Sonos One takes the sound quality of Sonos speakers and adds in voice control via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant for a smart speaker that sounds smart too. Play music, set alarms, ask questions, get answers, pretend like you don't live alone, all with this humidity resistant little speaker that won't freak out during a hot shower in your bathroom. It's not the cheapest smart speaker on the market, but audiophiles will likely approve.
What could happen if something goes wrong?
Sonos does a decent job with privacy and security as a whole. They say they do not and will not sell personal information about their customers, which, yay! Still, with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant built in, know that those voice requests to Alexa or Google Assistant are sent to Amazon and Google even if Sonos doesn't hang on to any of your voice recordings. Amazon and Google will collect data on you from those voice requests. Sonos did have a small privacy goof early in 2020 when they sent an email to 450 customers and revealed all of their email addresses to each other. To be fair, we've all probably made a mistake like that so we'll cut them a little slack. One more thing. If you decide to use Sonos Radio, a $7.99 subscription service that plays you curated music and lets you tune into over 60,000 radio stations around the world, Sonos will share some anonymized data with third party advertisers for internet based ads. This isn't a huge deal though, so we're not too worried about it.
Tips to protect yourself
- If you are using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, adjust the respective privacy settings of the service.
Can it snoop on me?
Camera
Device: No
App: No
Microphone
Device: Yes
App: Yes
Tracks location
Device: No
App: Yes
What can be used to sign up?
Yes
Phone
No
Third-party account
No
What data does the company collect?
Personal
Name, email, phone number, password
Body related
Social
How does the company use this data?
How can you control your data?
What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?
An email sent by Sonos to 450 customers revealed all of their email addresses to each other in January 2020. In 2017, a security vulnerability left some Sonos speakers vulnerable.
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
Links to privacy information
Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards?
Encryption
Uses encryption in transit and at rest.
Strong password
Security updates
Automatic updates are enabled by default.
Manages vulnerabilities
Sonos does not have an official bug bounty program, but invites responsible disclosure of security bugs.
Privacy policy
Does the product use AI?
Sonos relies on speech recognition technology from Amazon or Google.
Is this AI untrustworthy?
What kind of decisions does the AI make about you or for you?
Is the company transparent about how the AI works?
Does the user have control over the AI features?
Dive Deeper
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A Sonos survey suggests the company might build a voice assistant of its ownThe Verge
Comments
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