3 wk. ago • 98%

The Sound Of Failure At Sonos

www.forbes.com The Sound Of Failure At Sonos

For a company that built its reputation on quality, Sonos has entered an utterly unacceptable level of business conduct with its “app-ocalypse.”

Sonos's botched app rollout is a significant leadership failure, resulting in widespread customer dissatisfaction and technical issues that undermine its brand.
Over 100 employees were laid off, likely due to the mishandling of the app, reflecting poor leadership priorities and decisions.
Sonos now faces potential long-term damage to its customer loyalty and market confidence, with upcoming updates needing to address these issues urgently.

23 comments

I love how laying off like wage slaves is thought of as a solution lol

lEaDerShIP

109
- It's happening at my company too. Just waiting for my severance pay. Lol
  
  35
I have a Sonos speaker, and the fact that I'm forced to use their app that still sucks has definitely caused me to look elsewhere for my next similar device.

61
- What do you use the app for? I used it for initial setup and setting alarms, but haven’t tried the new app yet. I mostly use the Spotify app over airplay to play on SONOS, or Alexa
  
  14
  
  Because of their dumb spat with Google, I can't connect my Android devices to it via Cast. So if you use Android at all, you have to do all your searches and such through the Sonos app, which is laid out so horribly.
  
  ETA: and I'm not buying an iPhone just so I can have a better user experience that used to work before they intentionally broke it.
  
  23
I had been meaning to check if they had unfucked everything.

Sounds like no.

39
- I hardly use my Sonos speakers now since the big update. I just replay what I have in the queue and hope it doesn't fail to connect.
  
  23
  
  Other than the soundbar on my TV, the thing I use it for 90% of the time is an alarm that pays lullabies for my kids from Navidrome. I had to revert the android app and tell everything to never upgrade.
  
  8
When Sonos first came out, they had this really easy to use, standalone device. It had a track wheel like the old iPods, buttons, and a color display. That made it easy for non-tech people to browse and choose what to play. Then they decided to drop that and go the app route. It's been downhill ever since.

33
I’m the complete opposite of its users apparently. I never use the Sonos app to play music (it’s been crap for that before 2.0). I just airplay through iOS’s system and enjoy its multi-room audio in bliss. I didn’t buy a Sonos system to integrate other Sonos device with it. I bought it to integrate with other Airplay devices and be my living room sneaker surround setup (an Arc+sub gen 3+lamp Symfonisks). Again, the app has always sucked compared to favorite Music/Podcast app + Airplay 2.

27
- Same, I stream using the airplay protocol from my Lyrion Music Server and haven't had to touch their app since they arrived. If they fuck with that though so help me god I will write the nastiest things about them on the internets.
  
  9
- I'm the opposite too, for a different reason to you. I have Sonos home theatre (soundbar, sub, rear speakers) and Chromecast with Google TV hooked up to the TV. I control music on a pixel phone or pixel tablet through the Chromecast, Sonos kinda just hangs off on the edge of my ecosystem and I don't think about it. I maybe use the app a few times a year.
  
  But I get why if you just have a few speakers it would be a pain to use the app.
  
  8
Somebody much smarter than me needs to hack this system. I’d pay to support it.

It’s beyond BS that functionality gets deleted from a product I purchased. I knew the risk of investing into an ecosystem that “required” an app to work. Shame on me, I get what I deserve I guess. Still doesn’t make it right.

16
i just use 15 year old apple airports that you can find for dirt cheap used and they do airplay 2.0 perfectly, and i haven't had to restart them in several years. then plug them into whatever aux speaker you want.

15
- I dont use iPhone but my mom does . Are you saying that AirPods can be used as a "receiver" and play music through Jack?
  
  How do you go about that, are you charging them constantly? Is it the box or the ear thing that has the output?
  
  2
  
  Airport. Not Airpod. A lot of people don't remember them.
  
  5
  
  sorry not airpods. check out apple airport express. they were wired to the wall and have an audio out jack. apple abandoned them a decade ago but they are rock solid.
  
  5
It took me 2 solid hours to find a work around to get my parent's speaker working again. Thanks Sonos!

15
The new app sucks, but that's been true for quite some time. I have a bunch of older Sonos stuff that's still runs their old 'S1' app. It works perfectly. When I need to add a zone I buy old hardware on eBay that is still S1 compatible. What this article doesn't mention but should, is the newer versions of the new app have a much less robust privacy policy and even more stuff is being done through their cloud. It's not necessary, it doesn't help user experience, it just gives more data to harvest, and it's not what consumers want.

It's good that they are trying to right the ship. But this article nails it on the head, whatever they are doing now is way too late. Management that's not asleep at the switch would have seen these problems before the app even launched and slammed on the brakes lest they destroy their company to get a pair of headphones out the door. And that's exactly what they did. The trust of users is broken, that's not easily repaired. They shipped their headphones but nobody gave a shit because the app made people want to get rid of Sonos entirely.

It's too bad Logitech discontinued the Squeezebox line. At the time that was the biggest competitor to Sonos, they could be cleaning up right now.

4

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