Why is it always so hard to do anything?

Sorry folks! I was hoping that because this is a forum provided by Sonos that they might take up this enquiry and not just rely on other subscribers.

I’m not writing about this issue to upset anyone who is enjoying a good experience with their purchase/s.

My biggest beef with Sonos is mostly towards the advertisement which demonstrates that this is an amazing system that interacts extremely well with other things like TV, Radio, apps and music apps. This is not quite the case, and the system is not entirely as good as they make it seem.

In the replies I see several mentions regards refereeing to instructions and taking time to understand how certain things work. This is what I’m trying to get across here, the fact that people need to spend so much time trying to understand how to make things work. One of the key factors for companies like Apple is, that they had the vision to understand that customers need things to work intuitively. Sonos would be so much better if they listened to customers rather than following the tech team and would sell more product because customers would be so much more enthusiastic about their brand.

Therefore, Sonos, please add your comments as to why the system cannot hold all available online radio stations like most Radio’s or TV’s? Why is access to these stations made difficult using voice controls.

Also, why does my Sonos often pick-up sounds from the playback i.e. its speakers that active Alexa when the sound is not the word Alexa or even close. I don’t know if others are experiencing this but on average over a daily period or listening to either Radio or TV this happens 4-5 a day. Okay it’s only 1–2 seconds of slightly muted sound, but why does it do this in the first place? Surely Sonos this should be something the system could recognise and stop itself from doing.

My Philips Hue lights connected so easily and work really well, a great feature!

So why can’t the radio stations be this simple? It really cannot be too hard, can it?

I see may parents struggling with their iPhones and did on occasion not succeed in getting a slef produced  a ringtone on mine. Even Apple needs explanation sometimes. I don't think their is a device anymore that can do without.

Your TV picks up the stations from the air or your cable service. Since Sonos does not have this feature it needs a service like TuneIn to assemble listst with link to point the system in the right direction. And these lists change daily, unlike the broadcasters available for your TV.

Actually it does not need that to pick up radio from the internet. The facts are simple, pretty much any smart radio 📻 with internet access can play all the free to air commercial radio stations. What the Sonos needs is some software update to enable this to work. The trouble is there is no subscription in for them so they don’t appear to be keen. 🙁

Care to elaborate what you mean by "this"?

Apple marketing is very strong. I watch people who are struggling with technology, complaining that product XYZ is hard to use. They’ll switch to Apple because it is “easy” and they still struggle, but rather than blaming Apple for their struggle, they simply give up and decide that “I can’t do this”.

“Intuitive” for an individual depends on the individual’s background. Personality, I don’t enjoy the Apple user interface concepts that also seem to strongly influence SONOS. Perhaps there are a lot of Apple expats working at SONOS or there is a common educational background. In an attempt to appear “simple” there is no “meat” on the screens and one must scroll through long pages with pretty pictures and smiling faces then endlessly drill down in order to accomplish anything. I prefer “meat”.

There is also a reluctance invest any time too learn details. Motivation is a large component. Consider a child with a disc/phone/computer and The Lion King. The child will keep fussing and asking questions until The Lion King emerges. An adult, the other hand will blindly push a button once, not achieve a useful response then walk away claiming “too hard”. The adult is unwilling to invest any time learning while the child will invest and is successful.

Whilst I agree adults are less likely to invest time, it cannot be the excuse for not improving. I love tech, and spend hours working on stuff to get the best from it, however when the tech is hidden or poor in the first place it is difficult to gain a satisfactory solution.

In this case what we all need is for Sonos to produce a better way of accessing all radio stations that are available via the internet. Control of these via voice control would be expected as their adverts say “it works like magic”! Which it does not! What I’m hoping for is a little of that Magic to happen and Sonos step-up and give us, the users, something tangible that we can all use with ease.

Tech people often do great things that are not front of house, not easy to see or even to understand, this is not a bad thing but when companies figure-out what customers really need and supply it, that's when sales kick-off and make them a ton of money! So, come on Sonos, add the promised MAGIC!   Take the win and grab the extra sales!

A focus for you is Internet Radio. I find searching for stations, regardless of platform, is frustrating because I don’t always use the “correct” search term. Maybe I should use call letters (if I know them) or maybe I should use a marketing slogan.

Overall, I find voice control on all platforms frustrating because we do not yet have a common syntax and vocabulary. For example, how would you voice an attempt to play Songs for Dancing in the Kitchen?