Skip to main content

Open Letter to CEO Patrick Spence - 28/09/24

 

Good evening Mr Spence, (if indeed it is you reading this)

 

A little about me and my relationship with your company…

 

I’ve been an avid Sonos fan and consumer for almost 20 years. I have supported your business through every incarnation of device from the days of the Zone Player to the ARC.

I have Sonos in every room of my home and I have purchased new generations and promoted the product to my friends and family despite my Roam almost setting my house on fire. It is safe to say I love(d) my Sonos.

Now my reason for writing to you on a rainy Saturday evening in the UK.  I desperately need your help before I am forced to abandon Sonos for good.

I know you’re aware of the problems associated to the S2 App since May because you wrote to me in June. However as recently as last night I received a further email assuring me the App experience is improving and highlighting the new features.

As a customer suffering with the dismal experience daily these emails leave me frustrated and even more irritated because the App (therefore the products) just don’t work. Sonos used to be simple, stable and reliable. A coveted system and one to be proud of.

Now they’re an unreliable, glitchy, embarrassment. Sadly Patrick all of that manifests in the S2 App. It’s the reason I refuse to buy Ace or any other products even if they are 20% off!

The problems are too numerous to list here and too frequent to report daily to the support team; who I imagine are already overwhelmed. The community is littered with problems highlighting the issues and the reviews are nothing short of appalling.

My plea to you is to lead your team to urgently focus their efforts solely on fixing the problem before your community walks away from you.

Please don’t let Sonos become a fabled embarrassment of the past and please stop sending update emails unless it’s to announce the problem is fixed. Frankly that’s the only email announcement any Sonos owner wants to receive currently.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I wait with great anticipation of receiving that update very soon.

 

Paul

I think most of the issues are now fixed, apart from ‘saving the queue as a playlist’ and issues around local library ‘display of artwork and album compilations’.

I’m based in the UK too and the system is working okay here, apart from the things mentioned.

Please see the attached, just as examples from our Home Sonos setup.

Hi Ken, my biggest gripe is I am constantly battling with missing, lost or unresponsive speakers. Switching between devices just doesn’t work. Handover from Spotify fails most but not every time. Alexa integration is now a mystery so I don’t use it.

I think most of the issues are now fixed, apart from ‘saving the queue as a playlist’ and issues around local library ‘display of artwork and album compilations’.

I’m based in the UK too and the system is working okay here, apart from the things mentioned.

Please see the attached, just as examples from our Home Sonos setup.

Where system stability is concerned, I agree with you Ken. From early August where problems with lost speakers were a regular occurrence to now where our system has had 100% stability since the last firmware update things are moving in the right direction. In that time I've learnt more about WiFi networks than should be required for a home consumer product and our Deco Mesh also had a firmware update which has improved overall network stability as well. App refinement still needed though as you note.

Nick Millington gave some insights into some of the issues that have been happening. Improvements are being made and let’s hope things keep improving still.

 

If you already haven’t, check out the Answered questions here if you are interested in technical details e.g. about volume control and device discovery:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1fq1g6n/september_office_hours_w_keithfromsonos_nick/

Here’s a prime example Ken just tried to play a daily mix from Spotify. Should work. Doesn’t 

I think most of the issues are now fixed, apart from ‘saving the queue as a playlist’ and issues around local library ‘display of artwork and album compilations’.

I’m based in the UK too and the system is working okay here, apart from the things mentioned.

Please see the attached, just as examples from our Home Sonos setup.

Here are a couple of examples Ken. After restarting everything (I mean I literally turned all the power off), I can now play music from Spotify down stairs however Bedroom 4 will not reconnect. None of this is uncommon, so I find it hard to believe I am an isolated case and most issues are fixed.

 

I think most of the issues are now fixed, apart from ‘saving the queue as a playlist’ and issues around local library ‘display of artwork and album compilations’.

I’m based in the UK too and the system is working okay here, apart from the things mentioned.

Please see the attached, just as examples from our Home Sonos setup.

Do you read any of the posts in the fb groups?? From what I see posted…many issues still exist and users are frustrated. 8 out of 10 posts in this community group seems to be an issue or complaints. So I would disagree that most issues are fixed..jmo.

2 weeks on an no response…

Most issues are NOT fixed in the app, including today’s problems with Apple Music.  Grossly disappointed and frustrated.  

I think most of the issues are now fixed, apart from ‘saving the queue as a playlist’ and issues around local library ‘display of artwork and album compilations’.

I’m based in the UK too and the system is working okay here, apart from the things mentioned.

Please see the attached, just as examples from our Home Sonos setup.

 Don’t forget queue does not follow the music progress.  

I think most of the issues are now fixed, apart from ‘saving the queue as a playlist’ and issues around local library ‘display of artwork and album compilations’.

I’m based in the UK too and the system is working okay here, apart from the things mentioned.

Please see the attached, just as examples from our Home Sonos setup.

 Don’t forget queue does not follow the music progress.  

Yeah, but that’s mostly a queue ‘enhancement’… it can come later as far as my own daily-use ‘needs’ are concerned. I can think of other things missing that are in a similar vein, like the ability to hide off-line devices, but I don’t see any of these as being core to the new Sonos App for everyday playback & control. Most of the core functionality is back in place, apart from the saving of a queue as a playlist etc.

The user @KACman in the earlier post highlights the issue with Apple Music - but those type of ‘offline’ services things are usually just temporary and likely occur because of fixes to a service, or sometimes a hardware issue. Such temporary loss of service is inevitable and has always occurred with the multiple  MSP’s that the Sonos App supports, but such temporary loss of service is usually short term, sometimes the issue may last a few days, but often it’s just a few hours and whilst these are happening I tend to use the providers native App for playback on Sonos products using either ‘direct control’ (if available), AirPlay, Line-In or Bluetooth audio etc. until the (temporary) ‘outage’ is resolved.

In my own case, I find the new App core features are now mostly fixed and are working okay with our Home Sonos setup… the music has never stopped playing around the Home.

Sonos is a bad today as it was on May 7th, the day after this smoking pile of dog shit Sonos calls SW was unleashed on loyal customers.

Patrick Spence is a loser and hasn’t done a f****** thing to avoid the eventual failure of this company.

I ask you all, who would buy this s*** at this point?

<crickets>

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

Also a very long term user here. Truly a disgusting chapter we are witness are experiencing. Thank you for this post. 

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings