Who will buy the new Sonos headphones?

Let’s hope they work better than the new app!

Imagine: “We plan to support the right-side speaker in a firmware update scheduled for early September. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy your new headphones.”

 Is it though? Aside from the Arc integration, they dont offer anything my Sony headphones dont give me. I was hoping the Ace’s would work with the rest of my Sonos speakers the same way any other Sonos item would. Big disappointment.

I will not be buying the new headphones as I do not need a ‘my head’ zone.  Why make customers upset when you don’t have to?  I guess it was intentional as they new things were missing and new app was buggy.  They meant to upset us.  I’m not referring to the product team or support team.  I believe they did not want to release it.  But someone did and they knew we would be upset.

Hanlon’s Razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

YES!

Everything I have seen in this new app release can easily be explained by neglect, ignorance, or incompetence.

Not sure I agree.  Nobody was neglectful or ignorant of the flaws in the app.  It went through a full Beta test and some of the testers have stated they reported the obvious flaws.  But it was released anyway.  Which means there was another reason to release it besides customer satisfaction.  That reason is obviously the expected end of fiscal year sales figures spearheaded by the new headphones, which require the new app to operate.

Now whether that reason is worthy of risking the backlash against the app remains to be seen.  However, there have been less than 1000 new registrants on this site since the app release.  Even if 10 times that amount are unhappy with the app and just dump Sonos or complain about it somewhere else, that’s a fraction of a fraction of Sonos’ millions of users.  It may just be that the vast majority see something different, with a few teething pains, and go on their way.  I know that’s how I saw it and how millions have seen the app overhauls in the past. 

So if Sonos meets their sales enough to satisfy investors, and weathers the storm of the extremely vocal, but relatively small number of screaming banshees and their socks on here and Reddit, then I certainly can’t call them incompetent.  

The new firmware/app could easily have been released as “S3”, with a warning that S2 was EOL.  Headphone release would proceed as scheduled. Their customer support staff would have been less overwhelmed.  The development staff would have had more breathing room.  There would have been no need to “weather the storm”.  Sales certainly wouldn’t have been any worse.

Sounds easy, but it’s not.  Forking an application is a freaking horror show, even for a few months.  Besides that, giving an option to stay on the old app and not buy the headphones until the new app was up to snuff would most certainly put a damper on the June 30th end of fiscal year sales, which is what this is all about.  

Since the new app is designed from ground up, I believe it is a total separate code base.  I’m sure the last package still exists and can easily be release to the App Store as a separate SHELP app.  And I sure those having trouble will not be spending $450 on headphone with an app that still does not work.

Yep, start with the zero head phone users and make sure they can buy new headphones with a bad app.  That number will grow from 0 to a larger number eventually over passing the number of customer pissed off.

I’m also interested if the number of upset users is so small, how did we make the news in Forbes and the Washington Post? 

Absolutely correct: during the ill fated AMA, the dev lead went into some detail on the “blank sheet of paper” nature of the new app. Entirely new coding environment and zero code reused.

As I’ve observed, this is approach is a double whammy: all the bugs expected from a totally new codebase AND the loss of the decade+ of accumulated code that handled exceptions and corner cases.

In defense of the Sonos Team, they are doing a good job for us in resigning from ground up.  The new architecture is needed as the old app was an ‘old app’.  They surely needed a more modern platform for current and faster development and response to user needs as well as being able to integrate with future technologies.  I also understand the new app will be buggy and take time to refine and I’m am glad to help with feedback.  I’m sure it will be superior at some point.  

However, I don’t appreciate that it was released, shoved down our throat with such a bitter taste and all the bugs and missing features.  The lack of Sonos Playlists and latency of the app should not have been forced upon me.  If they would have introduced as S3 and asked me to use it and provide feed back, but still allowed me to use the old app, I would have happily done so and used it as much as possible.  I would not have been upset as well as many others and this entire fiasco would not exist.  I have difficult believing we are small number and I cannot believe Sonos would not do what they can to end this.  I’m just sad that we as dedicated Sonos lovers are treated this way.  It is just sad.

When looking the the App Store reviews, starting with most recent, pages and pages going back for just one week of mostly 1 and 2 star review complaining about the new app. Keep scrolling and mostly all 1 and 2 stars going back as far as I can see.  Must be 1000s about the update.  Can anyone share the source of the larger number of positive feedback?  I can’t find that anywhere.

People really, really don't like it when they told their opinions are a minority.  Thousands are not millions, no matter how loud you think you are yelling.

And how is this small group completely overwhelming the support lines? 

There are a few here who minimize the problems SONOS has caused - for only a few “screaming banshees” who have apparently set up an encampment on the support lines and chat.

What we see here on the forums is the tip of the iceberg - we’re a small percentage of the actual disenchanted user base.

I’m definitely not buying their headphones or their pack of marketing hype and lies.

Tip of the iceberg agreed.  My internet is great and everything works great but this new app.  Can’t imagine it’s fast for anyone.  Time will tell.

That number is only an indicator.  Most people can’t be bothered with leaving a review unless something is extraordinarily bad or exceptionally good.  And I doubt most customers are on these forums - do you think?  The fact that the negatives eclipse the positives is the indicator.  Of course, people are also more likely to complain than praise, so there’s another skew.  But even given that, like the one guy mentioned, “where are these positives?”

Today, new update, volumes is still a mess and cannot be set - it jumps all over the place - LOUD!!!!, then soft, then who knows where it ends up.  I’m glad most of mine are ports with fixed output running thru AV systems that have working volume controls.  The rest, I’m afraid to touch.

You seriously are not experiencing that?  Very lucky.