Re: Makes mental note...
My brother's got Sonos gear. And it's expensive, but does sound decent, is easy to use and works for how he wants to use it. They're all doing separate jobs round the house, but can be paired up to the telly for surround sound home cinema goodness, or set-up in pairs in the kitchen, dining room and garden for party music (80s in the kitchen with Mum, horrible in the garden with the kids).
Not cheap, and could be done as well in other ways, but maybe not as easily to use. Does link up nicely to the phones, and family PC, and guests can play music from their phones too.
On the other hand, seemingly every time I go round, I have to update the app. And the speakers seem to want a firmware update every 5 minutes as well. Which rather ruins the easy to useness - but then I suppose you notice that less if you're using them every day.
It's not what I'd choose, but I can see the point of them. But changing the privacy policy and effectively bricking devices if you don't agree is not good. Given they're virtually useless without the apps. And it would take a lot for me to ever trust them now, I'd no longer recommend them. But then any IoT kit that dies without the company maintaining servcers and apps makes me very suspicious.