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With the disastrous roll out of latest Sonos controller app, I began to wonder why would they force an upgrade that was so dysfunctional and lacking so many features that customers liked. Also it seemed strange that users were no longer able to see and modify music folders, or playlists, or update the music library. At first, I thought, wow they really screwed this up. How could they leave all this out? Why are they so reluctant to offer a roll back to a working version? When I read Sonos executive’s Maxime Bouvat-Merlin’s phoney response and explanation, that’s when I realized, it was on purpose.

 

Then I thought, what is the long term agenda of Sonos? What is the long term agenda of any greedy corporation? To maximize revenue and profits, of course. I then realized that Sonos is about to follow the plan of Apple management, which was to slowly and not so subtly force people off of iTunes and onto their Apple Music subscription service. That’s where the long term money is. I mean, why sell someone a house, when you can force them to be renters forever. And raise the “rent” whenever and to whatever you want. And they must stick with your subscription service, because they don’t own any of the content/music.

 

And that’s where I think Sonos is heading. By removing features and controls from the user, they are moving into a subscription based service, where users/customers/owners will have to pay a monthly fee to Sonos for online services. They may offer bundles with streaming services, like 10.99 per month for Sonos, Pandora, Apple Music, and Radio stations. Or they may be trying to start their own music subscription service. They may even go as far as charging owners of their speaker systems to pay a monthly fee just to run their systems and listen to their own music. Why just have your customers buy highly over-priced speaker systems when you can also have them pay a monthly fee to use them…?

 

Though, I’m not sure they would implement that last item, because they would face a huge Class Action lawsuit. But they could make the app so useless for music owners to play their own music that they would force many people to pay for their subscription service just to be able to listen to music. That would probably cause another Class Action lawsuit. But being greedy and stupid has never been an obstacle to any corporate management.

So, I/you/we may want to hold off on that planned new speaker purchase until this all shakes out. Or we may decide to bail on Sonos now while we can still get a good price for our equipment on the secondary market.

your name/account does not have to be attached to your usage info. But millions of users listening habits are worth something in this data harvesting world we live in. 

….and let’s not forget about all the usage data of their install base (terms & conditions people). There’s a revenue stream in that. Very depressing.

 

Revenue stream?  Read the privacy statement.  Sonos isn’t selling your data.

If falling on your own sword is a great idea, Sonos nailed it.

….and let’s not forget about all the usage data of their install base (terms & conditions people). There’s a revenue stream in that. Very depressing.

 

Revenue stream?  Read the privacy statement.  Sonos isn’t selling your data.

Please re-read and let me know where that privacy statement is...not being coy here. They removed it.

At the bottom of the page that this post is on is a link that says ‘Privacy statement’. Click on that. 

As far as I can tell, from clicking on it, and being taken to that web page, it has not been removed. 

 

Please re-read and let me know where that privacy statement is...not being coy here. They removed it.

 

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/legal/privacy

 

I see we’re back to the same misinformed information posted on YouTube as click bait. 

I have been hugely disappointed in SONOS with the first rollout of the new app in May.  All the functionality I purchased ten SONOS speakers and then had to replace when they did away with the SONOS 5 (not sure on number) and had to move my SONOS 1 speakers.  This was OK as I really love the smaller speaker.

However, the app has never worked as smoothly as it should.  This is the disappointing part.  Every time there is an update, I pray that nothing goes wrong but it always does.

The update yesterday hosed my music library playlists and I have tried resolving based on instructions to resolve the 913 error.  My songs are there- just can’t access any playlists.  And, with this update. my speakers continually ungroup for no reason.

 

I have had enough and have purchased a HomePod from Apple.  I am hopeful, this will work and I can start the transition.  I have seen no apology or anything from SONOS regarding this recent string of updates which have left so many of us with a group of expensive speakers to be used for streaming music services.

I fully agree that it was a disastrous roll out. I also believe some of the ideas about the direction that Sonos is probably heading (service oriented revenus), but that does not explain the lack of testing (apps crashing to the point I had to uninstall/reinstall) and missing features (alarm, play list management and other goodies). Some food for thought.

The new Sonos apps has been built from scratch, probably due to their changing software toolchain, development environment and process. Porting code from one development environment to another is not always possible. Also, note the release number format which has changed from a simple "16.1" to "80.00.04-release+yyyymmdd-build_number". Sonos took the opportunity for an UX relayout, to be trendy, which is not trivial and requires "hands-on" testing. This might be a wild guess, but the fact that the UX is slow/lagging prompt me to believe that new hooks are in place to keep track on usage of certain features.

Overall, yes it does takes courage to rebuild a brand`s core product, but Sonos either underestimated what the core product baseline includes (by ommiting features that their customers loved) or Sonos simply draw the line on the release content driven by other upcoming events (to support new product launch dates).

Sonos have been ambitious, but failed delivering the quality that their customers are expecting from their products. Sonos could have decided to leave alone Sonos S2 (and stop any fixes and dev on that version) and release a new Sonos apps only when it is functionnaly "at par" with Sonos S2. It was a conscious decision on their part, with the result we all experienced.

I would really like to be in their post-mortem release meeting just to hear the famous "I told you"... ;-)

Again, this is just my opinion.

There’s a good technical overview/speculation on the new app’s onboarded technology here:
 

 

With the disastrous roll out of latest Sonos controller app, I began to wonder why would they force an upgrade that was so dysfunctional and lacking so many features that customers liked. Also it seemed strange that users were no longer able to see and modify music folders, or playlists, or update the music library. At first, I thought, wow they really screwed this up. How could they leave all this out? Why are they so reluctant to offer a roll back to a working version? When I read Sonos executive’s Maxime Bouvat-Merlin’s phoney response and explanation, that’s when I realized, it was on purpose.

 

Then I thought, what is the long term agenda of Sonos? What is the long term agenda of any greedy corporation? To maximize revenue and profits, of course. I then realized that Sonos is about to follow the plan of Apple management, which was to slowly and not so subtly force people off of iTunes and onto their Apple Music subscription service. That’s where the long term money is. I mean, why sell someone a house, when you can force them to be renters forever. And raise the “rent” whenever and to whatever you want. And they must stick with your subscription service, because they don’t own any of the content/music.

 

And that’s where I think Sonos is heading. By removing features and controls from the user, they are moving into a subscription based service, where users/customers/owners will have to pay a monthly fee to Sonos for online services. They may offer bundles with streaming services, like 10.99 per month for Sonos, Pandora, Apple Music, and Radio stations. Or they may be trying to start their own music subscription service. They may even go as far as charging owners of their speaker systems to pay a monthly fee just to run their systems and listen to their own music. Why just have your customers buy highly over-priced speaker systems when you can also have them pay a monthly fee to use them…?

 

Though, I’m not sure they would implement that last item, because they would face a huge Class Action lawsuit. But they could make the app so useless for music owners to play their own music that they would force many people to pay for their subscription service just to be able to listen to music. That would probably cause another Class Action lawsuit. But being greedy and stupid has never been an obstacle to any corporate management.

So, I/you/we may want to hold off on that planned new speaker purchase until this all shakes out. Or we may decide to bail on Sonos now while we can still get a good price for our equipment on the secondary market.

Welcome to the forums.  I understand your anger and while it is valid maybe there are now dozens and dozens of posts which point to the reality of the matter.

It would be really helpful if everyone understands that features have not, I repeat *not* been removed.  There has been no new firmware to the amps and speakers and their inherent functionality is 100% unchanged.  So, alarms have not been removed, local libraries have not been removed, playlists (which are stored on the devices) have not been removed.  They remain present in the underlying OS — completely unchanged.

 

The app has been completely rewritten, and for whatever reasons that we can only speculate about, it has been released before some of functionality of the old app had been reinstated.  Yes, to the end user it makes no difference if the functions are not there, but it is because they have not been written in, not because they have been removed.  

 

the timeline for updates which replace current absent functionality has already been stated.   

So many new users posting of not buying Sonos ever again, selling or dumping their gear when the timeline for reinstating those missing features is in weeks.  We shouldn’t have to wait those weeks, but it looks like that is the reality of where we are.  

The whole ethos of Sonos is that it is service agnostic.    And yes Sonos would like some of that revenue stream too, hence Sonos radio.  There is no evidence that the open platform for other services is changing.  
 

I’m not defending the indefensible — the new app is ln’t ready.  But while I can’t see into the future, I’m prepared to wait the few weeks for the promised changes.  And besides, even as it is I can use my local library and use all my services.  
 

 

 

They had to push out new software for the headphone release, tried to bundle with a larger overhaul and blew it. It probably is that simple. I’m not a Sonos fanboy, though, once it’s set up I love my two systems. 

Sonos has never done well with software, I suspect they never will. The big conspiracy is…. simply, resource allocation and net operating profit. Two fundamental metrics for any business. The system, our institutions and monetary policies are what is greedy/faulty, can’t fault the players for playing the game they have no say in.

Corporations cannot spend to, effectively, serve the customer base/scale they have created.PERIOD This is everywhere, in every vertical.

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