i just had one of my Sonos One, less than 2 years old, die on me over the weekend. it doesn’t power up at all. it’s not the power cable as the cable works with another unit i have.
what should i do?
and fortunate / unfortunate timing, as i was looking to buy a few more units - need to relook options.
FWIW - I have two One SL’s (purchased as a set in early 2020) and they’ve both been absolutely fine - I initially used them as Home Theatre surrounds with a Sonos Beam. I later had them stereo paired in the Kitchen and now have them standalone in two bedrooms - they’ve been used regularly over the years (almost daily use) and both are still going strong. I’ve been more than happy with the two speakers. The One SL’s seem very well built to me, as good as every other Sonos speaker that I own.
Thanks Paul. It is not so much that it will cost to replace per se. It is more that it broke down in less than 2 years, and costs 70% to replace. The suggestion of power fluctuation is but a convenient means of casting doubt - the factory-installed fuse remains intact, and my other Sonos One (1-year-old) remains operational (touch wood). Since Sonos will not stand behind its product, I cannot see myself doing so. I won’t pursue this further.
I always thought that’s precisely why some folk choose to take out small appliance ‘extended’ warranty cover, to provide replacement cover/repair for such situations, particularly as these kind of things can happen to any make/model of device.
I’ve had an Apple iPad last a good many years and an iPhone last me just 2 years. I’m sure a good many (many) thousands of people worldwide likely have the exact same model of Sonos device that’s lasted much longer than the couple of examples mentioned here in this thread and that they will continue to have enjoyment from their speakers for a decade, or more.
Anyhow, if you are that worried about the longevity of ‘any’ purchased product, then perhaps consider paying to extend beyond the manufactures warranty.
Odd, I have six or seven of them, most from within several months after they were introduced in 2017 (the One SL in 2019) and not one has failed. Wonder what the difference is between our two environments.
+22
Mine Sls have survived but I do have all connected to quality surge suppressors.
+22
Collect all your serial numbers and approach Sonos Support with your bad batch idea and see if they can see any possibility there.
It may well be that electronic devices fail but there seem to be a lot of people experiencing the same thing. My Sonos One is dead as a dodo and has hardly been used. I certainly won’t be replacing it in view of the many bad reviews here - and those are only from the people who can be bothered to write one so there may probably be many more people with faulty devices. Sad that electronics have become virtually a disposable (but expensive) item.
I bought a sonos one sl 15 days ago. The equipment stopped working, it does not turn on.
New or used? If new, return it to the place of purchase for an exchange under warranty - if used, then perhaps contact the seller, that’s all depending on the terms of the sale.
HTH
I’m new to Sonos and am completely disappointed in the quality (assurance) of their products at this point. When they work … they work and sound great, but they seem to have a VERY short lifespan for when they work.
Same issue as others on this thread, only I’ve purchased two (2) Sonos One devices - one in April 2021 and one in May 2021 - from the local Best Buy. The one purchased in April stopped working by May and the one purchased in May stopped working in June. BOTH devices only lasted about one month before they completely failed to power up any longer.
I have a significant amount of tech and A/V experience and lots of both in my homes. I only decided to try the Sonos One option for my one summer home as it seemed like a nice cheap way to test their tech. Glad that I did because it failed miserably.
Glad I didn’t invest in the various other options. Was planning to use Arc/Sub on three TVs in this home and use the architectural series for a bunch of in ceiling and outdoor whole house audio work in a new home. Sticking with my other vendors who have worked solid for 5-10 years already for me.
Sad that Sonos can make products that sound nice, but can’t make them reliable or with a consistent quality.
The same thing just happened to my Sonos One this week (approximately 2.5 years old, one of two I own, plus a Port) and I received the same support and resolution from Customer Care - here’s a 30% discount on a new one, sorry about your bad speaker.
The speaker sat on the same shelf plugged into a power surge protector outlet for the duration of its life. The only thing I had done recently was flip the breaker to that outlet to work on a wall switch. Therefore, something akin to unplugging and plugging the speaker back in fried it. Why would I be compelled to spend that much money to replace an item that has a limited 1 year warranty but goes bad soon thereafter?
Sorry to hear that the same thing happened to you. I have already decided to walk away from the Sonos brand. I figured it is what it is, and decided no point being unhappy about it any further. Many other good audio brands out there with products that do a similar job.
I just bought a One SL from Best Buy. DOA Will not turn on.
I have connect amps working fine but apparently these speakers have issues
For what it’s worth, I’ve purchased the majority of my 24 Sonos devices from Best Buy, with the exception, if I recall, of four devices from Sonos directly. I’ve never had an issue, including the couple of ‘open box’ devices.
+22
Excellent service from Allstate. https://www.squaretrade.com/
Bought one of these but never used it. https://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Equipment-Warranties/b?ie=UTF8&node=2242348011
I buy these for gifts, for my own gear I just go with what Sonos offers.
My Play5 failed with no power on. I have a Nakamichi sound bar that has run well for nearly 7years now.
Whilst I sympathise with anyone whose electronic devices fail, Sonos are shipping many thousands of speakers each year, so the failure rate seems quite low. I had an expensive Linn amp fail after only about 2 years, some time back, and they were not interested in offering any financial help replacing it. Since the Gen2 Play:5 was released in November 2015, your Gen1 version did last at least 6 years - not great, but not far short (so far) on the Nakamichi.
There is definitely a design issue with the one SL. I have been lucky that all of my units have been replaced under warranty but I have returned 8 of the one SL speakers and I only have 7 of them. Some have died at the year mark, one lasted just a couple days … all of this over a multiple year period. I have an arc, two subs, a port, and amp with no issues. Also no issues with any electronics in my house. I am guessing Sonos designed these to such a low price point. They cut some corners and robustness in their design.
Same here in Spain, my Sonos One (Gen 1) which has been working fine since bought in May 2018 has powered-off today and will not power-on; I’ve tried unplug/plug-in, different socket, different cable (from a still working Play:1) all to no avail. #AnotherOnebitesthedust!
Probably doesn’t help they replace the broken units with refurbs. Have lost track of which ones I have actually sent back at this point. Possible it is refurbing the refurbs. Could be environment differences, but back to my design comment. They clearly are not very robustly designed, should be able to handle different environments.
What did Sonos say, when you contacted them?
This company is a joke. They sent me a way bill to send the speakers back along with the reply below.
May 31
“Hello Sammy,
It is good to know, you got the email with the waybill, as soon we get the defective units, we are going to ship the new ones, also you will receive an email with the tracking information.
Best Regards,
Karen P”
I replied back saying thank you and both units are shipped out.
June 4 I get the following reply.
“Hello Sammy,
Thank you for reaching out to Sonos Customer Experience. We hope this email finds you in good health. Thank you for letting us know.
In your case, since the returned units are outside of the warranty period, what you will receive once they have been processed is a voucher for a 30% discount credit on sonos.com for each of the speakers.
These credits are open and can be used on one item each from all available at the store, so you can use them to replace your units directly or you can use them for a different kind of speaker if you prefer. The discount will apply to sets as well as they are qualified as a single item, but please keep in mind that if you use a voucher on a shopping cart that has more than one item listed the discount will be applied to the most expensive one only.
Best regards”
I replied back with:
“Then why did you ask me to ship the speakers back to you? They already left 3 days ago.
As per the email below from Karen on May 31, 2022, 12:07 PM, she confirmed they are under warranty and I was getting a replacement. What has changed now?
Please see attached email and let me know”
and their reply today was this
Hello Sammy,
We understand that this might be frustrating and take part of your time.
I regret the last email from Ehirin on June 3, is correct, the defective unit warranty expires on June 24, 2021, and we are offering you a 30% discount code for the inconvenience. Once the defective units get to our warehouse the discounts will be released for your use.
Why the defective unit is requested to be sent?
This is part of our improvement process, our technicians have to study what fails and why to avoid this from happening again in future products.
Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you, and we thank you for your understanding on this matter. If you have other concerns, feel free to let us know.
All the best,
Shi Sing Y”
This company is a joke. I understand the speakers are outta of warranty and they could have said that from the second I called and ended this back and forth. I took a day off work just to send these speakers out.
They wont warranty my speakers but they want them back for a study? I have almost 10 sonos speakers/products at my house and I will never ever buy another one. I will list what I have for sale and never recommend this garbage to anyone else.
Very disappointed.
Sorry for the rant, this is just ridiculous.
I personally would request the units back.
There are sellers of power supply parts etc and personal I'd be taking then to bits and repairing them (appreciate this is no for everyone).
To me it looks like Sonos have stolen your units!.
Just to add: The One SL’s I have here show in the Sonos App as hardware version 1.28.1.6-2.2 (if that info. is useful at all)?
To me this high failure rate indicates something in your environment is contributing to the failures. The obvious candidate causes would be power line transients or static electricity discharges.
Power line transient intensity can vary from circuit to circuit. A rogue appliance on a circuit could cause major trouble on its circuit and less trouble on another. A wiring fault can contribute to the issue. Each unit has an ability to withstand a certain level of transient. In this respect it’s possible that the ONE SL’s are the weakest unit using the outlet. This does not imply a defective design, only that the specific level of transient is too low to damage the other units outright, however, they could be suffering long term damage. If you are using transient protection, it could be improperly installed or failed. After a certain number of large transients the protector will fail and it is not practical to test these units in the field.
If any of your units are wired to the network, the network wire is a potential source of transients from nearby lightning strikes.
Static electricity discharges are typically more of an issue in winter months because the relative humidity is lower. Do you touch the controls? If so, have you noticed any shocks?
Yes, it’s possible that there was a bad batch of units, but it is unlikely that all of your units have come from that batch. Based on reports from other users on other models, SONOS is aware of a few problem batches and has been generous with replacements for these units. These units are identified by serial numbers.
I have literally hundreds of “sensitive” electronics in my house. None of them fail. Only marginally designed one SLs.
Same here. Around 2 years of ownership and both of my One SL’s are dead. A 12 month warranty on a premium product is a joke.
I don’t know the sales figures, but it’s at least many, many tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands have been sold, yet very few users have come here to report failures. Of course I can’t know if users with failed units simply don’t come here, for some reason a number of prone to fail units have arrived at your doorstep, or there is something about your installation that damages the units.
I appreciate the input and ideas.
I have actually spent a considerable of time checking in monitoring the voltage in my house. I have a solid 115-120 V on both legs. I have them connected wirelessly, so there’s no ESD source there. They are all plugged into different rooms in my house on different circuits. I’ve even took a thermal camera and checked all the connections in my electrical panel and the connections outside of my house to look for heat indicating loose connections and there were none.
Could be that I bought all of those units at the same time from Costco so maybe they’re all the same bad batch and replacements they keep sending are refurbished which are probably recondition failed units so they’re just failing again.
I have seen batches of electronics from reputable companies go bad. A lab I worked and I had 10 of 20 Samsung monitors fail that we bought all at the same time just after about a year, we opened them up and it was bad capacitors in the power supply. In the same lab we also had batches of Toshiba, hard drives all go bad about the same time.
other people in this thread have had multiple speakers fail, and then people just jump on, and say mine didn’t fail so you must be doing something wrong, and that’s just not a logical conclusion to me
edit: I also just wanted to explicitly add Sonos has warranted and replaced every single one of my failed speakers so as a company they are doing the right thing. it would be nice if they sent me a new unit instead of refurbished ones, but I can’t complain too much about that I guess.
I do worry a little bit at some point these things are going to fail outside of warranty, but then I guess at that point I’ll take it apart and find out what’s actually going wrong with it.
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