On March 6, 2017 at 15:39, Audiophiliac said...
I do not feel burned by it at all, and I have lots of C4/SONOS systems out there. It is a way to get in front of clients I have not seen in a while. And we can work around it easy enough by either selling them new hardware, or simply instructing them to use the SONOS app for control of the music. Most people are not upset or disgruntled by that solution, and it ends up being far more intuitive of an interface IMHO, once they get the hang of it.
My only hope is that with the cooperative effort between the 3rd parties and SONOS, they will expand the usability of the endorsed driver and make it at least somewhat useful within control systems. Right now, it is basically akin to an FM radio with preset buttons. :\
I am not sure what will happen to the Elan drivers, both the Elan on and the Core one. Since Elan was not included in the endorsed program, will those drivers cease to work on a certain date or is it a wait and see situation? As of now, I believe they still work ok....I have not heard any differently from clients anyhow.
Moving forward, I would not sell Sonos with the mindset of integrating it. I think you run too big of a risk of all support just going away. Sure they offered a sanctioned driver (that is as useless as tits on a bull), but Sonos is the type of company that could decide at a moments notice that it is not working out the way they want it to and poof, integration is gone. I like Sonos for standalone systems, and feel it cannot be beat for that type of system. But once integration is desired or needed, its just not the right product. If my clients ask for a full blown automation system with keypads and seamless integration of their music, I let them know what the options are for that, and if they wish to go with a service that is not supported, I let them know that as well. I can still provide music with that service, but it will not integrate, and I explain why I will not do it. I have not really had an issue with that aspect since I made the change.
