I got a Sonos speaker for Christmas a couple years ago.
As soon as I realized I needed an account for it to simply play music, I went to return it.
The guy in the store told me that there were no speaker brands that did not require an account these days, and that I shouldn’t be so petty. He said “but you also have a Google account, right?”, “Why is a Sonos account such a problem?”.
I told him indeed, I already need a Google account for my phone to work, a Spotify account for listening to my music, and now a Sonos account for my speaker that plays that music , and I thought that was ridiculous.
My previous speaker was a Sony, and while that did have an app to configure it, it didn’t require setting up an account with any personal data, which I think is fucked up for a device whose main purpose is just to produce sound. I left the speaker in the store and got my money back.
I did some research and found Teufel devices, speakers from Germany that work fine with an app that doesn’t require an account. Now all my speakers and soundbars around the house are Teufel, and I’m very happy with them. I think also Yamaha has (or at least had) accountless speakers.
So win/win - buying European and keeping my privacy a little more in check.
I did the same for my smart scale. I don’t want my weight in the cloud somewhere, or on the servers of some Chinese or U.S. company somewhere.
An app on my phone can store daily weight and other health data just fine.
So when I wanted a smart scale, I also did some research. It turns out there’s an open source app called openscale that does exactly that: just store the data locally on my phone, and it supports a bunch of devices.
I got myself a Beurer scale (coincidentally also a German brand) because I read you can skip the whole account setup. Then used openscale to register my weigh ins. It works, I’m sure the cloud apps of larger brands have a nicer user interface, but they come at the cost of my privacy, which I simply refuse to sell out for a piece of hardware whose main purpose is to show me what I weigh.
I think people should be more conscious about their data. I don’t use apple pay or Google wallet, my bank already knows most of what I pay, where and when. Why would I want to share that with these big corporations? I will gladly trade in a little convenience for a lot of privacy.
I got a sonos speaker given to me, and the app setup and sync was so fucking frustrating. I ended up having to call their support. Just FYI though, once you have it set up, you no longer need the app.
I have used Teufel devices in the past and they worked well enough. But I have since switched to a selfhosted alternative. Stupid speakers (in my case old 2nd hand stereo systems), raspberry pis and the Lyrion Music Server.
You get all the benefits of commercial internet enabled speakers (the project used to power Logitechs speakers before they open sourced it) including multi room audio, various streaming service integration (both Spotify and Qobuz are supported among others) and solid app support as well as the privacy that comes from not relying on an external server
Is it a smart speaker? (In the sense that it supports playing music over the network and Spotify connect?)
Because if so, I’d like to know the brand and type. I couldn’t find a lot online.
Peoples expectation for “working” is “has absolutely all features that you would have with google, no exceptions”. If even a single feature is missing, people will scream thats its unusable.
I’m starting to think that I want to carry around 2 phones, one cheap android for stuff like this, and a main device that’s fully free since it doesn’t have to make compromises
On GrapheneOS in Austria I’ve yet to encounter this problem, fortunately. I can’t use Authy because they’re dipshits, but the government apps just show an (annoying) warning every time I use them.
I also can’t pay with my phone anymore because Google is a dipshit as well. Fuck Google. Only thing I need them for these days is YouTube.
How about migrating to Aegis?
It’s FOSS, allows encrypted storage, allows backing up and restoring so you never have to lose access to accounts, either (talking about Google Authenticator here)
I got a Sonos speaker for Christmas a couple years ago.
As soon as I realized I needed an account for it to simply play music, I went to return it. The guy in the store told me that there were no speaker brands that did not require an account these days, and that I shouldn’t be so petty. He said “but you also have a Google account, right?”, “Why is a Sonos account such a problem?”.
I told him indeed, I already need a Google account for my phone to work, a Spotify account for listening to my music, and now a Sonos account for my speaker that plays that music , and I thought that was ridiculous.
My previous speaker was a Sony, and while that did have an app to configure it, it didn’t require setting up an account with any personal data, which I think is fucked up for a device whose main purpose is just to produce sound. I left the speaker in the store and got my money back.
I did some research and found Teufel devices, speakers from Germany that work fine with an app that doesn’t require an account. Now all my speakers and soundbars around the house are Teufel, and I’m very happy with them. I think also Yamaha has (or at least had) accountless speakers. So win/win - buying European and keeping my privacy a little more in check.
I did the same for my smart scale. I don’t want my weight in the cloud somewhere, or on the servers of some Chinese or U.S. company somewhere. An app on my phone can store daily weight and other health data just fine.
So when I wanted a smart scale, I also did some research. It turns out there’s an open source app called openscale that does exactly that: just store the data locally on my phone, and it supports a bunch of devices.
I got myself a Beurer scale (coincidentally also a German brand) because I read you can skip the whole account setup. Then used openscale to register my weigh ins. It works, I’m sure the cloud apps of larger brands have a nicer user interface, but they come at the cost of my privacy, which I simply refuse to sell out for a piece of hardware whose main purpose is to show me what I weigh.
I think people should be more conscious about their data. I don’t use apple pay or Google wallet, my bank already knows most of what I pay, where and when. Why would I want to share that with these big corporations? I will gladly trade in a little convenience for a lot of privacy.
I got a sonos speaker given to me, and the app setup and sync was so fucking frustrating. I ended up having to call their support. Just FYI though, once you have it set up, you no longer need the app.
I have used Teufel devices in the past and they worked well enough. But I have since switched to a selfhosted alternative. Stupid speakers (in my case old 2nd hand stereo systems), raspberry pis and the Lyrion Music Server.
You get all the benefits of commercial internet enabled speakers (the project used to power Logitechs speakers before they open sourced it) including multi room audio, various streaming service integration (both Spotify and Qobuz are supported among others) and solid app support as well as the privacy that comes from not relying on an external server
Thats interesting, I have never bought a speaker that requires an account. My one doesn’t even have an app.
Is it a smart speaker? (In the sense that it supports playing music over the network and Spotify connect?)
Because if so, I’d like to know the brand and type. I couldn’t find a lot online.
Ah, smart speakers. Thought this was about generic wireless speakers.
Just buy a simple Bluetooth speaker.
Don’t look for a smart speaker. Don’t look for a big brand. Just type “Bluetooth speaker” into the search engine of your favourite webshop or whatnot.
It’s hilarious that you literally have to make a deal with the Devil for this.
God I love lemmy, tysm for posting genuinely
My JBL soundbar has no app.
Your only option is configuring it with the Google Home app
You don’t need Google account for your phone to work.
Peoples expectation for “working” is “has absolutely all features that you would have with google, no exceptions”. If even a single feature is missing, people will scream thats its unusable.
The problem starts when a government service or your bank requires an app that needs play services/ uses play integrity API.
I’m starting to think that I want to carry around 2 phones, one cheap android for stuff like this, and a main device that’s fully free since it doesn’t have to make compromises
In my experience microG runs all of those apps without issue.
On GrapheneOS in Austria I’ve yet to encounter this problem, fortunately. I can’t use Authy because they’re dipshits, but the government apps just show an (annoying) warning every time I use them.
I also can’t pay with my phone anymore because Google is a dipshit as well. Fuck Google. Only thing I need them for these days is YouTube.
I use NewPipe instead of YouTube, which works quite well and without ads.
Authy just provides 2FA ,no?
How about migrating to Aegis? It’s FOSS, allows encrypted storage, allows backing up and restoring so you never have to lose access to accounts, either (talking about Google Authenticator here)
I have a scale that shows my weight.
And a speaker that plugs into my phone with the jack.
Nothing wrong with checking “oh I’m down since 3mo ago” w/o ever having copied numbers between screens :)