Dead spots on CR200

  • 14 November 2009
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312 replies

I have just recently received my 3rd unit.
The other 2 units were having dead spots as well (starting perfectly, getting worse after some months ....)

Anyway, the support and shipping time was excellent - thank you 🙂
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Just received my 3rd unit yesterday too. I hope this one will last longer!
Again, excellent support from Sonos as usual, but really hoping the dead spot issue is definitively solved.

It arrived right on time because before putting the new unit in service I upgraded my system to 3.6 using the old remote and at the end of the process I was asked to click "done" ("Terminé" in French) at the bottom of the screen and this was not possible because the button was in the dead zone. Hard buttons are not operational at this stage so the controller is now stuck in this position and I will return it to Sonos in this shape!

Cheers,
Crilo
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My second unit just failed (1st was replaced less than 6 months ago).



I'm in the same position. My replacement unit has stopped responding to touches on the bottom of the creen where "music" and "Done" are.
I'm on my 7th replacement CR200 as of last week
I must say, it seems quite odd that there are so many repeat victims while so many of us have yet to experience this failure at all.

I hope there's not some type of behavior that can induce the failure, since none of us appears to know what that could be, and I'd like to keep the three CR200's I have working. My wife will go to another room to retrieve a 200 rather than pick up a 100 sitting five feet away.
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Well I've just received my 6th unit. Let's not pat Sonos on the back too much for their customer service; if they hadn't extended the warranty on the CR200, they may well have been faced with a lot of court cases under the 'Sale of Goods Act'.

This remote is, in my opinion, utter rubbish. I treat all of my equipment with the greatest of care and the last two remotes have hardly been used, since I bought an iPad twelve months ago. Maybe that is the problem, not enough use.

My 6th unit is still in its box, untouched and there it will remain. A total waste of £200.

The fact that Sonos are still sending these units out is also a disgrace. I've had faulty units replaced with faulty units one after the other and when the two year warranty is up, we'll be saying aren't Sonos wonderful for extending the warranty. No, it's rubbish. That's the least they could do and they are still off loading these remotes on to us.

The Sonos system in itself is great. I have four zones and will be adding another two shortly. I show it off to all my friends and regularly sing it's praises but this controller just let's it down and unfortunately let's down Sonos more so.

They, Sonos, need to stop trying to kid us with all this talk of a faulty batch etc etc. Just be trueful with your loyal customers. A bit of honesty goes a long way.
Davy mate I totally understand where you're coming from. I've been lucky so far in that my CR200 which was supposed to be in the "faulty batch" is still OK, but I've been put off buying another CR200 as it's dented my trust in them reading about problems still happening.
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The Sonos system in itself is great. I have four zones and will be adding another two shortly. I show it off to all my friends and regularly sing it's praises but this controller just let's it down and unfortunately let's down Sonos more so.
+1

We have 14 zones, 6 CR100s and 2 CR200s. When we got the CR200s my wife was all for replacing a couple of the CR100s as she liked the touch screen. But we held off when the faulty screen issue came to light.

Neither of our bedside CR200s get anything like the use our (wall mounted) CR100s get, but both have failed within the extended warranty period, while the good old CR100s soldier on!

My CR200 failed first (it gets more use) and was quickly replaced by Sonos and the replacement is still fine. My wife's CR200 failed about a month ago and has been returned to Sonos, its replacement is due here anytime.

I hope our replacements last, but I have a niggling worry that they will fail outside of the warranty period as they do not get that much use. Time will tell.
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Having bought a CR200 two weeks ago, I am concerned that the problem is not identified or fixed yet. Did SONOS give an official statement that the issue has been identified and corrective action has been taken?

Thanks

hdtvpower
:rolleyes:
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Reading these posts are most interesting as I've just been to the Hi Fi shop where I bought my Sonos system to return the CR200 remote yet again.
This is now the second time Ive had to do that.
Bought the system in Jan this year the CR200 developed dead spots in July after very light usage replaced in a couple of weeks via the store no arguments. The new unit again used no more than a few dozen times (located in the bedroom) developed the same fault about 3 weeks ago one row dead now that's spread and all but the top and bottom lines are dead.
I have eight zones controlled via Two CR100s two Ipads and an android phone and with this two CR200.
The CR100s were bought cheap from e bay and work just fine mainly in the hot and steamy bathroom by contrast the CR200 has been subjected to next to no use and just sits in the cradle in the bedroom.
The store gives really good service and quick turnaround but after paying £280 for a dedicated branded controller I expect it to work for years not just 6 months or so.
I was toying with the idea of buying another CR200 for the living room as the design feel and look of the thing is great and is easy for visitors to use but after this no way I would rather buy an additional I pad.
The Sonos system itself is great and is one of the most used of all the gadget purchases I have ever made getting almost constant use.
But it is being let down badly by this piece of badly manufactured crap.
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It would appear that despite best efforts this problem is not down to an isolated manufacturing batch.
It's also frustrating that nobody from Sonos ever answers questions about this problem. It clearly is a problem still and can't possibly be down to the originally "dodgy batch".
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One of my CR200s is the latest victim to fall prey to the dreaded paralysing touch-screen virus.

I sent the unit back to Sonos today after receiving a new controller at the end of last week.

The new unit has a slightly updated Sonos logo and the silver finish is more metallic in appearance than on the old unit.

I was surprised to find that I could return the old controller under warranty. I purchased my 2 CR200s as soon as they hit the market, so I expected the guarantee to have expired a while ago.

I'm almost tempted to send back the other CR200, too. It has a serial number indicating that it, too, is from the suspect manufacturing run, so it's probably only a matter of time before that unit also fails.
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I'm almost tempted to send back the other CR200, too. It has a serial number indicating that it, too, is from the suspect manufacturing run, so it's probably only a matter of time before that unit also fails.
Sonos' service is very good, let's not abuse it.
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Sonos' service is very good, let's not abuse it.

I said "almost tempted to send back". Resisting the temptation isn't an abuse of anyone or anything.

Besides, I would fully expect to incur costs for wasting Sonos' time if I were to return an item that is still functioning entirely correctly.

The temptation to return the unit stems from the suspicion that the unit will yet fail, but once it's outside the guarantee period. Sod's Law and all that. If it's going to fail, I would rather that it happened today, not tomorrow.
My latest CR200 has failed, sent to me on the 30th November to replace a previously failed unit

Support request raised for my NINTH replacement.
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I think part of the problem is that Sonos has no plans to replace the CR200 with a newer remote control model due to the fact that most of their new customers are using their free apps for the iPhone, iPad and Androids. That is why everyone is receiving the same buggy remote when they get a replacement. The CR200 is obviously flawed and Sonos knows that they are recycling the same buggy remote time and time again hoping that some of them stick.

If they did replace the CR200 with a new remote control model they would probably replace the faulty CR200's with the newer model as a price for doing business and at the same time generating good will to their loyal customer base.
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It surely looks like plenty of CR200's are failing. However, there also seem to be units that are working. I have had mine for over 2 years with daily use and the screen is still responding just fine to any touch.
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I have been a regular visitor to the Sonos forums for many years but never really felt the need to "break into print" however the CR200 farce has got me to the point where I have to jump in.

I live and work in Jakarta Indonesia and purchase all my Sonos equipment from the distributor in Singapore (Tat Chuan Acoustic) who are extremely helpful and provide excellent service. I have purchased two CR200 controllers plus many other pieces of Sonos equipment including 5 CR100 controllers and everything works perfectly apart from the CR200's. I have replaced the first one 3 times over the last year and now I have to replace the second one because of the same hardware failure. My problem is every time I have to do this I have to spend $200+ USD flying to Singapore to pick up the replacement.

Now we get to the point of adding Andrew Schulert into the heading, Mr Schulert is the VP for Quality at Sonos but he has a serious problem he needs to attend to, instead of churning out lots of new Apps, please address what effectively is the credibility of the Sonos company by stepping up and admitting the CR200 is a dud and either recall it and give everyone their money back or get it fixed properly and do a full one for one replacement and there is no point in implementing option 2 until you are confident you have the problem resolved, my three replacements were from separate batches and all failed.

You could also send me a cheque for $800+ USD for the flights and time I am wasting with your faulty controllers which I bought based on the reputation of Sonos supplying a tried and tested quality product
My problem is every time I have to do this I have to spend $200+ USD flying to Singapore to pick up the replacement.

No postal service from Singapore to Indonesia?

My single CR200 has now been replaced 3 times. It costs me one way postage to Sonos, to get failure verified, and approx 1 week of outage. Sonos pay for the return postage.

However I agree with the main thrusts of your post:

1> that the CR200 is a dud with an unacceptable re-failure rate. I may have been guilty of cleaning the first unit's screen with a damp cloth, but the two other were treated with much TLC & caution, and I am the only person who uses it.

2> Even though Sonos replace the units under warranty, the customer does suffer costs caused by this manufacturing or design problem.

3> Sonos explanation of this problem is not credible. If was just a bad batch problem, why are we getting failures from replacement units when they state the the bad batch has been flushed from the system?
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BarryM thanks for your response, with regards to postal service this is most definately not an option from Indonesia, you can wave it good bye and never see it again, especially something that might be worth some decent cash. Indonesian Customs also see it as an "opportunity" if you get my drift
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.....had a CR200 which after a period of inactivity had suddenly developed a dead zone mid way down of right hand side of screen.

I did the usually resets & updates of software etc but no joy.

I was not a member of these forums at the time, but emailed Sonos support direct, asking if there was some other trick I could try to recover the handset.

I was surprised when they replied that they had raised an RMA & I would recieve
an email in the next day or two which would be a UPS label to print up.

I had not told them how old the unit was or supplied proof of purchase or anything like that (I would have struggled on all counts!).

I parcelled up the CR200 carefully, printed the label off, dropped it off to the local UPS depot, & in under 48 hours I had a new unit.

I can not believe the excellent customer support Sonos have displayed in this day & age - you alway's expect a battle don't you?

I've been so impressed, I wanted to find a Sonos forum to leave a message on for others......that is when I found this & saw many others have had very similar experiences.

Well done Sonos for great customer support, & providing a hassle free approach to resolving these issues.

UPS were excellent too in my case.
I was surprised when they replied that they had raised an RMA & I would recieve
an email in the next day or two which would be a UPS label to print up.

I had not told them how old the unit was or supplied proof of purchase or anything like that (I would have struggled on all counts!).


Their system tells them when the CR200 was first logged on, via it's serial number.

That said the large majority of CR200s are basically within the extended warranty period. They were only released about two and a half years ago. It appears that its predecessor is still reliable after 7 years of service.



I can not believe the excellent customer support Sonos have displayed in this day & age - you alway's expect a battle don't you?

I've been so impressed, I wanted to find a Sonos forum to leave a message on for others......that is when I found this & saw many others have had very similar experiences.


I don't think that any reasonable person could fault Sonos' service performance in this, or any other, area.

That doesn't negate the points raised in this thread, and I am neither as surprised nor impressed as you are by Sonos management of the problem. I have found the device to be a lemon. Their other option could have been a recall, or at least a more thorough removal of problem units from the supply chain, especially those outside the US.

Systemic failures of a dedicated controller costing $US550 which just sits inside on a tabletop somewhere, after a couple of years, is unreasonable. eg. My seven year old granddaughter has a Nintendo with a touch screen. She belts the crap out of it. It gets dragged all manner of places. It hasn't shown any touch screen issues. Does this happen with mobile phones from quality manufacturers?

Would you still be so impressed if the replacement unit fails soon too? And then it's replacement also?

And then what happens when the Sonos extended warranty expires? Would you have bought the device if you had known that it's expected lifespan was little over two years?
Again I will say this. I would like to purchase another CR200 (maybe 2) but am not going to buy another one until I hear a satisfactory explanation for the continuing failures of these devices. It simply can't be a faulty batch.
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Yes, I intend to purchase another also. I recently had a CR200 replaced, no quibble, excellent RMA experience, and so far the replacement is fine. But... like other posters I think a full explanation of what has happened with this product would be good customer relations. I totally endorse NYC Guy's take on this. Maybe Sonos has just given up on it, given the ready availability of free app alternative controllers!