Dear Mr Spence
I’ve been a grateful customer of Sonos for years. I stumped up a lot of money at the time in 2013 for a speaker and bought one of the early Play 1 devices to try this out, somewhat skeptical. The experience was great and over the course of several years have managed to add to my Sonos collection which now includes 2 more Play 1’s, Roam, and most recently an Arc Soundbar.
Over the course of the last several years, I have discarded other items in favor of the utility of the Sonos system - this included my bedside alarm clock that survived years thanks to its unique feature of offering 3 separate alarms. Placing a Play 1 in my bedroom and accessing local radio stations was great and we used to wake up to this most mornings. My prior investment in stereo equipment was replaced by easy access to my music and an easy-to-use interface that was simple and functional.
I could select speakers, select music and music filled my house.
I could and did create multiple alarms that I could use for different requirements during the week
I was able to link speakers and play music when people visited, adjusting the content and volume easily
If you had asked me then if I would recommend Sonos - my Net Promoter Score was highly positive and I would have raved about the functionality, convenience, and ease of use. Luckily my joining the community was late enough I did not suffer the ignominy of recycle mode on any of my units. I might have grumbled about the high price of the systems but that was made up for by the functionality and the sheer joy of using the system and enjoying my music, playlists, podcasts, and radio.
Then with no warning that I am aware of in May of 2024 Sonos pushed out a “fully redesigned…bringing a new look and feel” complete revamp onto our phones and systems. You have my email so sending a courtesy note to your loyal customers ahead of a big upgrade warning them would have been easy I think. To this date 3 months later I get a daily reminder of the failure of this update that I cannot get rid of
Every morning at 06:30 I get a notification that my Sonos Alarm Play 1 Speaker “Deck” has alarmed. For a few days/weeks, it actually was as there was no means to turn it off so I had to unplug that speaker until a ‘fix’ was found. I have been able to turn the alarm off - not so for my personal iPhone. No matter where I am, at home, traveling, or in another country, I get an alert to tell me Sonos is alarming. I agree Sonos is alarming in the total swing and miss with this upgrade.
The iPhone interface which is the primary means I want and need access to the Sonos system since I don’t carry a laptop around with me to run the Sonos App. To find the alarms seems to require at least 3 clicks which are buried in settings/Manage
At this point if you were to ask me my view of Sonos I would tell anyone to completely steer clear of the product. I find the new iPhone interface a disaster. I can’t find any of the functionality I used to easily and any time I do try and use the system I often give up the interface is so challenging.
I used to have ready access to radio stations to select for alarms - they all appear to have gone and any attempt to get them back goes through a recurring process that never ends and is not successful.
I am asked to authenticate for TuneIn but keep going around in circles. Sonos apparently has radio stations as well but they too remain inaccessible
All this might be fixed in the desktop application but that is not and has not been my primary interface and I rarely use it.
At this point my Sonos system stays quiet most of the time, I rarely use it and find myself regretting purchasing the Arc sound bar for my new home theatre setup given the challenges with the system
If I am wrong I’d be happy to find myself using and navigating the Sonos iPhone app with the same facility I did before and return to listening to sounds again in my house
Please help - 10 plus years a customer and now I find the system silent and my frustration elevated and I am reminded of this frustration each and every morning at 06:30 with an alert that is stuck in limbo and appears to be on my iPhone for the rest of time.
Respectfully
Nick