app, double tap to open something... completely obvious non-sense.

hn_throwaway_99• 5 years ago

Infringing on patents need not involve "copying" or "stolen technology", and shitty outlets like Inc. know their framing is BS.

eganist• 5 years ago

I mean, it seems like Inc's pretty clear in their position that Google could just pay for the technology they infringed ("The company doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied") rather than backtrack on features they promised their users, and it's a point that stands pretty well on its own without even needing a long article to back it, though this certainly helps their readers with the background behind what's going on.

I'm keen on seeing whether Google ends up on the receiving end of a class action suit for disabling features that were sold to customers and then disabled after the fact.

jdavis7033• 5 years ago

We may never know if Google used their special insider access with Sonos to steal technology or not. But the optics certainly don’t look good.

Bud5• 5 years ago

On the contrary, we already know, and the details in the suit prove it. Sonos engineers used packet sniffing. Google copied the precise techniques Sonos uses to set up and control speakers.

alistairSH8• 5 years ago

But Sonos claims Google actually did steal the technology. And the court agrees.

From the article: Back in 2013, while Google was considering how it could make its music streaming service work on Sonos' speakers, the latter company gave the search giant an inside look at its technology. At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal. Google wasn't making speakers, and it wasn't in the smart home business at all. It would be another year before it bought Nest as a way to get into the hardware business. Sonos says that as a result of that inside look, Google "blatantly and knowingly" copied its technology and included it in its own products.

leoedin• 5 years ago

The feature is about adjusting the volume of a group of speakers together. That doesn't sound like the kind of thing that you'd need to copy Sonos' source code to implement. Maybe that inside look lead Google to decide to enter the market, but I really doubt the person who wrote the speaker-group volume functionality had ever seen anything from Sonos. If they had they'd be facing copyright infringement lawsuits too.

Ultimately software patents don't really care how something is implemented, just that it has the functionality defined in the patent. So for this ruling it doesn't really matter if Google copied Sonos or not.

strictnein2• 5 years ago

There's an amazingly high number of people not reading this article, even by HN standards.

what_ever• 5 years ago

But Sonos claims Google actually did steal the technology. And the court agrees.

Could you please point to me where you see the ITC (International Trade Commission) that you call as "court" agreeing to the specific paragraph that you posted? I am not arguing with you, just want to know this better myself.

Disc: Googler.

RealityVoid• 5 years ago

You know what, this is bullshit. They are making the customers pay for Google's problems. This is unacceptable, what blame do they have for the IP troubles? Google should pay, if it's deemed to be infringing, but the functionality should stay the same for the customer. Imagine this, someone coming to your house to hobble your product's functionality because another company sued the company you bought the product from.

This is proof of lacking customer protection and leverage.

I think Sonos's case is bullshit anyway, and I think this whole patent environment is ridiculous, but the approach they took to solve it is unethical.

ocdtrekkie3• 5 years ago

Google doesn't and hasn't ever cared if their approach is ethical. It cares that this approach is legal (sometimes), and profitable (always). Do not expect ethics from big corporations.

Handytinge2• 5 years ago

"Don't be evil"

nosianu• 5 years ago

Sorry, but for this link I only get

  404 Page Not Found
  We're sorry for any inconvenience.
  We can't find the page you're looking for.

I would not say anything if it said "blocked for your IP/country", but it appears there is nothing any more behind that link. Was the article removed?

EDIT: Ad-blocker (uBlock Origin) off and the page loads. I should have thought of that, there was a flicker of something else before the "not found". Still very strange to show a "404 Not Found" in retaliation for an ad-blocker instead of complaining about the latter.

alistairSH8• 5 years ago

The article is appearing for me (US).

kop3162• 5 years ago

Are you using uMatrix?

I had to completely disable any scripts to get it to appear, or else I got a 404.

Semaphor4• 5 years ago

Oh, wow. Thank you, that worked for me.

hluska• 5 years ago

If anyone is interested, this article lists five patents:

https://www.usitc.gov/system/files/secretary/fed_reg_notices...

They’re located here (the source is kind of funny):

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9748647?oq=9%2c195%2c258

https://patents.google.com/patent/US10209953B2/en?oq=10%2c20...

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219959B2/en?oq=9%2c219%...

https://patents.google.com/patent/US8588949B2/en?oq=8%2c588%...

https://patents.google.com/patent/US10439896B2/en?oq=10%2c43...

pizza234• 5 years ago

Thanks for posting. The article and it the one it references don't even mention the patents themselves, which is... not exactly great journalism.

invisible• 5 years ago

Wow, only the first of these seems like anything beyond the obvious necessity to synchronize _anything_ (grouping, pairing, synchronizing, settings for a group).

mhb• 5 years ago

If only Google could settle this by creating some software for Sonos to make their interface usable.

boringg5• 5 years ago

This is interesting from a google perspective. From an active Sonos user (4 speakers throughout the house) - I can say that as a product it seems to be getting better but is pretty tough to work with. It doesn't work well with Spotify unless you use their app (why would I want to add another app thats poorly designed for music) - and getting multiple speakers to work together is hit or miss (how ? It's supposed to be a core feature of the system).

I'm torn as I don't really want to support Google - I also don't support Sonos it is a mediocre product wrapped up in a ton of marketing. In the end I guess I'm neutral.

snickerer• 5 years ago

The basic problem I see here is that you don't own the speakers you have bought.

My moral point of view is: I bought the thing so I own it. I must be allowed to understand how it works and I decide what it does. I should be able to change the thing's behavior (if I have the skills) and no one else can do that without my order.

Buying locked black boxes is bad (for the customers). Buying locked black boxes that change their functionality without my consent after I bought them is a so utterly broken system that I don't have words for it.

MereInterest3• 5 years ago

Agreed wholeheartedly. Google is acting like their hands are tied, and cannot possibly take any other action than to remove a feature from existing devices. If they do, they should be fully liable for fraud, having performed a bait and switch. That the switch happened a significant time after the purchase doesn't change the fact that Google misrepresented the capabilities of the product.

duxup3• 5 years ago

having performed a bait and switch

I don’t think getting sued and losing is bait and switch.

fsflover• 5 years ago

If you want to support alternative vendors, have a look at this: https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v12/.

bsedlm3• 5 years ago

What if examining the thing you own endangers somebody (including yourself?) should you be allowed to change its behaviors (consider as an example altering your car in an unsafe way)?

As computers are now everywhere and have to do with everything, it is becoming a real political issue to decide if people should be allowed to really modify their computers.

Smartphones most certainly do not allow it. PCs do, but they're from the hobby dominated earlier phase of the technology.

Buying locked black boxes that change their functionality without my consent after I bought them is a so utterly broken system that I don't have words for it.

I just refer to this as our current situation, and it's going to get worse.

josephcsible3• 5 years ago

What if examining the thing you own endangers somebody (including yourself?) should you be allowed to change its behaviors (consider as an example altering your car in an unsafe way)?

Distinguish "allowed" from "able". It's unsafe to drive around with the brake light bulbs removed, but this doesn't mean that auto manufacturers shouldn't let you change your own brake lights.

pessimizer• 5 years ago

I own any number of things that could be used to endanger others or myself.

6gvONxR4sf7o• 5 years ago

You should be allowed to risk your own danger.

alistairSH8• 5 years ago

Totally agree - I hate that consumer electronics, now including very expensive products like cars, are black-box with OTA updates that can alter functionality in undesirable ways.

The latest update from Tesla including a significant UI update which many owners are unhappy about. One example I heard was the seat-heat control is now buried one level lower in the menu. Not only is that an annoying change, but potentially has safety ramifications - putting controls in a touchscreen is bad enough, but burying them makes those controls unsafe to use underway.

hnburnsy• 5 years ago

Voice control...

"My butt is cold"

"My butt is too hot"

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1v4m7aHk__Kdfkoed...

lkxijlewlf2• 5 years ago

That's the world we're moving towards.

I was recently looking at the Opal C1. Looks great. $300 is a bit rich, but the kicker was they want $4/month for the software! Now, maybe the camera will function without it? I dunno, I kinda stopped right there and didn't look further because that turned me off.

iratewizard• 5 years ago

Key fobs, cameras, and everything else wrapped up with a subscription service. Appliances built to fail so that you won't mind renting every major purchase in your house. Single family homes being bought up by REITs like Blackrock, so a larger proportion of the population has to rent for life. Endless printing of money to devalue what you have and enrich the architects of the broken system. Useless idiots fighting to empower said architects, entranced by the promise of endless charity bringing them to prosperity.

It's a creative form of slavery at least.

alistairSH8• 5 years ago

Ugh. Subscriptions for things that don't require updates or continued support/infrastructure from the vendor drive me crazy.

The Opal C1 is a prime example. It's a webcam. If the feature-set at sale is acceptable to the consumer, there's no additional cost to Opal (no servers to maintain etc) to necessitate a subscription.

It's been posted many times, but it's a good one, so...

The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it."

― Philip K. Dick, Ubik

charcircuit2• 5 years ago

I should be able to change the thing's behavior (if I have the skills)

Sure, but you can't change it to do something that violates someone's patent without licensing it.

dahfizz2• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure I can, as long as I'm not selling it. A patent doesn't ban an object from existence.

Semaphor4• 5 years ago

Another thing I’m currently realizing as I’m building my own completely local smart assistant (based on Rhasspy): Those black boxes are a lot cheaper. Just the hardware I need to replace an Echo Dot (and excluding the Pi 4 that does the heavy processing) could buy me 2 - 3 Echo Dots from Amazon.

ncallaway2• 5 years ago

I’ve just started searching for completely local voice assistants, and had only found Mycroft.

Thanks for mentioning Rhasspy, that looks like exactly what I want (my search skills failed me yesterday).

And I completely agree about HW costs. Just getting a decent mike and speaker peripheral gets you close to the price point of the echo dot.

I’m curious how much researching you’ve put into HW options, and if you’re currently leaning toward any specific HW

synesthesiam2• 5 years ago

Rhasspy author here. Thanks for the shout-out :)

Workaccount22• 5 years ago

Black boxes that you paid for upfront, that change their functionality, and you have to pay $9.99/mo for it.

gameshot911• 5 years ago

Does the moral situation change if I the seller make you agree not to tamper with the product before I sell it to you, and you do so?

cjfd• 5 years ago

Well, 'make you agree' is kind of an oxymoron, isn't it?

rlpb3• 5 years ago

Either I own it or I don't. If you don't want me to tamper with it, then you can't sell it to me. You can give me use of it under some other kind of agreement, but then you can't misrepresent that as a "sale".

yawnxyz• 5 years ago

It's as if the speakers you buy are like contracts on the blockchain that point to jpgs on some Dropbox...

Except in this case it's Google's servers.

And Tesla, Toyota, Keurig and an increasing number of hardware manufacturers will continue to yoink features we think we "own"

cmurf• 5 years ago

I agree. But the Apple culture of selling an experience not a product, with a claimed residual ownership of the hardware to prevent you from completely understanding or controlling how it works and what software runs on it, and who can repair it, is being widely replicated now. John Deere. Tesla.

Requiring owners to use OEM parts to avoid manufacturer voiding the warranty, is a violation of the Magnusson Moss Warranty Act. I don't see why tech companies get away with what automobile companies know they can't. https://www.aftermarketnews.com/hyundai-issues-statement-on-... https://blog.amsoil.com/a-victory-for-consumer-freedom/

Had this act not existed, had the FTC not had the power to send out nasty grams on behalf of consumers, you'd only be able to put in GM branded motor oil to keep your automobile warranty from being voided. It's going to take a broad right to repair law to stop the trend, and unfortunately I'm not sure we'll get it because tech buys politicians. And the vast majority of consumers really just don't give a shit about understanding technology or repair. They willingly just shell out the cash.

kleiba• 5 years ago

For example, these changes mean you'll no longer be able to control the volume of a group of speakers. Instead, you'll have to change the volume on each individually. It also means you'll no longer be able to use the volume buttons on your phone to control a speaker group.

Not here to defend Google, but how can something trivial like that even be patentable?

Mikeb853• 5 years ago

The patent office hands them out like candy... "Rounded corners" anyone?

dmitriid4• 5 years ago

The "rounded corners" narrative needs to die.

It wasn't just rounded corners. It was a combination of design features for a specific device that, among other things, included rounded corners.

CodesInChaos• 5 years ago

Wasn't that a design patent, which is closer to a trademark than an actual patent? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent

lkxijlewlf2• 5 years ago

The argument I see often is things like this seem trivial after the fact.

But isn't that what computers are supposed to be for; networking and connecting devices so that one can control them easily?

nicce• 5 years ago

Yes, but is the patent about concept or specific tecnical solution? If it is about the concept, it blows my mind…

ianferrel• 5 years ago

It's true that genuine advances often seem trivial after the fact, and it can sometimes be hard to distinguish them. In this case, having one volume control multiple connected speakers is how wired stereos have worked for many decades, so while it might have been state of the art in the 1930s, Sonos wasn't involved.

zzt1232• 5 years ago

I bet there’s even a patent for “adjust volumes dynamically per speaker based on real-time positional data to increase volume in a balanced way when possible”. If not, I claim this post demonstrates it’s an obvious thing to implement, so long as the user has their phone or another device equipped with mics on them.

The-Bus2• 5 years ago

Sonos does part of this: when you set up the speaker it sends out pings that are picked up by your phone which you have to wave around like you're doing a cleansing ceremony. To my knowledge it doesn't do this dynamically.

strikelaserclaw2• 5 years ago

Kinda crappy but i'm sure google has tons of patents on things we would find trivial as well, as far as i'm concerned, let shitty mega corps duke it out.

chaosharmonic• 5 years ago

That's also a feedback loop though, that exists in part specifically because of how easy and common patent trolling has been. They have to have patents over stupid trivial things because if they don't register these someone else will, and then suddenly it's an even bigger waste of time and money for everyone involved.

There's a reason orgs like the Alliance for Open Media -- a Google-led initiative -- use licensing that explicitly grants you use of the patents owned by member orgs, but also explicitly revoke those if you sue any of them over a patent claim.

josephcsible3• 5 years ago

let shitty mega corps duke it out

The problem with that is that we the customers end up as collateral damage.

ceras• 5 years ago

Not all companies have an aggressive patent strategy. Historically, I believe Google felt negatively about software patents, and had fewer than other tech companies. Eventually they bought a large portfolio of patents (e.g. through the Motorola acquisition; when they later sold Motorola, they kept the patents) so that they could use them defensively, because not having enough patents became a liability.

Even after that, I believe Google only used their patents defensively: they'd only sue company X for patent violations if company X sued Google for patent violations. When I worked there, that was the impression the company gave off, and some initiatives like "Alliance for Open Media" the other commenter mentioned are in line with that.

I don't think Google is unique in this: older tech companies seem to have more aggressive patent strategies, whereas newer (.com era and onward) seem to dislike software patents but are forced to play the game by more aggressive companies and patent trolls. It's a drag on the industry IMO.

The biggest losers are newer and smaller companies, who haven't had enough time or resources to build up a defensive patent portfolio.

Jensson2• 5 years ago

As far as I know Google are very open that they never use their patents offensively, they just have them as a defence against other companies attacking them with patents. I think that is still true today, can't find any articles about Google suing companies over patents without being sued first.

Now that Googles founders are no longer leading the company that might change, but so far their "do not be evil" still lives on in this regard, at least it did a few years ago.

bagacrap• 5 years ago

using volume buttons to control volume... I don't even... why didn't they just grant Sonos a patent on buttons?

halpert5• 5 years ago

From my reading of the patent, it's not that the concept of speaker groupings was patented. Rather, a specific UI for showing and modifying the groupings and adjusting the volume. Unfortunately, there aren't many different ways to represent groupings in a UI.

duxup3• 5 years ago

UI to do that seems awfully basic.

lostmsu2• 5 years ago

Doesn't regular volume slider controls multiple remote speakers in case of connected Bluetooth headphones?

rektide• 5 years ago

That seems much more like an idea than an invention to me.

alok-g• 5 years ago

The system has not been able to define a solid test for "non-obviousness" which is one of the criteria for patentability. As a result, in my experience, approvals are based most notably on "novelty" -- If no one has seemingly done in the past, it tends to get approved.

In my opinion, that's what has gone wrong with the system, i.e., not the theoretical criteria for patentability but its execution.

jjoonathan• 5 years ago

If the USPTO gets to keep any part of the fees it charges, it is heavily incentivized to allow silly patents through the "non-obvious" gate. Defining "non-obvious" might be tricky, but fixing the incentives would be comparatively straightforward if they are half as broken as they appear to be.

esens• 5 years ago

The core problem is that for someone knowledgeable in the field, everything becomes straightforward, but the further away you are from the field, the more novel it becomes -- this is true across the board. Even the great accomplishments where people win Nobel prizes, often it can be argued that it was going to happen anyhow because it was the next step in scientific progress given the context.

Thus defining "non-obviousness" is super hard to do -- because it is all context dependent and humans are like a million monkeys inventing everything that can possibly be invented in aggregate.

zip1234• 5 years ago

Yes--basically a tech like Bluetooth will come out and then a bunch of dumb patents will come out for 'controlling a microwave with bluetooth' and 'controlling refrigerator with bluetooth' and the patent will be approved even though they are completely obvious and the exact same thing.

jcranberry2• 5 years ago

Amazon had one click buying patented for a long time. It should have expired by now but I don't know whether there's any mechanism to extend it.

seemaze• 5 years ago

I've had BlueSound wireless hifi speakers for some time. Originally the control app was also capable of adjusting speaker volume with the volume buttons on your phone, which I quite enjoyed. It was deprecated (along with the ability to play your iPhone's music library over wifi.. à la airplay) several years ago, presumably due to patent/licensing issues.

xyzzy21• 5 years ago

Yes. That's how it works. 99% of all inventions are "obvious" once you understand how they work - but before that no one can imagine it.

If "buy" buttons can be patented, pretty much anything can be.

Someone• 5 years ago

Also, what exactly do these patents cover? Every wired stereo I’ve seen had a volume control that changed the volume on all speakers. I’m sure such systems were already common half a century ago.

gadders• 5 years ago

No-one remember the Amazon one-click buy patent? [1] A lot of people weren't very happy about it [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click

[2] http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/patent_archive....

mdoms• 5 years ago

Look, everyone on this website is going to agree with you that the patents are pretty silly. But that doesn't change the two central facts of the article,

1. Sonos holds such patents

2. Google (the trillion dollar company) is actively making its products worse for users instead of licensing said patents. These are not free products like GMail, these are products that people have paid for, and these are not trivial features, these are features that were actively marketed for the product.

Perhaps we could discuss this, the actually interesting topic, instead of the same boring discussion about the broken US patent system again and again.

km3r• 5 years ago

Don't feed the [patent] trolls. I used this feature, and will miss it, but would rather Google not give in to abuse of the patent system.

On the otherhand, I will no longer consider Sonos products. Be better Sonos. Bluesound seems like the better alternative that is pushing for innovation over pure profit.

tinus_hn3• 5 years ago

The time to stop discussing the broken patent system is when it is no longer broken. That time is not now.

spywaregorilla• 5 years ago

Huh, I had noticed that my sonos setup did that and wondered why other systems hadn't gotten around to it.

josephcsible3• 5 years ago

In the pre-Internet days, if company A sold a bunch of products to customers that violated company B's patent, company B could go after company A for money and an injunction against selling more products, but they couldn't send goons to break in to all of the customers' houses to damage the already-sold products. Why is the equivalent okay today?

bryanrasmussen• 5 years ago

because products are sold with an easy to break functionality of the product function added to them.

If it were possible to know where all people lived with the product in the old days, and we had instant cheap teleportation of goons for breaking of products back then it would have just been the way things were done.

josefx• 5 years ago

Because now you agree while signing up to Googles services that Google can and will screw you over with online update at any time it feels like it and you have absolutely no legal expectation that your Google toy will still work tomorrow? Let alone have any of the features you bought it with?

inetknght2• 5 years ago

Because now you agree while signing up to Googles services that Google can and will screw you over

Everyone says this. Unfortunately nobody reads the "contract". That alone means that most users do not fully understand what they're doing. On top of that, Google, and many tech companies, frequently misrepresent what they're offering.

jpambrun• 5 years ago

It's probably illegal in most jurisdiction. However, they have lost the case with Sonos and it's more economical/sensical for them to wait for the unlikely event of a class action lawsuit and pay in the more unlikely event of a loss.

In other words, for google to pay damage to Sonos or consumer before having lost to consumer is non-sensical.

samwillis• 5 years ago

Discussion from a few days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29841067

Jyaif• 5 years ago

One way around those bullshit patents is to let users program/script their devices, or install whatever software they want.

Also, with good enough AIs we could work around many patents! Users could simply explain the AIs what they want them to do. Even if the action they teach infringe on a patent, nobody would be able to sue them.

Pxtl2• 5 years ago

Well, it's not like Google speakers make any sense even with this behavior. I keep mine generally ungrouped because I have one speaker per room.

When I broadcast "Okay Google, broadcast: Hey, son, what do you want on your burger?" it's not exactly a stellar experience...

It usually goes

1st speaker: Hey, Son wh

2nd speaker: Hey, Son, what do you wan

3,4,5 in overlap: Hey, son, what do you want on your burger

while my son is trying to answer the first one.

I mean, you're all on the same wifi network this isn't really excusable behavior.

So, Google: even with stolen technology you still kinda stink at this.

ibdf2• 5 years ago

I use it to play music in multiple rooms... it works great.

Pxtl2• 5 years ago

Mine's primarily used for intercom, messaging, and simple weather updates, where its main achievement is intercepting audio requests where it tries to answer things I want to do with my phone and thus blocks my phone from providing useful functionality. "I'm sorry I don't know how to do that" yes but my phone does so shut up and get out of the way.

Multi-room music playing isn't something I've attempted. Do you have the speakers grouped together or keep them ungrouped? Does it do a good job of keeping them in sync? Because my biggest disappointments are generally in the poor coordination between the devices on the network not knowing which should handle a request - often I'll be right next to a speaker and make a request, and the one in the next room will reply, bewilderingly.

peterclary• 5 years ago

I wonder if this also explains the weird >1 year delay for Denon adding the promised wireless speaker grouping support to its Soundbar 550.

cakoose• 5 years ago

For companies in Google's situation, a common tactic is to stop infringing ASAP and then find a workaround. Since patents are typically for mechanisms rather than features, Google might be able to implement a roundabout mechanism to achieve the same goal.

jpgvm• 5 years ago

Patent law is dumb.

I hope Google goes nuclear on Sonos with their ridiculously huge patent portfolio just to show everyone just how petty and stupid the patent infringement system is.

boringg5• 5 years ago

Sonos thought they just got a sweet revenue stream on a BS patent. Such a mediocre company (Sonos). I'm not saying they are a patent troll company but they aren't too far. As a user with lots of their tech in my house I'm very unimpressed with their offering - this patent defense seems inline with their mediocre tech.

Far from a Google Booster here but just funny to watch their revenue stream go up in flames - probably will impact my sonos experience (less R&D money to spend). Sorry to users that will be impacted - don't worry Google will come out with a volume adjuster in the near term.

Veen2• 5 years ago

In my experience, Sonos hardware is great but their software is woefully bad: slow, buggy junk. But then, the same is true of Apple's stuff: HomePod hardware is very impressive, but Siri and Apple Music are crap.

boringg5• 5 years ago

To be fair to Sonos if I want to use their app (that has terrible user experience) I think it would work 99% of the time. I didn't buy Sonos for their music software - I bought it to use Spotify over my speaker system. I don't use Sonos for music (and never will) I use Spotify (Not Spotify embedded in Sonos app) and its a constant cluster of a time to get it working on more than one speaker. Core functionality to their arguably largest user base.

dirtybird04• 5 years ago

Is Apple Music really crap? Their UI isn't the slickest but their service, audio quality, and music catalog is top notch. And unlike their Swedish counterparts, they aren't trying to push crappy podcasts on me to up their revenue

katbyte• 5 years ago

Well because of this I’ll never buy another Sonos product, and recommend everyone I know to something else. I wonder if lost revenue from people like me will make up for any gains here.

toomuchtodo3• 5 years ago

Conversely, I’d rather buy (and intend to) from Sonos versus Google considering Google’s product track record (killing everything in short order).

Using patents to defend yourself from a Big Tech company is the unfortunate reality.

SSLy• 5 years ago

Google participated in industrial espionage while having talks with Sonos, then implemented what they've learned in their products. That's patents working as designed.

Back in 2013, while Google was considering how it could make its music streaming service work on Sonos' speakers, the latter company gave the search giant an inside look at its technology. At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal. Google wasn't making speakers, and it wasn't in the smart home business at all. It would be another year before it bought Nest as a way to get into the hardware business. Sonos says that as a result of that inside look, Google "blatantly and knowingly" copied its technology and included it in its own products.

creato• 5 years ago

If that were the case, we'd be talking about something more substantive than the UI for grouping speakers together.

tssva6• 5 years ago

When the patent case was originally filed Sonos claimed in their press releases that Google even used the same protocol to talk to their speakers that Sonos does. Insinuating that Google stole the protocol. That was actually part of the lawsuit they filed though. The reason why is because the protocols in question are standard UPnP protocols used by most network media devices.

jollybean3• 5 years ago

What part of 'changing the volume on all speakers at once' is 'industrial espionage'?

monocasa2• 5 years ago

A court hasn't seen any of this yet. It was an ITC commission which takes claims of these types at face value with the assumption that disputes can hit the court system.

jacknews• 5 years ago

Is the patent 'controlling speakers as a group' or the detailed mechanism that makes it possible?

In the former case, it's not a patent, but just a feature. Patents need to be about how you accomplish features, and need to be non-obvious.

jcranberry2• 5 years ago

Sonos makes products that are best in class?

The-Bus2• 5 years ago

In terms of what's available in an mass market electronics store, sure. Is it best in class compared to a receiver set up with casting and $2,000 speakers? No, but that's not the problem Sonos is trying to solve.

godDLL• 5 years ago

I remember iPhone 4s (s is for speed). You'd buy one, and then Apple would "upgrade it" via software update removing the s. Which was the thing you bought it for.

I wonder what that was about.

exodust• 5 years ago

I hope there's no patents for EQ settings. It took Sonos 3 years to finally add EQ to the play screen in the app. I'd hate for that to disappear because someone had the idea for: "group of sliders that cut a specific range of frequencies to improve sound quality".

splap• 5 years ago

I have a couple of these nest speakers. They are are wildly unreliable - buyer beware.

suifbwish• 5 years ago

They indeed are. Google search shows vastly worst results than what it’s engine is capable. This is a deep learning trick to train the search models better and better

humanistbot• 5 years ago

I have 10 nest mini speakers in my home, in various speaker groups. My main use cases are broken, because so many different apps play at wildly different volumes. I want to box them up, ship them to google, and get my money back. How do I do this?

ocdtrekkie3• 5 years ago

There is technically nothing stopping you from sending them to a Google office... you have their address. But there is no way they will give you your money back.

nohat• 5 years ago

How much did Sonos pay to get this article written? It's tripping over itself praising Sonos and repeating over and over that Google should pay Sonos.

easton_s• 5 years ago

Linus Tech Tips has a current video showing this kind if patent "non-obvious"-ness was broken long before the "with a computer" age. A mechanical calculator had to split the "divide" button into two buttons because another company had a patent on a "single button division" patent.

https://youtu.be/axtQvkSpoto?t=470

s17n4• 5 years ago

What's really frustrating about this situation for me is that Google has given up on audio (discontinued Chromecast Audio, no replacement for Home Max) but as a result of this bullshit, I also can't use my Google products with Sonos, the one 21st century company that is actually doing audio well. Instead, Google's strategy is to partner with a bunch of legacy audio companies (https://www.google.com/chromecast/built-in/audio/) where you just know that the firmware is going to be jank and the products will all eventually be discontinued, and in the long run these companies are dinosaurs and they are all going to die.

I just clicked through to the NAD chromecast amp and instead of giving me a price and a "buy now" button, there is a "find a dealer" button. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

saiya-jin• 5 years ago

the one 21st century company that is actually doing audio well

I strongly disagree with this. You don't own your speakers which are completely dependent on manufacturer which can brick them permanently on a whim. Fuck that and fuck Sonos. That is not a definition of 'doing audio well in 21st century' in any meaningful sense.

As for audio quality, there are companies making better sounding products that allow you to do whatever you want with their products and usually for much/at least a bit less.

s17n4• 5 years ago

You don't own your speakers which are completely dependent on manufacturer which can brick them permanently on a whim.

Like I said, a 21st century company, with bad things that implies as well as the good things.

neoromantique• 5 years ago

I'd take a NAD amp over anything that Sonos sells any day of the week, thanks.

PaulDavisThe1st2• 5 years ago

and you can have my NAD amp over my dead body, though when I am dead, you can get it with a Slim Devices/Logitech Duet Receiver (Burr/Brown 24 bit DAC), which I'll also take over the current Sonos offerings.

s17n4• 5 years ago

Traditional hifi gear is a niche market. In the past this was fine, but the reality is that niche markets won't support the development and maintenance of high quality software that interoperates well with the ever-evolving ecosystem of streaming services and protocols. Sonos is the one company that is playing by the rules of today's market, has actual software developers working for them, and cares about audio quality.

throwaway2331• 5 years ago

I'm surprised anyone still uses Chromecast.

Too many panicked monkey-beating sessions, where I accidentally clicked the "cast" button on a video has lead me to throw mine out (a gift).

I'd rather just run a HDMI/VGA cable into a TV.

recursive• 5 years ago

Last time I looked, I can't play my audio on a Sonos system. It's a complete non-starter.

timcosta• 5 years ago

Play 5s have an aux in on the back, and if you have your music in spotify on your PC you can use the sonos speakers/groups as an output from the desktop app (and maybe with other services too, i just use spotify so i know this one)

jacquesm• 5 years ago

Sonos is a great implementation of a brilliant concept and a crappy company at the same time.

jimkri• 5 years ago

One of the products on that page is already discontinued: Google Music.

I was so bummed when that happened, I loved being able to upload my own music and have Google music update the metadata and allow me to bring it everywhere. Kind of a data hoarder

celtain• 5 years ago

You can upload your own music to YouTube music, and the music I had previously uploaded to Google music was migrated over at some point (but I think there were manual steps involved, which may no longer be available).

kodah• 5 years ago

Back in 2013, while Google was considering how it could make its music streaming service work on Sonos's speakers, the latter company gave the search giant an inside look at its technology. At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal. Google wasn't making speakers, and it wasn't in the smart home business at all.

Did anyone lose their job?

markhahn2• 5 years ago

The patent system is broken: these features are obvious and should not be protected.

g-technology• 5 years ago

How does Sonos have a patent on this when Squeezebox did speaker groups before Sonos was ever a company?

utopcell• 5 years ago

I find it really sad that Sonos resorted to this. In my mind, this means it is struggling to find it's place in a market that now includes all the big names.

I own a Sonos play:5, a couple Nest Hubs and some Amazon echoes, and even to this day, in terms of sound quality, nothing beats the play:5.

I wonder if Sonos has gone after Apple as well for this trivial patent.

K0balt• 5 years ago

I mean, it sounds like a stupid patent, but if the court says so then it’s valid. We either live with the rule of law or we don’t. Also, we need to fix IP law, but I digress.

But… wtf Google? Do you have some kind of “we don’t negotiate with people we stole from” ultimatum, or are you just trying to piss off the people that bought into your dystopian nightmare buttons?

bilalq• 5 years ago

I'm no fan of Google as a company, but it really sucks how patents are still being abused to the detriment of the average person. I wonder what the likelihood of retaliation is, since I'm sure Google has a much deeper patent catalog they could weaponize.

granzymes• 5 years ago

This seems like it could lower the likelihood of future patent troll lawsuits against Google. They've established here that they are willing to just remove features instead of paying royalties.

Sonos no doubt lost a lot of money on this lawsuit.

nikolay• 5 years ago

Boycott Sonos! I am not a fan of Google, but sometimes I don't get how companies like Sonos get patents on stuff that's not really an invention - it's called "common sense"!

dreamcompiler2• 5 years ago

The main reason I (literally) threw my Nest thermostat in the trash was that Nest (Google) kept installing updates I couldn't veto, and without exception every update made the device worse. I disabled the wifi for a while but of course then I could no longer control the thermostat with my phone, so eventually I just replaced it with a dumb thermostat and I've not bought a Nest product since.

dusted2• 5 years ago

"technology" yeah, like one control to adjust the volume on MORE THAN A SINGLE SPEAKER AT A TIME.. I think that feature is also on.. every single piece of audio equipment I've ever owned.. making it wireless is not even an innovation.

Handytinge2• 5 years ago

I look forward to the class action against Google for this.

Google doesn't want to pay Sonos for technology it copied

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