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.
Can it snoop on me?
Camera
Device: No
App: No
Microphone
Device: No
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 accidntally to 450 customers revealed all of their email addresses to each other in January 2020.
Child Privacy Information
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
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?
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 disclosure of security bugs.
Comments
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