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Dear Sonos,

You have a New Coke, or more recent example CNN+, level of self-induced crisis with your recent App update killing your core value proposition - The Sonos Ecosystem.

This is beyond access/search to Personal Music Libraries or some systems not connecting, but by purposefully removing basic functionality like Queue, Sonos Playlists, Segmented Favorite, Search Personal Music, Mute, TV/Music Source Switch, Alarm, Sleep and others - you’ve demonstrated a lack of awareness on the importance of trust as the guardian of your company’s ecosystem.

Apple is a dominant example of a stable (and expanding) ecosystem driving consumer confidence to invest in new hardware as well as upgrade hardware for want, not need.

Mistakes happen, even by industry leading companies. It takes “courage” to admit them and do the right thing, not double-down and pat yourself on the back for a self-induced deadline (Q2 Earnings with CEO Update) to disrupt your ecosystem over the launch of a new product (headphones).

Like New Coke, keep the new App on the shelves, but time to bring back Gold S2 App (Classic Coke) on the App store today.

Don’t wait weeks/months to add updates to return your ecosystem to what it was last week. Trust erodes quickly and is hard to earn back, especially when you need future consumer spending on new hardware or upgraded hardware to survive.

It takes “courage” to admit a mistake and make things right. It demonstrates you can be trusted as guardian to a value proposition and deserve consumers money and time invested in your products.

The assumption that Sonos can just roll back to the S2 app assumes that plans for future products and features would not be negatively impacted. 

 

 

Yet, Android users can rollback and are.  iOS users who didn’t get duped into the update can keep the old app.  My iPhone is trashed, but thank goodness my iPad is not.  The S2 app will remain until they shut it down. Therefore, their obstinance is nothing but that and serves only to antagonize customers for no good reason.  The new app doesn’t work, so what’s the point? 

Those who can will run S2. We are doing that now.  And most could care less about the future products and future features, especially now. I want the products I already bought to work.  And I’d never buy any Sonos products again - the future?  They have no future for me - they don’t have customers anymore, just people they get take from.  Sonos is TiVo a few years ago.  They have lost the plot.

 

So l guess reading all of these comments that l just have to suck it up with how * this app is. I connect up all the speakers and they just go off line, grouping sucks and doesn’t want to apply my preferences. Did have control of all speakers with one remote now can’t manage that. I’m so disappointed with this downgrade of an upgrade.  I did recommend Sonos to friends but that will need to stop. Surely they can’t be ignoring all these negative comments from dedicated users?

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

Just noticed another flaw.

i have an alarm that brings the radio non in the morning.

in Sonos’s wisdom they removed the ability to change or amend this is this brave release aimed at destroying their credibility.

i can see the component that is playing the radio station in this so called upgrade but the app doesn’t see the radio station that it itself turned on.

now that must be a special kind of stupid!

It took courage??? Haha it would have been great to be in the PA and marketing meeting to come up with that way ahead😂 

 

All right team, hear me out! We’re going to double down on out crAPP and somehow tie it to the notion that we are such innovators that releasing the crAPP it can only get better and with our courage we’ll walk through the fire for no specific reason other than a courage culture! Yea, I too like to  sabotage myself to see how well I can make it out the other side! 

Dear Sonos,

You have a New Coke, or more recent example CNN+, level of self-induced crisis with your recent App update killing your core value proposition - The Sonos Ecosystem.

This is beyond access/search to Personal Music Libraries or some systems not connecting, but by purposefully removing basic functionality like Queue, Sonos Playlists, Segmented Favorite, Search Personal Music, Mute, TV/Music Source Switch, Alarm, Sleep and others - you’ve demonstrated a lack of awareness on the importance of trust as the guardian of your company’s ecosystem.

Apple is a dominant example of a stable (and expanding) ecosystem driving consumer confidence to invest in new hardware as well as upgrade hardware for want, not need.

Mistakes happen, even by industry leading companies. It takes “courage” to admit them and do the right thing, not double-down and pat yourself on the back for a self-induced deadline (Q2 Earnings with CEO Update) to disrupt your ecosystem over the launch of a new product (headphones).

Like New Coke, keep the new App on the shelves, but time to bring back Gold S2 App (Classic Coke) on the App store today.

Don’t wait weeks/months to add updates to return your ecosystem to what it was last week. Trust erodes quickly and is hard to earn back, especially when you need future consumer spending on new hardware or upgraded hardware to survive.

It takes “courage” to admit a mistake and make things right. It demonstrates you can be trusted as guardian to a value proposition and deserve consumers money and time invested in your products.

Could not agree more. Likewise a user for years and have purchased thousands of dollars of Sonos product. This app is an insult to anyone who ever trusted you with their musical enjoyment. Re-release the Brown/Gold s2 app while you fix it. But get it fixed. 

The assumption that Sonos can just roll back to the S2 app assumes that plans for future products and features would not be negatively impacted.  I don’t think that’s the case.  In fact I would suspect that the reasons the new app was pushed out before it was ready is because of it’s impacts on future product releases.  The question then is whether the negative impact of this new app release and then pulling it back is worse then the negative impact to whatever Sonos has planned.  From a consumer perspective, that question is probably pretty easy to answer.  Perhaps not so much from Sonos perspective.

I do wonder if having two versions of the app is a solution going forward, but that clearly has some big downsides as well.  Again, consumers are probably happy with that, but Sonos surely doesn’t want to support yet another app version, and one that doesn’t allow users to add whatever product Sonos is likely about to announce.

I think they could re-release/make available temporarily the gold/brown version of S2 as the original grey S1 is available and I use it on some older products and it works as well as it ever did. 

As I see it, Sonos management failed to ensure that the app was ready for their new product, which meant that they had a fairly simple choice - either Sonos could take the pain in terms of missed targets and delayed future sales, or existing customers could take the pain in terms of (cumulatively) thousands of wasted hours trying to get their systems working again.

They chose to make their customers take the pain.

Technically it should be easy to keep the “golden icon” release working while they get the new release fit for use, but Sonos simply don’t want the extra cost of having three app releases to maintain, even though the “golden icon” release should not (if they get their act together) be needed for more than a few months...

I used to love my Sonos system. I enjoyed the ease at which either my spouse or I could change the music or play different music in different rooms. Now we struggle to control the volume and other basic tasks. Given the frustrations caused by this latest app, I cannot recommend Sonos to anyone. I have spent thousands on my system and will not spend another penny on a Sonos product. 
 

Sonos user since 2006.

It used to be the best. Then they switched from dedicated controllers to apps but it wasn't too bad. The whole S1/S2 debacle nearly lost me but the 30% discount just about kept me from switching as it made the competition relatively expensive.

Now, I'm out of discounts and have lost all trust. I cannot imagine ever buying Sonos equipment again.

After the last expensive upgrade it was working. Now I just want to relax and play music late in the evening after a long week and it turns out that somebody has broken into my house and stolen the hifi system, leaving their old broken one behind.

I guess in hindsight it was a risky business letting Android do automatic updates. It's like leaving the house unlocked.

Anyway, to the point of this thread: I really want the old app back and I don't want to ever update it again.

I do think the black icon is fitting though. RIP Sonos.

 

I completely agree with this and many other comments by the Sonos community about the new app. I’ve been using Sonos since around 2006.  I’m so angry about my lost playlists and music library that have taken years to build up.  I still can’t quite believe they have done this.  I only hope they will find a way to resolve it quickly.

 

I completely agree with this and many other comments by the Sonos community about the new app. I’ve been using Sonos since around 2006.  I’m so angry about my lost playlists and music library that have taken years to build up.  I still can’t quite believe they have done this.  I only hope they will find a way to resolve it quickly.

 

You can get your music library back by following Sonos’ new instructions here (Note: you will need the Sonos app for Mac/PC):

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos

 

 

Has a timeline been established for when all the features will re-emerge? I have been using Sonos since the mid 2000’s and it was always a joy to use and wireless. The latest software update is unusable and has turned my 19 speakers into very expensive bricks. The amount of time it takes to load a song and play, I can play half the side of a 30min vinyl LP. It has corrupted my years of playlists; making this system totally frustrating to use and no longer a joy to own. If I am going to rebuild my playlists, I will be doing so on a more reliable system but definitely not sonos. In the meantime I will just be plying my vinyl very loud. A very unhappy ex-sonos advocate.

 

Has a timeline been established for when all the features will re-emerge? I have been using Sonos since the mid 2000’s and it was always a joy to use and wireless. The latest software update is unusable and has turned my 19 speakers into very expensive bricks. The amount of time it takes to load a song and play, I can play half the side of a 30min vinyl LP. It has corrupted my years of playlists; making this system totally frustrating to use and no longer a joy to own. If I am going to rebuild my playlists, I will be doing so on a more reliable system but definitely not sonos. In the meantime I will just be plying my vinyl very loud. A very unhappy ex-sonos advocate.

 

Did you update your system last week, and update the app on Monday? Two new updates to move things forward. 

Here is what else has been stated:

“We've still got a road ahead of us and here is what’s coming soon:

  • Playlist editing
  • Downgrade from S2 to S1
  • Persistence of offline devices 
  • Additional configuration settings”

Plus a Dutch publication also wrote:

“Some other functions that are currently missing from the new Sonos app will follow in August. For example, in early August, users will be able to downgrade their devices from S2 to S1 again and keep offline devices. At the end of August it will be possible to adjust playlists in the Sonos app and there will be an editing function for queues.”

 

Not sure if this will please you or burst your bubble.

Has a timeline been established for when all the features will re-emerge? I have been using Sonos since the mid 2000’s and it was always a joy to use and wireless. The latest software update is unusable and has turned my 19 speakers into very expensive bricks. The amount of time it takes to load a song and play, I can play half the side of a 30min vinyl LP. It has corrupted my years of playlists; making this system totally frustrating to use and no longer a joy to own. If I am going to rebuild my playlists, I will be doing so on a more reliable system but definitely not sonos. In the meantime I will just be plying my vinyl very loud. A very unhappy ex-sonos advocate.

 

Did you update your system last week, and update the app on Monday? Two new updates to move things forward. 

Here is what else has been stated:

“We've still got a road ahead of us and here is what’s coming soon:

  • Playlist editing
  • Downgrade from S2 to S1
  • Persistence of offline devices 
  • Additional configuration settings”

Plus a Dutch publication also wrote:

“Some other functions that are currently missing from the new Sonos app will follow in August. For example, in early August, users will be able to downgrade their devices from S2 to S1 again and keep offline devices. At the end of August it will be possible to adjust playlists in the Sonos app and there will be an editing function for queues.”

 

Not sure if this will please you or burst your bubble.

Thanks for the response. Yes I have updated but my playlists are still corrupted. I am able to play music from my laptop/desktop (didn't upgrade to the latest app), but unfortunately that is not really convenient in the bathroom or whilst eating dinner! Not happy that we have to wait until the end of August (and as we all know nothing like this is ever on time so really xmas!) when this right royal ruck up, which has been in existence since a few months already, is supposed to get fixed. I have lost the will to live trying to get some decent music on my sonos speakers.

It is a real shame that you have to get your information from a dutch publication rather than Sonos themselves? Still a vote of no confidence from me - shame really ‘cos they have a really good product (hardware), just very disappointing that they have put “progress” ahead of their customers just so they can advertise their new “amazing headphones” in the app. News flash - my headphones are fine, are not wireless and I do not need an app to operate them; especially a broken app!

The worm is turning and all this reliance on tech is making me rethink my priorities and loyalties and do I really need the convenience? Luckily (not really luck; more judgement actually) I still have my turntable and cassette decks and that vinyl and tapes are making a massive comeback! Long live analogue - poobar to sonos. or should that be faux-pas?

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