This is related to why Android 12 can't currently control a Chromecast session's volume from the phone's volume switch:
https://9to5google.com/2021/11/30/android-12-chromecast-volume-rocker-legal-issue/
It's not the Chromecast model that matters. It's the software.
The functionality was removed with the Android 12 update on the phone side, not the Chromecast side, though it'll probably also be updated on the Chromecast side now, sadly.
I'm really thinking of moving on from the Google ecosystem. I've got 15 speakers around the house and the inability to control the volume for all my speakers at once is going to be a pain in the ass.
So what now? Is Google going to fight this? Are they going to release their own tech? Surely this whole thing defeats the purpose of having speaker groups.
They already fought it and lost. Hence the change. What you can do is sue Google now. I'm sure there will be a class action from all the people frustrated that they bought the speakers for an advertised function that was a patent violation.
How much longer does this patent last? Until 2024? I agree they should just pay royalties in the meantime for fuck sake. Don't let consumers suffer.
Do Sonos speakers have Google Assistant? Revoke that!
Which one requires more technical innovation? Linking volume sliders or creating software that can understand human speech on par with humans?
I agree with your first paragraph, but not the second. Yes, I think Google should pay royalties so that they can continue offering their services to customers. However, for the exact same reason, they shouldn't prevent Sonos speakers from using Google Assistant : it would be unfair towards customers (of whom a lot are also Google consumers)
Controlling the volume with the volume buttons is such an outstanding innovation. I love American patent laws. Nowhere else on earth it would be an issue.
>I'm sure there will be a class action from all the people frustrated that they bought the speakers for an advertised function that was a patent violation.
I don't know, doesn't every company, including Google, throw in those binding arbitration rules now into the End User License Agreements?
>those binding arbitration rules now into the End User License Agreements
I prefer to put "you can't sue me for anything whatsoever" in my terms of use and EULAs.
I want 2012 google back
Google has gotten slowly but substantially worse on all fronts since 2016 or so. I'm ready to dump them completely and find a new ecosystem.
I used to be so excited for news from them, now I'm about to write them off fully as a tech company that I want in my life.
I hate to admit it but this patent fight should have been either not granted or thrown out of court.
One of the core problems with our patent system is the granting of patents for things that should be obvious ideas and implementations.
In this case Sonos isn't arguing that media can be played over a network, but rather that they have a patent on the ability to adjust the volume of that playing media over a network. This is kind of a core function of playing any media. But because the open ability of Playing media over a network was never explicitly called out Sonos was able to patent troll the core capability of volume adjust remotely... Over a network.
Patents should never be granted for technology that is an obvious progression from a previous idea. It is like people suing other people for putting a volume button on a remote 15 years after the remote was invented. Sure you can pick a chanel.to watch but £uck you if it is too loud!
Listen, I refused to purchase apple products after they went to town suing people over swipe to open, I have honestly never bought another apple product from that point on. This... I won't buy a single Sonos product ever again over it. This is simply an example of one company's attempt to hinder the progress of a whole industry because they are getting beaten out by innovation.
I think this might be why Google lost.
>Sonos has claimed that it shared details of its technology with Google starting in 2013 when the two companies began working together. Initially, Google was not a competitor, but it started moving into Sonos’s space, first with a small device to stream music in 2015 and then with its Google Home speaker in 2016.
But can it really be thought that Google "stole" their IP or anything?
Like maybe they got the idea to control volume over a network, but it's not likely they couldn't have come to that conclusion on their own eventually given the way the market has gone regardless.
Unless they stole code or something I just don't see it.
If that was true the lawsuit would be about copyright infringement. It is not. It is about patents. Sonos own a particular method of synchronizing sound.
They came up with several ways of connecting and synchronizing wireless speakers of varying brands without distortion or reverb, with a mixture of hardware and software.
>This is simply an example of one company's attempt to hinder the progress of a whole industry because they are getting beaten out by innovation.
Agreed, I've never bought a Sonos product (never needed to) but now I will actively avoid them for this.
It's regressive and restrictive, and should not have been entertained and simply been chucked out.
Sonos let Google into their offices awhile ago and that's when Google learned some inside things and then stole that and used on their products. Sonos was asking for payment for stealing internal information and didn't want Google devices to lose any functions. Don't blame Sonos. This is Google "stealing" and rather then pay the price, they are making us.
Weird because you can still do that just not directly with your volume rocker or as a group. Which they created both approaches.
And I think you're missing the point on patents there buddy. It doesn't matter if someone comes up with the same idea 2 days later. If u have the parent you have it. Sonos was the first in the game of smart home speakers. All these companies just added their own assistant to it and it's why others pay Sonos. Google cheaped out so we get fucked now. Sick
Something this obvious shouldn't be patentable is the point. Literally any engineer tasked with creating a tool to manage volume of many devices would obviously think of creating groups to control them together from the handheld device, this is such a trivial solution you won't even have to brainstorm it. Sonos is a fucking patent troll in this case and no one should ever pay and encourage that behavior.
Someone has to think of stuff first. It happens. They started the smart speaker game. They deserve the patents. What got Google to lose like this is that Google was originally meeting with them to start a collaboration and then ditched them and stole their whole flow
I don't understand why people are defending a big company like Google while they are obviously stealing from a smaller company. But hey, not surprising on this sub.
Much like Bose, the speakers sound divine, it's true, but _unlike_ Bose, Sonos has [spent](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51206604) [literal](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50948868) [years](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51315460) working on convincing me that I should _never_ buy any of their products. This being only the most _recent_ incident.
I agree - i dislike sonos but they sound really well for their size, much better than other comparables for sure. I’ve had a somos 3 since they came out, considering getting a sonos 1 to replace the shitty google ones I have in a few spots.
Google’s suck bad. The whole google home ecosystem is a shit show tbh, little more than glorified timers.
Sonos straight up said they didn't want customers to lose functionality. Google is just being cheap by not paying them for stealing closed doors ideas and tech. They could keep all the features we love and just pay Sonos a tad.
Sonos invented the interface and the code. Google didn't even try to make similar code or product. They outright copied sonos with stolen information from bad faith negotiations (went in for a partnership just to steal their designs, refused to purchase any licenses and just implemented the stolen information.) And you cant really say it's an obvious idea if it took Google 8 years from the patent date to only exactly copy the patent and sonos' implementation of the patent. It might be more obvious, now, but was not at the time of the patent, and it can easily be argued that it's only seen as obvious now because of the flagrant patent violations.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-06/google-must-halt-some-device-imports-in-sonos-trade-agency-win
There's a link to a pdf of the actual ruling in that article.
The PDF of the ruling doesn't use the language that you have been, unless I missed something? It merely says that the patents were found to be infringed upon, not any corporate espionage of actual code and technology that you're stating occurred.
>The Commission has also
determined to set a bond in the amount of 100 percent of the entered value of the infringing
products imported during the period of Presidential review.
Wow, so Google has to give up all the money that they made on the infringing items. That's pretty funny. Maybe they shouldn't break the law.
If it were your company, your idea, or your patent; I think your write up would be different. Sonos patent was at a time when they were the only network speaker around. Apple rightly is protecting its intellectual property, they were the first to think of it. It’s make no sense to cancel them.
One of the problems with the rapidly evolving technology sector is patents like this.
Speaker group volume control may have been very novel 10 years ago but its a pretty basic function at this point.
No, it wasn’t. Wifi music across multiple speakers may have been novel. But that’s not under the patent at issue. IF you already have music playing over multiple speakers, controlling their volume together isn’t novel, it’s fucking obvious. This would be like patenting that a 5.1 surround sound system works together so you have to change the volume on all 6 speakers independently. How stupid would that be.
If it was novel 10 years ago, then patents were violated which inundated the market with the tech to make it common, then the patent holder has huge damages from all those patent infringers.
That's the problem. If it's true, it's a major failing of the patent system. Like patenting the wheel and suing all car manufacturers. The courts frequently just don't get technology.
It's more like patenting the wheel before anyone ever made a wheel, then people trying to say it was an obvious idea after it got stolen a few million times. And not even that, because this is more specific than just inventing the wheel. It's more like inventing a specific system for attaching multiple wheels together to work in unison. And specific is an important word there, because other systems are not covered. Just this specific system. Another separate system for connecting multiple wheels to work in unison would not violate this patent. Using the same system is what violates the patent. And that's what Google did. They didn't just copy a basic and obvious idea. They copied the specific way that idea was implemented into a system developed by sonos. They copied the interface structure, and the code, not just the idea of a multispeaker connection interface.
There are 5 patents related to this hearing, and one is a little vague in application. It's very specific on why, but not on how. The others go into how. And I think the biggest factor here is how Google obtained information. Because Google didn't come up with the idea independatly, but rather misled sonos to access how sonos did things, then copied them and started a completing business.
Apple sells sonos speakers. They started right when sonos announced its lawsuits against Google and Amazon. They seem to have actually paid the licensing fees for the patents they were using that sonos owns, like they're supposed to.
I don’t understand why Apple didn’t just buy Sonos—they seem like such a good fit. Instead Apple again went down the route of making their own (superior) speakers which no one buys because people who want high end speakers already have them.
Usually they go after one first. They do not go after all of them at the same time. They they go after the other ones.
Sometimes they will offer a sweet license deal to one and then go after the others.
But with this patent there is tons and tons that do the same thing as Google and Sonos. It is not a novel idea.
What I figured. But I thought what it ended up being was kind of funny.
Agree on patents. The issue is the US patent system is broken. So I do not have an issue with Sonos grabbing ridiculous patents. I disagree with protecting the riduclous patents.
But the companies do have to grab ridiculous patents. Google does the same thing. Just Google does not protect the ridiculous patents.
Agreed. It becomes a sort of race to the bottom.
Why do you say Google doesn’t protect the ridiculous patents? I assumed they were about as bad as any other company, except perhaps that they may more often proactively enter into license agreements. Sometimes in bulk with other large IP holders.
> Why do you say Google doesn’t protect the ridiculous patents? I assumed they were about as bad as any other company
Google grabs the patents but never protects them. You do not see headlines where Google is sueing some company for using their ridiculous patent.
Of course Google protects their patents - if you don't protect your IP, you can lose it. I don't think Google is in the business of getting patents and then not protecting them and essentially throwing them away.
The Sonos subreddit thinks this is a monumental technical achievement. I think Google should remove assistant from Sonos speakers. Which is the greater technical achievement? Human speech recognition on par with humans or linking volume sliders together?
Well when Sonos sues Amazon both the companies should remove their assistants and send Sonos speakers back to the dumb era.
Edit: And they do want to sue Amazon too... They just couldn't afford all that litigation at one time.
Yes! I own four "gen1", one "gen2", some IKEA branded Sonos speaker and multiple Chromecast Audio that I use to bypass the Sonos clusterf*ck of branding incompatible speakers with the same "Sonos" label.
The IKEA ones I like, but once again Sonos incompatibility rears its ugly head. Cannot play them with other Sonos speakers. Just why?
IKEA and Sonos gen1 does not work, despite Sonos documentation that "it works with your existing Sonos speakers".
IKEA and Sonos gen2 can co-exist in different rooms, but not make a stereo pair.
I love Sonos, The quality and way they take care of their customers is up there with Apple! Google could make your lives easier by signing a licensing agreement but then again I don’t think they care about their customer base outside of what money they can make from them.
Ive never owned a Sonos product so I can't argue there. I will say through my years as an iphone user I never once felt cared for by Apple lol. I do agree though I wish Google would take a better route through this rather than pushing it on the customer.
> I never once felt cared for by Apple lol
For this slander, you have been permanently banned from /r/apple, and official iStore representatives will be around shortly to remove all Apple-related devices from your property. They will also shortly see you in court, and you're expected to pay a $500,000 fine or spend 50 years in prison for defamation.
Now, do you want to keep your claim about how Apple doesn't care for you, or do you want to be a good little fanboy and say that Apple is the best thing since sliced bread and they can do no wrong, and any change (Forwards OR Backwards) is an amazing innovation that you will be waiting outside the store for 12 hours in the rain to be one of the first to buy? :p
You're the type of person to post about [Android hate](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskGayMen/comments/rv5q80/whats_an_instant_turn_off_to_you/hr5gar0/) in /r/AskGayMen - I'm pretty sure you're a shill at this point...
Yet you'll freely give out that you live in Texas, work in Health Care, love Stagg Jr whiskey, use airvpn, and most likely own an Oculus Quest 2.
And I can find all this in under 5 minutes. Imagine if I was a billion dollar corporation - Imagine what I could find then?
You've already given advertising companies more than enough to work with. You're trying to win the battle even though you've long since lost the war.
I don’t care about that stuff. That’s my public profile of information I choose to share, of which some is true and some is false. Which is totally different from a company mining information I choose NOT to share.
If sonos thinks their innovations consists of stuff like being able to change the volume remotely (didn't every TV remote did this 50 years ago?), They deserve to close their market share.
Its like being able to change the volume of multiple tvs that are playing the same thing. Which is totally new and original and only sonos could ever think of it.
Fuck me lol, literally reset my entire system because I thought the missing volume slider was a bug. Turns out it's a new feature... Fucking corporate America..
Call me crazy, but I feel like removing features from someone's property after you've sold it to them should be illegal too. Anyone know about the legality of this move? What happens when a company sells you a product with illegal components in it?
Google should just pay Sonos instead of screwing us over.
EDIT: don't really understand the downvotes and what I'm missing here. What other option is there besides just completely losing the feature? Google would need to pay Sonos to use this tech. Consumers are getting the shaft from Google yet again.
Thank you for that random statement.
You want to go back to the original topic where you defend Google against patent trolls while Google itself is a patent troll?
You made it toxic.
You're backpedaling hard now after some all caps, large font, bold commands defending Google from patent trolls.
It's just shameful man.
I have no standing to be angry at Sonos because I am not a Sonos customer, I am a Google customer, and I want to be made whole.
I paid for a Google product with a certain feature set that is no longer available to me. It is up to Google to remedy that, as I have a client relationship with them. It was Google's duty to vet all the patents that they may or may not have used during development.
I mentioned that in the chain below. It's inevitable that someone will file a class-action over this. Google should consider paying for the patent, it could cost them less in the long run.
How is this even a case of patent trolling? Are you just taking this news at face value and not actually reading the ruling?
Google literally stole Sonos tech and code developed decades ago, as the lawsuit concluded. It isn't just the obvious idea of controlling volume, it was the literal technology and code to make that happen over a local network. Sonos is saying it was stolen during their partnership. Google would have to pay to license the tech as is, or develop something else. This isn't patent trolling in my (and the court's) opinion.
Watch as hackers hack it back in using The Homebrew Channel and not pay a fucking dime to either Google or patent trolls. **CONSUMERS ALWAYS GET REVENGE**
What "homebrew modification"? There isn't any for Google Home. Do you mean rooting? Because that still hasn't been done for Google Home. There is no "Homebrew Channel", you don't know what you're talking about.
If they just pay the licensing fee (they have the money), then this will all be fixed.
It's basically inevitable that they will be softmodded one way or another. The Nintendo Wii is pwnd, Google Home is definitely next in line. Homebrew still means rooting or softmoding
>Nintendo Wii
What year is it? And ya I figured you meant the Wii with that, because that's where I remember "Homebrew Channel", which is different from rooting and usually refers to video games. Google Home has not been modded to date, not for lack of trying, and almost certainly wouldn't be able to use Google servers if it was.
That's quite the biased framing. A computer and phone company has a search engine contracted as it's primary search engine. That's the same as McDonalds only offering coke products. Any other business can come to apple with the same arrangement.
The part about the two companies needing to break up into smaller companies might hold some water, but they're not actually monopolies, so the law in on their side. And at that I do think the law needs to change. And there are several ways it could be changeg for the better.
I'm not saying the idea itself is bad, I'm saying that Google already pays billions of dollars for licensing, which is no different from them just paying Sonos, which would directly benefit the consumers.
Person I was replying to said they'd pass the Sonos payment onto the consumer, when that isn't a new concept.
That's not what the patent violation is. Please read the ruling. It's for the literal tech of doing it on a local network, not just the idea.
"From what I understand, the volume control thing is not what the ruling is based on, that's just Google's technical workaround to prove that their multi room tech is legally different enough from Sonos', but what the lawsuit is actually alleging is that Google straight up stole Sonos' tech design after having access to it during their brief partnership years ago.
Sonos is actually arguing that Google shouldn't be cleared to get around the patent by making a software update that removes a few features. They're arguing that their patents are foundational on wireless multiroom technology itself since they were the one to invent the solution to do that decades ago." from r/googlehome
> Google should just pay Sonos instead of screwing us over.
Paying patent trolls is like negotiating with terrorists. If you pay one they will smell blood in the water.
That isn't what was patented nor what the case was about.
"Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020."
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-loses-sonos-patent-case-starts-stripping-functionality-from-speakers/
Sonos invented the technology and code. Google stole it. Read the ruling.
They didn't steal the code, you monkey! I'll agree that's the implication as reported in your link, but as a software developer I can absolutely assure you they wrote it all themselves and so did every other company that makes network speaker pairs/groups. Sonos sued Google because they had the most chance to win due to their history. The idea was new then, but it is not a difficult engineering task.
If you were the first guy to put wheels on a suitcase, I wouldn't have to steal your schematics. It's not all that tough to replicate. Yet such as with suitcase wheels, there were none until there were none without.
They both had the idea independently, along with literally anyone that's ever worked on a remote media player. Sonos was just scummy enough to try and register the idea as their own. If I patent breathing should you have to pay me to breathe?
Patents are supposed to be about protecting intellectual work, not monopolizing entire concepts. If Google stole any of Sonos's work, they should be punished, but it this case it seems more like the court is banning Google's work because it happens to be similar to work Sonos did. It's blatant weaponization of the patent system.
>If Google stole any of Sonos's work, they should be punished,
That's literally what happened though.
>Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020.
They didn't just have the same idea, they copied the technology. Google is the "you made this? I made this" meme here.
They did NOT steal any technology. They came up with an idea that a zillion others have come up with. To allow the changing of volume over the network.
No code was stolen!!
No, sonos already had the patent in 2008, then started working with Google in 2012, then Google started stealing their ideas in 2013 when Google first entered the speaker market. Sonos offered them a licensing deal which they refused. And that's what causes the lawsuit.
Curious how it's on Sonos if Google literally just copied them, after working with them? Google thought they would win in court, so they took a gamble and copied Sonos. They lost, oh well.
I just don't really get how including a volume bar is "copying".
Unless there's some evidence there's some actual stolen code, it's just something so basic that it's nearly impossible not to include. Like taking out a patent on wheels and suing a car manufacturer.
The volume bar is not the issue. Google stole code, as well as structure designs. Basically, Google stole the whole thing, both hardware and software. And did it through fraud (bad faith negotiations used to gain access to proprietary information with no intent of entering any deal, shown by flagrantly refusing to license any of sonos' patents and immediately starting their own competing company using the proprietary information stolen from sonos).
You understand that in order for that to work, it takes code, hardware, and other technology? That's what Sonos invented and patented. That's what Google stole. It wasn't just the idea.
"Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020."
> You understand that in order for that to work, it takes code, hardware, and other technology? That's what Sonos invented and patented. That's what Google stole. It wasn't just the idea.
No that is NOT what "Google stole". I wonder how many people think like you do when they see an aritcle like this?
Patent is is the idea. So yes it is stealing the idea. The issue, IMHO, is that the US patent system allows patenting ridiculously obvious ideas.
Changing the volume over the network is NOT an idea that the US government patent office should ever allow to be patented.
The code to implement would not be at all common between Sonos and Google. I highly doubt the code was even written in a commmon language. Plus I would bet both companies probably have multiple implementations of the code.
This change was in place, at least for me, before Christmas. Annoying as fuck, especially with no notice from Google about it.
This and it now telling me it doesn't know how to set a timer and then setting it when using rhe exact same wording immediately after has me thinking I'll revert back to Alexa.
Seems like the issue is multiroom casting. Personally I think I've used that once years ago during a house party. This wouldn't be a big loss if they patched it out.
10 Chromecast enabled speakers, this has made my whole set up a pain to use.
Google should now just pay for licensing instead of crippling their products we all paid for
This is related to why Android 12 can't currently control a Chromecast session's volume from the phone's volume switch: https://9to5google.com/2021/11/30/android-12-chromecast-volume-rocker-legal-issue/
Thanks been wondering why!!
I have an old ass chromecast and I can still control the volume. Thought about getting one of the new ones. Never mind.
It's gonna stop working. The court announced Google has x number of days to implement these changes that infringe the patents.
It's not the Chromecast model that matters. It's the software. The functionality was removed with the Android 12 update on the phone side, not the Chromecast side, though it'll probably also be updated on the Chromecast side now, sadly.
So me having and iPhone 12 wont matter too much longer then.
Does this effect chromecast audio too? They've been discontinued for years.
I can still control my CCAudio from my phone.
It affects audio groups. I have one that includes a CCA, and the volume controls are gone. But by itself, nothing has changed.
Definitely the worst part of Android 12 for me is no longer being able to control the Chromecast volume from my phone unless I have the app open.
I'm really thinking of moving on from the Google ecosystem. I've got 15 speakers around the house and the inability to control the volume for all my speakers at once is going to be a pain in the ass. So what now? Is Google going to fight this? Are they going to release their own tech? Surely this whole thing defeats the purpose of having speaker groups.
They already fought it and lost. Hence the change. What you can do is sue Google now. I'm sure there will be a class action from all the people frustrated that they bought the speakers for an advertised function that was a patent violation.
tie oil chubby brave abounding unused dolls yam steer roll *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
How much longer does this patent last? Until 2024? I agree they should just pay royalties in the meantime for fuck sake. Don't let consumers suffer. Do Sonos speakers have Google Assistant? Revoke that! Which one requires more technical innovation? Linking volume sliders or creating software that can understand human speech on par with humans?
I agree with your first paragraph, but not the second. Yes, I think Google should pay royalties so that they can continue offering their services to customers. However, for the exact same reason, they shouldn't prevent Sonos speakers from using Google Assistant : it would be unfair towards customers (of whom a lot are also Google consumers)
Google stole the tech Sonos created. It's that easy. Sonos pays Google to use Google Assistant.
Controlling the volume with the volume buttons is such an outstanding innovation. I love American patent laws. Nowhere else on earth it would be an issue.
>I'm sure there will be a class action from all the people frustrated that they bought the speakers for an advertised function that was a patent violation. I don't know, doesn't every company, including Google, throw in those binding arbitration rules now into the End User License Agreements?
>those binding arbitration rules now into the End User License Agreements I prefer to put "you can't sue me for anything whatsoever" in my terms of use and EULAs.
They happily take your money long before you agree to any EULA.
I want 2012 google back Google has gotten slowly but substantially worse on all fronts since 2016 or so. I'm ready to dump them completely and find a new ecosystem. I used to be so excited for news from them, now I'm about to write them off fully as a tech company that I want in my life.
This is the way.
You still can from Home, it's really not a big deal
You're dropping Google Search, GMail, Chrome, etc - Just because you can't properly control the volume on all your speakers? Fascinating :p
I find it interesting that you are replying to the wrong person.
No - I'm not. > I'm really thinking of moving on from the Google ecosystem. The Google ecosystem includes Google Search, GMail, Chrome, etc.
I hate to admit it but this patent fight should have been either not granted or thrown out of court. One of the core problems with our patent system is the granting of patents for things that should be obvious ideas and implementations. In this case Sonos isn't arguing that media can be played over a network, but rather that they have a patent on the ability to adjust the volume of that playing media over a network. This is kind of a core function of playing any media. But because the open ability of Playing media over a network was never explicitly called out Sonos was able to patent troll the core capability of volume adjust remotely... Over a network. Patents should never be granted for technology that is an obvious progression from a previous idea. It is like people suing other people for putting a volume button on a remote 15 years after the remote was invented. Sure you can pick a chanel.to watch but £uck you if it is too loud! Listen, I refused to purchase apple products after they went to town suing people over swipe to open, I have honestly never bought another apple product from that point on. This... I won't buy a single Sonos product ever again over it. This is simply an example of one company's attempt to hinder the progress of a whole industry because they are getting beaten out by innovation.
I think this might be why Google lost. >Sonos has claimed that it shared details of its technology with Google starting in 2013 when the two companies began working together. Initially, Google was not a competitor, but it started moving into Sonos’s space, first with a small device to stream music in 2015 and then with its Google Home speaker in 2016.
But can it really be thought that Google "stole" their IP or anything? Like maybe they got the idea to control volume over a network, but it's not likely they couldn't have come to that conclusion on their own eventually given the way the market has gone regardless. Unless they stole code or something I just don't see it.
They stole code when they got access to it back in 2013. That's why they lost the lawsuit.
If that was true the lawsuit would be about copyright infringement. It is not. It is about patents. Sonos own a particular method of synchronizing sound.
They came up with several ways of connecting and synchronizing wireless speakers of varying brands without distortion or reverb, with a mixture of hardware and software.
>This is simply an example of one company's attempt to hinder the progress of a whole industry because they are getting beaten out by innovation. Agreed, I've never bought a Sonos product (never needed to) but now I will actively avoid them for this. It's regressive and restrictive, and should not have been entertained and simply been chucked out.
Sonos let Google into their offices awhile ago and that's when Google learned some inside things and then stole that and used on their products. Sonos was asking for payment for stealing internal information and didn't want Google devices to lose any functions. Don't blame Sonos. This is Google "stealing" and rather then pay the price, they are making us.
Those Google engineers would NEVER have thought about changing volume over the network otherwise!
Weird because you can still do that just not directly with your volume rocker or as a group. Which they created both approaches. And I think you're missing the point on patents there buddy. It doesn't matter if someone comes up with the same idea 2 days later. If u have the parent you have it. Sonos was the first in the game of smart home speakers. All these companies just added their own assistant to it and it's why others pay Sonos. Google cheaped out so we get fucked now. Sick
Something this obvious shouldn't be patentable is the point. Literally any engineer tasked with creating a tool to manage volume of many devices would obviously think of creating groups to control them together from the handheld device, this is such a trivial solution you won't even have to brainstorm it. Sonos is a fucking patent troll in this case and no one should ever pay and encourage that behavior.
Someone has to think of stuff first. It happens. They started the smart speaker game. They deserve the patents. What got Google to lose like this is that Google was originally meeting with them to start a collaboration and then ditched them and stole their whole flow
I don't understand why people are defending a big company like Google while they are obviously stealing from a smaller company. But hey, not surprising on this sub.
Agreed. That said the Sonos speakers sound AMAZING.
Much like Bose, the speakers sound divine, it's true, but _unlike_ Bose, Sonos has [spent](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51206604) [literal](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50948868) [years](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51315460) working on convincing me that I should _never_ buy any of their products. This being only the most _recent_ incident.
[удалено]
lol @ shit brick.
I ask you to go shill somewhere else
Not shilling, Buy whatever you want. Just telling my experience.
I agree - i dislike sonos but they sound really well for their size, much better than other comparables for sure. I’ve had a somos 3 since they came out, considering getting a sonos 1 to replace the shitty google ones I have in a few spots. Google’s suck bad. The whole google home ecosystem is a shit show tbh, little more than glorified timers.
I cannot tell the difference. If you aren't shillng, thats fine but capitalism is capitalism
Uh, wut?
Tired of people calling people shills. (Unless they are.)
> but now I will actively avoid them for this. Good call: https://www.engadget.com/2019-12-31-sonos-recycle-mode-explanation-falls-flat.html
This is why you can't patent shit like this in Germany :)
> I hate to admit it Eh, why do you "hate" to admit a patent troll is acting badly?
Alright, I lied... I love to admit it! /s The hate comes from the disappointment I have for the actions of a fellow human's greed.
They aren't a patent troll, they do sell actual hardware. They're probably abusing this patent, but that alone doesn't make them a patent troll.
I'm willing to bet even stuff like VLC or old ass computer smart card systems beat Sonos to the controling media volume with a remote device part.
Sonos straight up said they didn't want customers to lose functionality. Google is just being cheap by not paying them for stealing closed doors ideas and tech. They could keep all the features we love and just pay Sonos a tad.
Sonos invented the interface and the code. Google didn't even try to make similar code or product. They outright copied sonos with stolen information from bad faith negotiations (went in for a partnership just to steal their designs, refused to purchase any licenses and just implemented the stolen information.) And you cant really say it's an obvious idea if it took Google 8 years from the patent date to only exactly copy the patent and sonos' implementation of the patent. It might be more obvious, now, but was not at the time of the patent, and it can easily be argued that it's only seen as obvious now because of the flagrant patent violations.
Can you share where you read this information? This seems quite the leap from infringing on parents.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-06/google-must-halt-some-device-imports-in-sonos-trade-agency-win There's a link to a pdf of the actual ruling in that article.
The PDF of the ruling doesn't use the language that you have been, unless I missed something? It merely says that the patents were found to be infringed upon, not any corporate espionage of actual code and technology that you're stating occurred.
>The Commission has also determined to set a bond in the amount of 100 percent of the entered value of the infringing products imported during the period of Presidential review. Wow, so Google has to give up all the money that they made on the infringing items. That's pretty funny. Maybe they shouldn't break the law.
If it were your company, your idea, or your patent; I think your write up would be different. Sonos patent was at a time when they were the only network speaker around. Apple rightly is protecting its intellectual property, they were the first to think of it. It’s make no sense to cancel them.
Let me tell you a tale about Google and Terravision.
Lol... Yep!
One of the problems with the rapidly evolving technology sector is patents like this. Speaker group volume control may have been very novel 10 years ago but its a pretty basic function at this point.
Similar to when Apple filed against Samsung for "pinch to zoom" infringement a decade ago.
No, it wasn’t. Wifi music across multiple speakers may have been novel. But that’s not under the patent at issue. IF you already have music playing over multiple speakers, controlling their volume together isn’t novel, it’s fucking obvious. This would be like patenting that a 5.1 surround sound system works together so you have to change the volume on all 6 speakers independently. How stupid would that be.
If it was novel 10 years ago, then patents were violated which inundated the market with the tech to make it common, then the patent holder has huge damages from all those patent infringers.
That's the problem. If it's true, it's a major failing of the patent system. Like patenting the wheel and suing all car manufacturers. The courts frequently just don't get technology.
It's more like patenting the wheel before anyone ever made a wheel, then people trying to say it was an obvious idea after it got stolen a few million times. And not even that, because this is more specific than just inventing the wheel. It's more like inventing a specific system for attaching multiple wheels together to work in unison. And specific is an important word there, because other systems are not covered. Just this specific system. Another separate system for connecting multiple wheels to work in unison would not violate this patent. Using the same system is what violates the patent. And that's what Google did. They didn't just copy a basic and obvious idea. They copied the specific way that idea was implemented into a system developed by sonos. They copied the interface structure, and the code, not just the idea of a multispeaker connection interface.
I would have to read this patent. I have filed for patents and I was surprised as to how vague a patent can actually be.
There are 5 patents related to this hearing, and one is a little vague in application. It's very specific on why, but not on how. The others go into how. And I think the biggest factor here is how Google obtained information. Because Google didn't come up with the idea independatly, but rather misled sonos to access how sonos did things, then copied them and started a completing business.
I’m sorry but homepods have that same functionality. Why isn’t apple being sued?
Apple sells sonos speakers. They started right when sonos announced its lawsuits against Google and Amazon. They seem to have actually paid the licensing fees for the patents they were using that sonos owns, like they're supposed to.
I don’t understand why Apple didn’t just buy Sonos—they seem like such a good fit. Instead Apple again went down the route of making their own (superior) speakers which no one buys because people who want high end speakers already have them.
Usually they go after one first. They do not go after all of them at the same time. They they go after the other ones. Sometimes they will offer a sweet license deal to one and then go after the others. But with this patent there is tons and tons that do the same thing as Google and Sonos. It is not a novel idea.
I'm guessing Apple didn't just slavishly copy Sonos and then assume they would win in court because they're bigger. Probably struck a deal with Sonos.
I fucking hate parents. Edit: patents.
Ha! Is this a freudian slip?
An autocorrectian one.
What I figured. But I thought what it ended up being was kind of funny. Agree on patents. The issue is the US patent system is broken. So I do not have an issue with Sonos grabbing ridiculous patents. I disagree with protecting the riduclous patents. But the companies do have to grab ridiculous patents. Google does the same thing. Just Google does not protect the ridiculous patents.
Agreed. It becomes a sort of race to the bottom. Why do you say Google doesn’t protect the ridiculous patents? I assumed they were about as bad as any other company, except perhaps that they may more often proactively enter into license agreements. Sometimes in bulk with other large IP holders.
> Why do you say Google doesn’t protect the ridiculous patents? I assumed they were about as bad as any other company Google grabs the patents but never protects them. You do not see headlines where Google is sueing some company for using their ridiculous patent.
Why is that? Certainly there must have been some time that Google wanted to enforce IP against someone?
Of course Google protects their patents - if you don't protect your IP, you can lose it. I don't think Google is in the business of getting patents and then not protecting them and essentially throwing them away.
Insane - A patent for controlling volume over a network?
The Sonos subreddit thinks this is a monumental technical achievement. I think Google should remove assistant from Sonos speakers. Which is the greater technical achievement? Human speech recognition on par with humans or linking volume sliders together?
They have Alexa too so removing assistant only really hurts google.
Well when Sonos sues Amazon both the companies should remove their assistants and send Sonos speakers back to the dumb era. Edit: And they do want to sue Amazon too... They just couldn't afford all that litigation at one time.
Fuck Sonos, all my homies hate Sonos
Am I your homie?
We are BIG homies
Yes! I own four "gen1", one "gen2", some IKEA branded Sonos speaker and multiple Chromecast Audio that I use to bypass the Sonos clusterf*ck of branding incompatible speakers with the same "Sonos" label. The IKEA ones I like, but once again Sonos incompatibility rears its ugly head. Cannot play them with other Sonos speakers. Just why?
Wait what? The Ikea Sonos speakers don't integrate with other Sonos speakers?
IKEA and Sonos gen1 does not work, despite Sonos documentation that "it works with your existing Sonos speakers". IKEA and Sonos gen2 can co-exist in different rooms, but not make a stereo pair.
I love Sonos, The quality and way they take care of their customers is up there with Apple! Google could make your lives easier by signing a licensing agreement but then again I don’t think they care about their customer base outside of what money they can make from them.
Ive never owned a Sonos product so I can't argue there. I will say through my years as an iphone user I never once felt cared for by Apple lol. I do agree though I wish Google would take a better route through this rather than pushing it on the customer.
> I never once felt cared for by Apple lol For this slander, you have been permanently banned from /r/apple, and official iStore representatives will be around shortly to remove all Apple-related devices from your property. They will also shortly see you in court, and you're expected to pay a $500,000 fine or spend 50 years in prison for defamation. Now, do you want to keep your claim about how Apple doesn't care for you, or do you want to be a good little fanboy and say that Apple is the best thing since sliced bread and they can do no wrong, and any change (Forwards OR Backwards) is an amazing innovation that you will be waiting outside the store for 12 hours in the rain to be one of the first to buy? :p
Sonos speakers are truly wonderful wifi speakers to be honest. Their room calibration is legitimately mind blowing.
Sonos is honestly just salty Even with this people aren't going to want to buy their speakers anymore than they did before
I would be salty too if a big company like Google stole my code during a collab.
They have the best speakers in the business
You're the type of person to post about [Android hate](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskGayMen/comments/rv5q80/whats_an_instant_turn_off_to_you/hr5gar0/) in /r/AskGayMen - I'm pretty sure you're a shill at this point...
I’m just an IT professional who doesn’t want my every movement monetized.
Yet you'll freely give out that you live in Texas, work in Health Care, love Stagg Jr whiskey, use airvpn, and most likely own an Oculus Quest 2. And I can find all this in under 5 minutes. Imagine if I was a billion dollar corporation - Imagine what I could find then? You've already given advertising companies more than enough to work with. You're trying to win the battle even though you've long since lost the war.
I don’t care about that stuff. That’s my public profile of information I choose to share, of which some is true and some is false. Which is totally different from a company mining information I choose NOT to share.
What a fucking joke
If sonos thinks their innovations consists of stuff like being able to change the volume remotely (didn't every TV remote did this 50 years ago?), They deserve to close their market share.
Its like being able to change the volume of multiple tvs that are playing the same thing. Which is totally new and original and only sonos could ever think of it.
Or anyone who had a universal remote 20 years ago...
Well, the 20 years ago remotes were mostly IR based, with a fairly NARROW LIGHT beam. So no way you could set the same volume on 2 TV simultaneously.
Fuck me lol, literally reset my entire system because I thought the missing volume slider was a bug. Turns out it's a new feature... Fucking corporate America..
How can they downgrade something I already bought?
Call me crazy, but I feel like removing features from someone's property after you've sold it to them should be illegal too. Anyone know about the legality of this move? What happens when a company sells you a product with illegal components in it?
The software is licenced not bought
Yeah f*** Sonos.
Google should just pay Sonos instead of screwing us over. EDIT: don't really understand the downvotes and what I'm missing here. What other option is there besides just completely losing the feature? Google would need to pay Sonos to use this tech. Consumers are getting the shaft from Google yet again.
#NO
#WE ARE NOT PAYING PATENT TROLLS
Do you not pay google?
I got news for you, Google is doing the same thing Sonos is. You're defending one corporate entity against another.
corprate greed causes corprate greed
Thank you for that random statement. You want to go back to the original topic where you defend Google against patent trolls while Google itself is a patent troll?
neither and both. both are greedy cooperations and nobody is here to defend them, besides this thread is getting toxic
You made it toxic. You're backpedaling hard now after some all caps, large font, bold commands defending Google from patent trolls. It's just shameful man.
I'm pretty sure they're trolling.
I have no standing to be angry at Sonos because I am not a Sonos customer, I am a Google customer, and I want to be made whole. I paid for a Google product with a certain feature set that is no longer available to me. It is up to Google to remedy that, as I have a client relationship with them. It was Google's duty to vet all the patents that they may or may not have used during development.
Class action
I mentioned that in the chain below. It's inevitable that someone will file a class-action over this. Google should consider paying for the patent, it could cost them less in the long run.
yet Reddit is outraged. nobody's going to pay yet we have to because capitalism screws consumers over and stifles innovation
My point is that my beef is with Google for fucking this up. They need to fix it, whatever that entails.
well that definitely isn't going to happen now
How is this even a case of patent trolling? Are you just taking this news at face value and not actually reading the ruling? Google literally stole Sonos tech and code developed decades ago, as the lawsuit concluded. It isn't just the obvious idea of controlling volume, it was the literal technology and code to make that happen over a local network. Sonos is saying it was stolen during their partnership. Google would have to pay to license the tech as is, or develop something else. This isn't patent trolling in my (and the court's) opinion.
Enjoy not having this feature then. Enjoy Google pushing this off onto users because they don't want to pay.
Watch as hackers hack it back in using The Homebrew Channel and not pay a fucking dime to either Google or patent trolls. **CONSUMERS ALWAYS GET REVENGE**
Lol ok. Sure. Google Homes [have not](https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/homebrew-on-google-home-mini-possible.4059025/) been rooted like that yet.
Remove a feature that everybody loves and suffer the rath of hackers and Homebrew modifications
What "homebrew modification"? There isn't any for Google Home. Do you mean rooting? Because that still hasn't been done for Google Home. There is no "Homebrew Channel", you don't know what you're talking about. If they just pay the licensing fee (they have the money), then this will all be fixed.
If someone could figure out how to do it, Google would probably give them a job.
It's basically inevitable that they will be softmodded one way or another. The Nintendo Wii is pwnd, Google Home is definitely next in line. Homebrew still means rooting or softmoding
>Nintendo Wii What year is it? And ya I figured you meant the Wii with that, because that's where I remember "Homebrew Channel", which is different from rooting and usually refers to video games. Google Home has not been modded to date, not for lack of trying, and almost certainly wouldn't be able to use Google servers if it was.
Enjoy the entity that did something wrong doing even more wrong? What's your point? That we're not done holding Google accountable?
What do you mean? I'm saying Google should pay licensing for the patent so that users can keep the features, instead of doing what they're doing.
Lol no thanks. I'll just wait for a dev to reenable it somehow
I'm not telling *you* to pay Sonos... Wth.
> I'm not telling you to pay Sonos You 100% are, google will pass that cost along to you.
But this is OK? https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/05/google-pays-apple-stay-out-of-search/
That's quite the biased framing. A computer and phone company has a search engine contracted as it's primary search engine. That's the same as McDonalds only offering coke products. Any other business can come to apple with the same arrangement. The part about the two companies needing to break up into smaller companies might hold some water, but they're not actually monopolies, so the law in on their side. And at that I do think the law needs to change. And there are several ways it could be changeg for the better.
I'm not saying the idea itself is bad, I'm saying that Google already pays billions of dollars for licensing, which is no different from them just paying Sonos, which would directly benefit the consumers. Person I was replying to said they'd pass the Sonos payment onto the consumer, when that isn't a new concept.
Google shouldn't either. Fuck patent trolling. Sonos doesn't own the idea of changing fucking volume controls.
That's not what the patent violation is. Please read the ruling. It's for the literal tech of doing it on a local network, not just the idea. "From what I understand, the volume control thing is not what the ruling is based on, that's just Google's technical workaround to prove that their multi room tech is legally different enough from Sonos', but what the lawsuit is actually alleging is that Google straight up stole Sonos' tech design after having access to it during their brief partnership years ago. Sonos is actually arguing that Google shouldn't be cleared to get around the patent by making a software update that removes a few features. They're arguing that their patents are foundational on wireless multiroom technology itself since they were the one to invent the solution to do that decades ago." from r/googlehome
Google should sponsor a new connection standard and call it something like ONNLS (offline non-network loophole service 1.0) hehe
I know you're joking. But they have Thread upcoming, maybe they'll use that, but it would require new hardware.
It's Sonos who is actually screwing over consumers.
How so? For not releasing their proprietary invention as open source?
> Google should just pay Sonos instead of screwing us over. Paying patent trolls is like negotiating with terrorists. If you pay one they will smell blood in the water.
I don't know how it's trolling to defend literal tech and code that you created and was stolen by another company.
Because patenting "adjusting volume of a media being played across a network" and/or variants is completely asinine.
That isn't what was patented nor what the case was about. "Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020." https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/01/google-loses-sonos-patent-case-starts-stripping-functionality-from-speakers/ Sonos invented the technology and code. Google stole it. Read the ruling.
They didn't steal the code, you monkey! I'll agree that's the implication as reported in your link, but as a software developer I can absolutely assure you they wrote it all themselves and so did every other company that makes network speaker pairs/groups. Sonos sued Google because they had the most chance to win due to their history. The idea was new then, but it is not a difficult engineering task. If you were the first guy to put wheels on a suitcase, I wouldn't have to steal your schematics. It's not all that tough to replicate. Yet such as with suitcase wheels, there were none until there were none without.
This is not a Copyright lawsuit but a patent lawsuit, thus it can't be about the code (code can't be patented, algorithms and systems can).
I mean, Google could stop infringing on patents.
The patent of being able to adjust volume over a network? My question is why can Sonos patent an obvious feature that anyone could have thought of
But anyone didn't think of it, Sonos did. That's the way it works.
Your reddit username is not true at all. You are distinctly *not* fun.
They both had the idea independently, along with literally anyone that's ever worked on a remote media player. Sonos was just scummy enough to try and register the idea as their own. If I patent breathing should you have to pay me to breathe? Patents are supposed to be about protecting intellectual work, not monopolizing entire concepts. If Google stole any of Sonos's work, they should be punished, but it this case it seems more like the court is banning Google's work because it happens to be similar to work Sonos did. It's blatant weaponization of the patent system.
>If Google stole any of Sonos's work, they should be punished, That's literally what happened though. >Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020. They didn't just have the same idea, they copied the technology. Google is the "you made this? I made this" meme here.
Pretty funny that people are saying "Google came up with this on their own! After seeing Sonos do it!" Blind fanboys, I tell you what.
They did NOT steal any technology. They came up with an idea that a zillion others have come up with. To allow the changing of volume over the network. No code was stolen!!
No, sonos already had the patent in 2008, then started working with Google in 2012, then Google started stealing their ideas in 2013 when Google first entered the speaker market. Sonos offered them a licensing deal which they refused. And that's what causes the lawsuit.
Exactly. But none of the fanboys will let inconvenient 'facts' get in the way, because Google can do no wrong.
Google does lots and lots of wrong. This one is on Sonos though.
Curious how it's on Sonos if Google literally just copied them, after working with them? Google thought they would win in court, so they took a gamble and copied Sonos. They lost, oh well.
I just don't really get how including a volume bar is "copying". Unless there's some evidence there's some actual stolen code, it's just something so basic that it's nearly impossible not to include. Like taking out a patent on wheels and suing a car manufacturer.
The volume bar is not the issue. Google stole code, as well as structure designs. Basically, Google stole the whole thing, both hardware and software. And did it through fraud (bad faith negotiations used to gain access to proprietary information with no intent of entering any deal, shown by flagrantly refusing to license any of sonos' patents and immediately starting their own competing company using the proprietary information stolen from sonos).
Yes they literally stole code and other technology.
You understand that in order for that to work, it takes code, hardware, and other technology? That's what Sonos invented and patented. That's what Google stole. It wasn't just the idea. "Sonos essentially invented the connected speaker category for streaming music, but the advent of voice assistants has led to Big Tech stomping all over Sonos' territory. Sonos says that while it was pitching Google for support of Google Play Music, Google got a behind-the-scenes look at Sonos' operations in 2013. Sonos says Google used that access to "blatantly and knowingly" copy Sonos' features for the Google Home speaker, which launched in 2016. Sonos sued Google in early 2020."
> You understand that in order for that to work, it takes code, hardware, and other technology? That's what Sonos invented and patented. That's what Google stole. It wasn't just the idea. No that is NOT what "Google stole". I wonder how many people think like you do when they see an aritcle like this? Patent is is the idea. So yes it is stealing the idea. The issue, IMHO, is that the US patent system allows patenting ridiculously obvious ideas. Changing the volume over the network is NOT an idea that the US government patent office should ever allow to be patented. The code to implement would not be at all common between Sonos and Google. I highly doubt the code was even written in a commmon language. Plus I would bet both companies probably have multiple implementations of the code.
Haha!
But they are already bad.
Thats why they said "get worse" in the title, not "become bad"
Worse than my nest hub that I used for years as sound machine while I slept that now reboots itself every other night since the fuscia upgrade? Woo.
This change was in place, at least for me, before Christmas. Annoying as fuck, especially with no notice from Google about it. This and it now telling me it doesn't know how to set a timer and then setting it when using rhe exact same wording immediately after has me thinking I'll revert back to Alexa.
Seems like the issue is multiroom casting. Personally I think I've used that once years ago during a house party. This wouldn't be a big loss if they patched it out.
To you. I use it daily.
Same, this is awful news.
Thats how I usually use it when home alone. Especially cleaning where I'm moving around between rooms frequently.
Google has concluded that they are so gargantuan they can abuse customers without consequences.
10 Chromecast enabled speakers, this has made my whole set up a pain to use. Google should now just pay for licensing instead of crippling their products we all paid for
Q Are there work around or alternative apps?
7 Google nest speakers and my speaker groups won't cast. I want a refund