If anyone is on the same boat here's the best non-smart/IoT/lock-in tech I've come up with for a single room setup with wireless speakers:

1) 4 to 1 HDMI splitter with audio out: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/HDSW4-HDMI-Switch-4X1-With-A...

2) Connect all your sources through HDMI (your PC, your TV box, a Chromecast, a raspberry, etc). There are versions with more inputs if you need that. That one has a nice simple remote.

3) Connect the HDMI splitter audio output to a RF audio transmitter: https://www.altoproaudio.com/products/stealth-wireless

4) Use some powered studio monitors with one of the RF receivers each (there are plenty to choose from)

This way if you're streaming audio+video everything syncs up because the RF link adds very little latency (unlike the Sonos that adds 70ms). The chromecast gives you easy streaming of audio and video from all your apps and if you are only streaming audio you can just turn off your TV/projector and the audio still works fine. The speakers can be placed anywhere there's power. It doesn't have the fancy multi-room and 5.1 possibilities of the Sonos nor the good industrial design.

Just a note - if you move to 4K+HDR you'll probably need to upgrade that splitter.

Indeed. I'm only running a 1080p projector so I was mostly looking for something that was cheap enough and had a very simple remote. That specific one looks great in that I can easily take a black marker and label the inputs 1 through 4 on the remote itself.

You can get multiple different Linux SBCs for under $10. Grab one, put ffmpeg on it, be happy.

I would be shocked if the commercial offerings were significantly better than most open source stuff (except for iphone interoperability...)

It seems that you either: a) haven't used a Sonos system, and/or b) have a lot of free time and don't mind resetting/rebooting your equipment when glitches happen, and/or c) don't care about multi-room synchronized playback. I won't even mention the audio quality, which on an Raspberry Pi for example, is horrible.

Sonos Just Works — some people (like me) care about that deeply. I have better things to do with my life than fiddle with audio systems. If your hobby is building these kinds of systems, then of course it makes perfect sense to roll your own. But if it isn't, I wouldn't waste my time.

My experience is way different than yours. Sonos would never stay connected to wifi and required multiple factory resets over the years until I just got rid of them.

I'm really interested to know what specifically you're concerned about. This article is just inaccurate. You can opt out of usage data, so what is the privacy issue for you personally?

What's described in the article is just one example of how depending on a closed system like the Sonos can burn me further down the line. The setup I've described takes advantage of the HDMI standard to not depend on any specific vendor and even fixes the 70ms Sonos line-in delay. Since I've even priced it out at slightly cheaper than the Sonos with probably better speakers (2x JBL LSR 305 vs the Play1's) I think the only advantage the Sonos retains for me is really the better industrial design.

look into the squeezebox ecosystem.

Seconding. It's a great system if you can set up your own server, and the ecosystem at this point is almost completely open to the point where you can completely build players from other devices like raspberry pis.

That's just software, is there modern wireless speaker hardware that speaks it? Didn't find anything.