Sonos SL Speakers

Sonos SL Speakers

Sonos
Wi-Fi Bluetooth

Review date: Nov. 9, 2022

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Mozilla says

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People voted: A little creepy

Sonos took their Sonos One and Roam smart speakers and made them dumb. Seems there is a market for privacy-minded people who just want a speaker for playing music, not with a built-in microphone that can listen to you. The Sonos One SL and Roam SL are just like their smart speaker counterparts, minus the microphone listening for voice commands from Sonos Voice Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Google Assistant. Control it with the Sonos app or use Apple Airplay to stream your music. Just think, a speaker built to play music and not listen to you all day long. Crazy!

What could happen if something goes wrong?

Sonos’ One SL and Roam SL are very good privacy-minded speakers. They have no built-in microphone to listen, record, or send data back to Sonos, Amazon or Google. So not a whole lot can go wrong. And Sonos does a pretty good job with privacy and security as a whole.

They say they do not and will not sell personal information about their customers, which, yay! And while they do collect information on you -- such as your name, phone number, and email address if you provide it, general location data, and information about you from third party sources such as music service partners -- they don’t seem to share that information widely with third parties for a lot of targeted, interest based advertising.

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 says they “may use information such as your interactions with Sonos site, Sonos Radio content, Sonos Products, Sonos app and other Services to display interest-based ads for features, products, and services that might be of interest to you. We do not use information that personally identifies you to display interest-based ads.” This doesn’t worry us too much.

What’s the worst that could happen with the Sonos’ smart speakers? All in all, there’s not a lot that can go wrong with this speaker in your house because it’s, well, it’s really just a speaker. We suppose you could listen to that new Taylor Swift album on repeat through Sonos Radio. And then Sonos could know you’re a huge Swifty and from there assumes you’re probably also interested in rom coms and then you get targeted with ads for all the rom coms everywhere when you actually hate rom coms. In our crazy world today where privacy feels like a thing of the past, this actually feels like a pretty quaint worst case scenario. We think you’re probably fairly safe with Sonos’ SL speakers.

Tips to protect yourself

  • When starting a sign-up, do not agree to tracking of your data.
  • Do not sign up with third-party accounts. Better just log in with email and strong password.
  • Chose a strong password! You may use a password control tool like 1Password, KeePass etc
  • Use your device privacy controls to limit access to your personal information via app (do not give access to your camera, microphone, images, location unless neccessary)
  • Keep your app regularly updated
  • Limit ad tracking via your device (eg on iPhone go to Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit ad tracking) and biggest ad networks (for Google, go to Google account and turn off ad personalization)
  • Request your data be deleted once you stop using the app. Simply deleting an app from your device usually does not erase your personal data.
  • mobile

Can it snoop on me? information

Camera

Device: No

App: No

Microphone

Device: No

App: Yes

Tracks location

Device: No

App: Yes

What can be used to sign up?

What data does the company collect?

How does the company use this data?

"Sonos does not and will not sell personal information about our customers. We want you to understand that information about our customers is an important part of our business. We only disclose your data as described in this Statement. We may share information with the following types of third parties: Third Party Vendors. Sonos uses a variety of third-party vendors to carry out services like website management and hosting, cloud-related services, online Product purchases and shipping (including fulfilling orders for Products or Services, delivering packages, sending postal mail and email), credit cards and other alternative payment processing, email communications, analysing data, providing marketing assistance, transmitting content, if applicable scoring credit risk, and providing customer service."

Sonos does not use information that personally identifies you to display interest-based ads, but they can share some anonymised & pseudoanonymised data with third-party advertising companies to provide ads of features on Sonos Radio: "If you decide to use Sonos Radio, we will share a subset of your pseudonymized and anonymized data with third party advertising companies to present, via Sonos Products, interest-based ads for features, products, and services that might be of interest to you. Specifically, we share the following information with our advertising partners: location, language, and genre of the station you are currently listening to (which is not based on your overall listening history). We will share anonymous information with advertisers, which describes the overall listening audience in general. We may also share limited location information (i.e. an IP address and anonymized ID) with some of our third party radio content partners who may run ads on their stations. We do not use information that personally identifies you to present interest-based ads. "

"If you choose to use Sonos Radio, we may use information such as your interactions with Sonos site, Sonos Radio content, Sonos Products, Sonos app and other Services to display interest-based ads for features, products, and services that might be of interest to you. We do not use information that personally identifies you to display interest-based ads."

How can you control your data?

You can get your data deleted.
"Where we are using your personal information on the basis of your consent, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time. Moreover, where we process your personal information based on legitimate interest or the public interest, you have the right to object at any time to that use of your personal information.

We rely on you to ensure that your personal information is complete, accurate and current. Please do inform us promptly of any changes to or inaccuracies of your personal information by contacting [email protected]. Please contact us at this email address if you want to submit any data related questions. We will respond to your request as soon as possible but certainly within 30 days."

"Sonos will retain your personal information:
for as long as we have a customer relationship with you and/or as necessary to enable you to use the website, your Sonos account and/or your Sonos Product(s);
for the period required to provide services that you request from us;
for the period required to provide marketing or other promotional materials that you request from us;
to comply with our legal obligations, including requirements of regulators and governmental agencies that have authority over us such as tax and/or accounting obligations, which usually require retaining certain transaction data for periods between 7 and 10 years after a transaction has occurred;
for the period required to resolve disputes with any parties and/or to investigate or defend against potential legal claims; and otherwise as necessary to allow us to conduct our business in compliance with applicable laws and regulations."

What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?

Average

An email sent by Sonos accidntally to 450 customers revealed all of their email addresses to each other in January 2020.

Child Privacy Information

"Sonos does not target and is not intended to attract children under sixteen. Although visitors of all ages may navigate through our website or use our app, we do not knowingly collect or request personal information from those under the age of sixteen without parental consent. If, following a notification by a parent or guardian or discovery by other means, a child under sixteen has been improperly registered on our site using false information, we will cancel the child's account and delete the child's personal information from our records."

Can this product be used offline?

No

User-friendly privacy information?

Yes

Sonos doesn't have the easist privacy policy to read, but it is mostly clear and full of decent explanations of what data they collect and how it is used.

Links to privacy information

Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards? information

Yes

Encryption

Yes

Uses encryption in transit and at rest.

Strong password

Yes

Security updates

Yes

Automatic updates are enabled by default.

Manages vulnerabilities

Yes

Sonos does not have an official bug bounty program, but invites disclosure of security bugs.

Privacy policy

Yes

Does the product use AI? information

No

*Privacy Not Included

Dive Deeper

  • Sonos Voice Control review: a speedy, private, music-focused assistant
    The Verge Link opens in a new tab
  • A Sonos survey suggests the company might build a voice assistant of its own
    The Verge Link opens in a new tab

Comments

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