The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

Fix the ability to add rooms to a room currently playing without restarting the radio and listening to the same advertisements over again. Very annoying. This new version is terrible. Please roll it back to the previous. 

If you open the grouping screen, you should just be able to tick the rooms you want to add (and press Apply) and the music should just continue onward in those rooms/speakers too without interruption. Does this not happen when you do it?

Most of the time when a company like Sonos sees financial issues resulting from a disruption to “brand” it results from a competitor taking away market share.  Sonos issues with the app are self inflicted.  Any layperson who beta tested the app would know that it was destined to fail.  Assuming that beta testing did occur, Spence was unaware of the feature sets that a “majority” of Sonos users held dear. 

As the CEO is the architect of “brand” and takes on the role of caretaking and increasing “brand” awareness, he was woefully out of touch with what made Sonos a beloved brand.  Basically 3 features: 1. outstanding speakers that linked to a multi-room set up with ease 2. Access to downloads from an era before streaming became a dominant source of music 3. An app to seamlessly and easily make it all work.  

It still befuddles me that Spence was so out of touch with the “beta” testing done on this app release.  The continued delays in “fixing” the app (remember it was all going be fixed in June 24 initially) show me that the Company still doesn’t have it’s arms around the problem.  From an investor perspective, he essentially committed suicide cost investors ~40% of value. Because the brand is “loved” by many, you see such venom from disappointed users, who to this day suffer from not being able to access playlists, music library, edit cue, save playlists.  The list goes on.

Because I am invested in Sonos and do not want it to fail, a change in leadership is definitely needed.  Sooner rather than later.  IMHO they fired the wrong 10% of the workforce, regrets Patrick.  Someones head needs to roll for this, and it shouldn’t have been the worker bees.  Hire someone from AAPL who knows about creating a brand, familiar with software and firmware design and integration, and rebuild the product to the level it deserves to be at.

My experience in support and as a consumer doesn’t exactly match that, but it’s a valid point.

This entire issue is essentially because Sonos is going through a serious overhaul of their products.  The whole issue with S1/S2 was Sonos needing a new OS that wasn’t compatible with the older devices because of competition.  They have pushed to move faster because of the growing competition.  In the past, they have stated that they were too late to the game when voice assistants were introduced.    Sonos knows when their patents expire, and that big tech companies are all to eager to use them when that happens, if not sooner.

I don’t understand an argument that Sonos isn’t aware of competition.

And I do agree that competitors will use resources from other parts of their business, as well as funds from other lines of business so they can operate at lower margins, to give themselves a competitive advantage.  There is not a lot they can do about that.  And unfortunately resources are limited, they cannot always devote resources to bug fixes and product develop at the level required.  They have to set priorities, and sometimes there is no right answer.

Regarding “praise” and “blame” for SONOS…

There have been a number of comments about how people who now complain about SONOS failed to praise SONOS when times were good. It’s irrelevant who made such comments; I’m not suggesting they were wrong or that the comments were inappropriate. I just want to make a couple of general observations.

First, consider all of the people now complaining about SONOS who make a point of saying how they recommended SONOS to their friends and relatives over the years. I think even SONOS would agree that there is no form of praise more sincere. I suspect much of SONOS’ growth and success was based on word-of-mouth promotion from current owners to potential purchasers. There clearly has been no lack of praise for SONOS, either in aggregate or from those now struggling with their systems.

But now also consider the embarrassment and even feelings of guilt on the part of those who recommended SONOS to friends and relatives, friends and relatives who suddenly found their audio system inoperative. Such has been the price paid for past SONOS praise.

And so, finally, consider the likelihood of praise (which is to say recommendations) for SONOS going forward. However likely such comments might have been in the past, they will be far less frequent in the future, even from people who did not personally suffer from the May, 2024 melt-down.

Just some food for thought.

I am part of this group and empathize with your thoughts.  More reason for a whitewash of senior management.  Start at the top, keep cutting till you have “clean” margins and new leadership.  It’s because of the investment and past success for Sonos that I make these suggestions.  My guess is changing leadership would expedite the recovery.

Advertisements, I don’t remember paying for advertisements. 🤮🤮🤮

If there’s one thing I hate it’s advertisements.

I’m sticking with the 3rd party controller.

What difference does the controller make to whether you are served adverts on the radio service?

I don’t listen to radio services. I have over 40,000 tracks. I only listen to my local library. 

So, Sonos doesn’t push any ads in their new controller? 
If they don’t then I apologize.

I know the next question:
I updated one device last May and discovered my mistake. I have a system that works very well. I still have a version 16 controller and a 3rd party app on the one I upgraded to the 80 version. 
Why would I risk that perfectly functioning system to update my firmware, run the new app and join everyone else who’s forced to beta test the new version and endure all the pain. I’ll wait until the reviews go back to being positive before I entertain an update.

Quick reminder of some of what’s still broken or recently broken in the latest version of the app (versus March 2024) with emphasis on local libraries:

1. No realistic browsing of local library (other than scrolling for 5 mins to get to an artist starting with “Z”) because A-Z markers removed, so you have to rely on search for everything
2. Recently-played list ignores local library tracks (only shows cloud music service entries)
3. Favorites unhelpfully ordered by date-added not alphabetical even when you expand for category breakdown
4. Artist tag entries with multiple artists ignored so compilations and tracks with guest artists can’t be played via mobile app (desktop controller will show them, but as multiple/unordered entries)

Also reminder: these are bugs and deliberate UI design decisions that Sonos chose to ship.

So if you own music, hold-off on updates and use desktop/3rd-party controllers for as long as you can, unless you really want that shiny/confusing swipe-to-do-anything new UI.