There’s a lot of competition now that didn’t exist when Sonos started up. When you build brand loyalty, that’s not so big a deal, but when you destroy brand loyalty…
For now, you can hack Sonos back together with the SonoPhone app or Plex (which is not so great so far). When looking for new components, you can look into alternatives like Roon, Wiim, Bluesound, Heos, etc.
I have a good bit of money tied up in this stuff, so I’m not throwing the baby out with the bath water just yet...trying to make the Plex and SonoPhone solution work. Plex is flakey but works - you get search back for local media on your NAS. A hodge-podge of fiddly bits - yes, Sonos have put us between a rock and a hard place.
Seems Sonos has decided most of their customers use the product to stream and watch TV. And they may be right. The gen of people ripping CD collections to a NAS will shrink and eventually die off...in twenty years or so. But for us who aren’t dead yet, we’ll probably have to look elsewhere. Who dies first, me or Sonos? I bet I outlast them if they stay on this path of customer disregard.
As for Boost, I think they want you to get off of SonosNet and onto a solid WiFi network of your own making. They don’t want to be in the WiFi business which almost no one had back when Sonos launched, so they needed SonosNet and the Boost repeater. That’s my guess.
Have you yet accepted any firmware updates? If not then one way forward (and the one that I am using) is to use Android devices for the app, and revert to version 16.1. The method to do this is easy to find and quite easy to follow. I’m planning to stay on that forever, or such time as Sonos get their act together (which could of course be many months away yet...).
Have you yet accepted any firmware updates? If not then one way forward (and the one that I am using) is to use Android devices for the app, and revert to version 16.1. The method to do this is easy to find and quite easy to follow. I’m planning to stay on that forever, or such time as Sonos get their act together (which could of course be many months away yet...).
FWIW, my system updated to the v16.2 firmware and the Android v16.1 app works great. That said, I’ve since disabled firmware updates.
Thanks - that’s useful info.
There’s a lot of competition now that didn’t exist when Sonos started up. When you build brand loyalty, that’s not so big a deal, but when you destroy brand loyalty…
For now, you can hack Sonos back together with the SonoPhone app or Plex (which is not so great so far). When looking for new components, you can look into alternatives like Roon, Wiim, Bluesound, Heos, etc.
I have a good bit of money tied up in this stuff, so I’m not throwing the baby out with the bath water just yet...trying to make the Plex and SonoPhone solution work. Plex is flakey but works - you get search back for local media on your NAS. A hodge-podge of fiddly bits - yes, Sonos have put us between a rock and a hard place.
Seems Sonos has decided most of their customers use the product to stream and watch TV. And they may be right. The gen of people ripping CD collections to a NAS will shrink and eventually die off...in twenty years or so. But for us who aren’t dead yet, we’ll probably have to look elsewhere. Who dies first, me or Sonos? I bet I outlast them if they stay on this path of customer disregard.
As for Boost, I think they want you to get off of SonosNet and onto a solid WiFi network of your own making. They don’t want to be in the WiFi business which almost no one had back when Sonos launched, so they needed SonosNet and the Boost repeater. That’s my guess.
Thanks for this response - definitely helpful. I think you’re right about Sonos not wanting to be in the WiFi business. I believe the longtime users have watched them create functionality they needed at the time, and then offload it once it becomes ‘common’. I think I’m more so irked at how poorly they’ve removed support (or seemingly removed).
I’ve got a ton of money wrapped up in SONOS. Hell, I even own a bunch of their stock (which is also failing me). The resell market is strong… no telling if it’ll stay strong with this app. But, we’re in a sweet spot now where getting something else is a definite possibility. I’d hate to stick it out just because it’s familiar.
I like the conversation about the firmware updates as well… but, more work than I’m interested in 
