**Class Action Lawsuit** We all deserve to recoup all hardware investment

We need to organize all hardware-breaking issues caused by the new app and gather a list of people interested in participating in a class action lawsuit. I was about to start a new thread about this myself. Reports are pouring in from users who’ve spent thousands and had working hardware for years only to find their systems rendered inoperable by the app update.

To make matters worse, Sonos support has no chat agents available during business hours, and phone support is currently 70+ minutes to speak to someone (yesterday it was 50+ minutes). I submitted my research and evidence to The Verge to potentially cover this situation and expose Sonos’s questionable business practices. I am going to continue gathering evidence, and if anyone would like to participate in a class action suit please respond to this thread and I’ll follow up with you.

I am going to continue gathering evidence, and if anyone would like to participate in a class action suit please respond to this thread and I’ll follow up with you.

If there is a serious effort to get this lawsuit in place, I would gladly join it, so count me in. I wouldn’t be able to contribute in advance of that, but I’ve got a substantial financial commitment to SONOS’s hardware that they’ve significantly compromised.

Undue harm ?  Apart from needlessly creating another thread for something that been raised on two other threads, let’s look at your ‘case’ in a little detail.

Clearly you’re not one of those unfortunate people who have ‘lost’ their system due to it becoming undiscoverable (and for whom I have sympathy) as you cite your losses as loss of core functionality.   
 

What ‘core’ functionally, exactly ?  Let’s see, alarms have been reinstated already.  Timers, queue management, and local library search are coming within 4 weeks.  ‘Core’ functionality might more realistic be determined as being able to stream media services and local sources which it sounds like you can do.   Certainly I can and every Sonos owner I know.  So while the app is buggy and incomplete it would be an incredulous stretch to argue that you have lost ‘core functionality’, and what ‘minor’ functionality you have lost is already slated for replacement. 
 

You are not ‘forced’ to sell the kit, just as you weren’t ‘forced’ to buy it in the first place.  And by the way, when you did buy it , it was a software driven ecosystem - as it has always been, with the option to enable or disable auto updates.  In effect there would have been every reasonable expectation that you knew what kind of system you were buying in the first place.   Oh and for the ‘intentional plan to damage said product’?  Seriously, I’m not even going to try to argue that nonsense.

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

@Andrew-s

Bravo!

The indignation and entitlement on here is astonishing. Some resilience, and perspective, is called for…

@Andrew-s : “Core’ functionality might more realistic be determined as being able to stream media services and local sources which it sounds like you can do.”

Actually, genius, I can’t. I’m not sure how you determined whether I could or not, but I have a local library of over 40,000 high resolution songs that Sonos has decided it no longer will recognize at all. This includes multiple playlists that I’ve created over a 20 year span to curate my music experience. Now? Can’t access them at all.

I’ve also used Sonos’s playlist feature to create additional playlists that I’ve been building over the last few years to complement those initial playlists. Because I trusted Sonos to protect those playlists that they insisted I could never export and save anywhere to have a back up. Well, they rolled out new software that deleted all of that, destroying core functionality I reasonably expected they would not delete.

These things would be the definition of “undue harm” for customers locked into 4- and 5-figure hardware investments.

And here’s the thing—have we heard from Sonos directly at all apologizing for this debacle? They have all of our email addresses. Where is the email saying “we’ve heard you and we’re sorry this software rollout was complete sh***?”

It doesn’t exist. Because they haven’t communicated any indication that they will solve these dramatic, core functionality problems. I guess I need to follow the boards non-stop to get the weekly rollout updates you seem to have?  Ah, I have a life to live—which used to include access to my, wait for it….music.

I could be wrong, but I also run a company that designs computer software and user interfaces. And when we screw up, we quickly contact the people who we offended, and we let them know. We got it wrong and that will fix it. For SONOS customers? Not so much.

And as for “The indignation and entitlement on here is astonishing. Some resilience, and perspective, is called for…” @Andrew-s, 

Entitlement use the way you’re describing it would be somebody assuming they are deserved something that they are mostly not, solely because of their status in life. 

I don’t need “resilience” here—I’ve overcome worse. What I need is the core purpose for which I paid extensively to commit to this ecosystem to work—or, at the bare minimum, proactive communication by the company when they sh*t the bed this badly rolling out software.

Call me crazy, but I believe like I’m entitled to continue accessing the music library in the system I’ve paid a ton of money to use without the company radically changing what it can and cannot do. And I also deserve to have the playlists that I created within their ecosystem, not get vaporized due to their own sh**** rollout.

if you feel that’s entitlement, well then I suggest you consider what level of abuse you’re willing to take from other people you give your money and trust to before you feel that you’re “entitled” to better treatment.

And as for “indignation,” it’s specifically because we have not heard a word directly to customers by Sonos that the indignation rises. And also why you make things like threats of class action lawsuits when you have zero agency in the situation, as we all lack right now. And I don’t need resilience so much as I deserve results from the company I’ve given my hard-earned money for based on their promise of certain “core functionality.”

That’s why you speak up when you’ve been a little effed-over and it’s not clear if the party that egged you over is taking your legitimate claims seriously.

Because, if they’re not saying anything, you have to assume they ignoring you. And the best way to not be ignored is to say something. And for a company that seems more invested in shareholder decisions, and such, the best way to get them to pay attention is by talking about the bottom line. Because otherwise we would’ve heard from them already.

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

I agree the best way not to be ignored is to say something.  Plenty of people have taken the opportunity to say something, and I wouldn’t deny them — or you — that right.

But having your say is not what you’re asking for here.  You want to be compensated.  The loss of the local library is not part of the new app (though configuration options are currently missing).  There are plenty of discussions elsewhere detailing how the insecure SMB1 protocol  has been removed, which has caused some to lose their libraries.  I do not know if this is the cause of your issues but if not, your experience isn’t what should be expected and maybe your first call should be to Sonos support and not a lawyer.  

And we have heard from Sonos — their communication has been poor I agree, but they have stated here  a timeline which brings parity (or something very close to it) with the old app in a series of updates up until mid-June.  I don’t need an apology from someone I’ve never met, and it would only be derided here as ‘not good enough’, or ‘not sincere’ anyway.

So considering your local library can be fixed (or is fixable)  your only real loss is a bunch of playlists.  That’s it — some lists of which order you want your songs played.  Well that’s a bummer for sure but it reflects a pretty skewed mindset if your first thought is to turn to litigation.  Maybe it’s a cultural thing.  But your losses —  your actual losses total nil.
 

People in here are arguing but can’t even understand where the other people are coming from and it’s mind blowing. SOME PEOPLES APPS WORK FINE, SOME DO NOT WORK AT ALL. MY APP DOES NOT WORK AT ALL, LISTENING TO ANY MUSIC ON ANY PRODUCT, PLUGGING INTO TV DOES NOT EVEN GIVE AUDIO FOR ME. PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT ISSUES LETS NOT ACT LIKE WE ARE ALL FACING THE SAME. 

“PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT ISSUES LETS NOT ACT LIKE WE ARE ALL FACING THE SAME.”

Another reason why a lawsuit is pointless.

The idea of talking lawsuit when you have no other option but to wait and see *if* and when someone who has significantly violated the promise of service you reasonably have is to get action.

And from what I can hear, a LOT of people are facing the same core problem I am: deletion of all SONOS playlists and a lack of connectivity to their primary music source: a local library.

I, like many, am legitimately concerned that SONOS either has decided that it’s all-in on streaming and screw people who own their music—or is so bad at software development that they’ll not be able to fix the problem that is tied to my $8K investment in the hardware that’s run by it. Thus: threaten class action lawsuit to get them to take honoring the terms of their implied agreement in selling thousands of people like me that very expensive hardware.

What makes their flawed software development so astonishing is that there are a litany of other meaningful problems that customers are experiencing on top of those two pretty severe ones. The chaos it’s causing is a spectacular face-plant from a company that’s been slowly alienating its most longstanding customers for some time now.

This is not like a sh**** software evolution where, if you don’t like the app anymore you can just switch. I am financially committed to a company that can’t seem to design software without significant flaws that any competent user acceptance testing process would prevent. Or, (less likely but not impossibly to believe) intentionally sought a bunch of these outcomes in its design.

And @Andrew-s, they have NOT directly communicated about this to me or to customers. I do not have the time to hunt through this board to see where SONOS said “everyone, we know this was a really bad rollout, we hear you, we apologize, and we’re fixing it. If you’d like specific updates on these fixes, go HERE (insert link).”

They should be communicating that directly to each of us, not burying their communication in a community board that the vast majority of customers never visit. It that basic customer service practice that hard to get right?

More important: don’t we all deserve better?

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

Yes that is something we can agree on ! 😋 it’s obvious that the fall-out from the app release was totally unexpected and they are not recovering well. The AMA was not handled well, and you can only hope that lessons can be learned.  I know the great refrain on here is ‘I’m selling my kit’, and that only some of this is said for effect.  I’m not, as I bought it for a reason and that reason remains valid so I’m sure (hope?) for Sonos to dig themselves out of this hole.  The alternative is that everybody’s kit becomes worthless.