Can Sonos Recover From This?

Has everyone here already seen that an email address for the CEO is listed on the support page?

ceo@sonos.com

Even if it's just the CEO's chatbot -- and even if you're just cutting pasting screenshot from the many, many community forums fuming about the new app -- it might be worth the time it takes to send the email.

It is utterly disappointing that SONOS does not have courage, courtesy to respond to community concerns. BTW - Forums article is overly generous!

Thanks for posting this. After reading it, I quickly realized that this is the biggest pile of complete * that I have ever heard. This Maxime Bouvat-Merlin needs to be fired immediately. There is a difference between bravery and stupidity. And only smart people know the difference and survive, and stupid people lay in the dumpster of history. Welcome to the dumpster Maxime. Say hello to Liz Truss while you’re there. But even Liz Truss was smart enough to know when to roll back the bad decisions she made.

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

This, as quoted from the link, is the crux of the problem:

Central to the Sonos experience is its iPhone and Android-supported controller app.

This is the equivalent to saying that central to the Tesla experience is its steering wheel.

It seems that Sonos also believes this, as does this reviewer.

And this is why all Sonos “innovation” of the last decade has been in faffing around with the app in the hope of keeping customers engaged with what it offers. 

Instead of realising that central to the Sonos experience is the smooth delivery of stutter free high quality music from around the world to inside the home using well built good sounding kit. And regardless of whether the music comes from outside the home or from a local server inside the home.

Without the paradigm shift needed to course correct about what is central to the Sonos experience, Sonos will keep floundering and thrashing.

Linked to @Corry P and @Keith N as feedback.

I was looking forward to the headphones release. Not any more. I won’t be investing, re-investing any more of my heard earned until this s*****ow has been resolved. I add to the chorus of disapproval.

Is Sonos about to become the new Blackberry?

New Blackberry - not quite yet, although the competition are getting close to Sonos I would suggest that they do not have the killer blow like the move from clunky keyboard to touch screen. But let's be honest they are trying very hard to say we are rubbish and there might also be a touch of the Ratners in their approach.

I hope sonos can’t recover from this. They used to be a good product and fair priced products. Now all they do is fleece customers with the completely outrageous sky rocketed prices for components out of pure greed and deliver nothing but pure trash that doesnt even function. 

It’s time for a far better market competitor to take hold of the market.

This has been the worst user experience I've had with any appliance since my last home printer. My sub won't connect to my systems and all tech support could tell me was to be patient with the app and no time frame of when that will be fixed. My SL One surround will not setup as well because I changed my router, even with an Ethernet cable. I'm sure it's the app doing this cause everything was working perfectly and now I'm down to my sound bar. If I knew my speakers could be functional, bust still not work based on the app or anything beyond my control, I would not have paid for them. This is just horrible

I have 16 Sonos devices spread in three locations … this is after updating to S2 (which is a story best not recounted).   Having been lucky enough to be able to roll back to 16.1, I will never update again to the new app unless I read in the forum that absolutely every feature has been at least restored.  I don’t care how many updates it takes.  I’m not interested in being a beta tester and providing feedback.  I just want to be able to use the system I paid for.  I want to be able to listen to my music wherever it resides … not just where Sonos has established it as a priority.

The statement about subsequent updates restoring functionality, perhaps by June, has made me somewhat disgusted. I seriously doubt that there will be a version of the new app by the end of June which makes us entirely whole.  ie. back where 16.1 was … never mind with improvements.

My big fear is that Sonos does a speaker update which renders the old 16.1 app unusable.  If that happens, I will rethink my go forward music listening strategy.  There are other alternatives, none of which I’m eager to take. I have stopped all Sonos purchases at this point.  Kind of hard to get excited about Sonos headphones when I can’t play my music through them.

I read Sonos’ reply to The Verge:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/9/24152675/sonos-new-app-bad-reviews-response-statement

The company hears what customers are saying but insists the new app was necessary — even if it’s ‘a few steps back’ for now because of missing features.

Really: a few steps back!  Pull the new app. Do an easy roll back on Android and iPhone to 16.1.  (Not everyone can sideload the old version).  Admit it is an unmitigated disaster and at least recover some respect.

I agree with every word of 5his.