soundsync

Their software stack is just terrible. Even after multiple resets, many of their devices would not work. Some of their error screens are secretly stateful too, requiring you to do the same thing 4-5x before it'll let you try an alternative workaround (which will sometimes work). The old app was mediocre, but predictably so, and you could usually work around issues with the community's help. The new app is so bad and unstable that half the time server issues will prevent you from being able to finish setup even if you do everything right. It's aggravating. The FOSS Soundsync used to work with Sonos speaker but I think they blocked them: https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync A friend of mine built his own clone using Raspberry Pis and generic speakers and that works way better than the Sonos stack. That's the way to go... I guess I alwa

I think Sonos sued the heck out of Google for those, and it caused those devices to disappear for a few years. Sonos lost that case late last year though, so hopefully we'll see a resurgence? https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/google-wins-repriev... Otherwise, you can DIY it with a bunch of old devices or Raspberry Pis and https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

I think Sonos sued the heck out of Google for doing this with Google Home speakers. They won the jury trial but then a judge invalidated their patents https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23910694/sonos-google-pa... Probably not an easy thing to do to begin with (there are papers on the algorithms involved, last I checked) and the specter of big audio companies coming after you isn't fun either. Edit: Despite that, there's https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

There are some projects like Snapcast[1] or SoundSync[2] (disclaimer: I'm the creator of Soundsync) to let multiple devices communicate together on the same network. The transmission-side isn't that complex: you choose an audio codec, transmit chunks of data and add a synchronization layer (to keep multiple outputs in sync and to correctly delay video playback to match the soundtrack). The bigger problem is building an ecosystem big enough to make it attractive. Bluetooth sucks but is everywhere. [1] https://github.com/badaix/snapcast [2] https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

HifiBerryOS is really nice. I used it for a couple of years (mainly for Spotify and Airplay) and I never had any problem with it. I need to create a PR to integrate my project Soundsync[1], it would add multi-room audio synchronization to this project. The last missing integration imo is a Chromecast receiver but this is blocked by the missing encryption keys. It would really be awesome if Google releases them. [1] https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

Shameless plug: I'm building an alternative to Sonos focused on managing audio streams on your home network. It's a software and a controller webapp to broadcast synchronized audio on any number of Windows / MacOS / Linux / Chromecast / Airplay speakers / Web pages / Philips Hue (light synchronized to the audio). It's available on https://soundsync.app/ and the sources are on Github: https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

Snapcast is really cool, Johannes did an awesome job! I used it for a long time at home on multiple RaspberryPis. I've been working for some time on a more user-friendly and cross-OS alternative. It's available here: https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync I think I'm going to try to integrate net-boot in Soundsync this weekend. It would be awesome to be able to install Soundsync on any computer on the network, turn on an option and then just start the rPi to get it to play music.