We moderators of the community - @Corry P, @Jamie A & @Sotiris C. - wanted to take an opportunity to explain some of what is currently happening on the community.
First of all, we value all the feedback you are providing about the new Sonos App. We hear you. Feedback is coming in fast and thick, however - for understandable reasons - and to be frank, we are having trouble just keeping up with it all. For this reason, some topics that have not yet been replied to will go unanswered. We will, however, do our best to amalgamate some of these separate threads into bigger, related threads (such as one big thread for Alarm complaints and another for Queue Management) to be answered en-mass. The threads that are feedback on other aspects of the new app will be merged with this post.
Threads that describe issues such as missing rooms and app crashes (those that are not just feedback, in other words) will be answered, as will threads not relating to the new app in anyway, but these will take a bit longer than normal.
Please be aware that we are reading every post, we are recording and collating all feedback, and all of it will be passed over to the app software development team. In addition, we are doing our best to identify previously unidentified issues and report them to our technical teams.
We know many of you are concerned about certain features going missing, so let us take this opportunity to say that the following features are coming back:
Alarms management
Sleep timers
Queue management
Playlist editing
In addition and contrary to some speculation, local Music Library is not going anywhere, though SMBv1 support has been permanently removed. Local Music Library searching is something that is still being worked on.
We’d also like to thank everyone who has taken it upon themselves to help others here with their questions and concerns - we appreciate you all!
Thanks for listening - take care of yourselves, and each other.
Combined threads:
General feedback (not relating specifically to those below):
Queue management:
Alarms:
Playlists:
Music Library:
Sleep Timers:
Please note that there is an official statement that can be read here.
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You said you read all our comments but apparently you haven’t comprehend what your users are telling you. You said you’re listening but I suppose you’re tone deaf at this point.
Having put out an app that was clearly a mistake (and not ready), and realising this based on the strength of feeling, and rolling out weekly updates to implement fixes, what would you like the team at Sonos to do or say that they are not already doing?
I’d like them to publicly acknowledge the massive failure in releasing this app and acknowledge that it is desperately lacking in features that were previously available.
I’d also like them to re-release the old app. Pretty simple really, just do these two things and most of us would be much happier.
Acknowledge the failure.
Fix the failure.
I’d like them to publicly acknowledge the massive failure in releasing this app and acknowledge that it is desperately lacking in features that were previously available.
I’d also like them to re-release the old app. Pretty simple really, just do these two things and most of us would be much happier.
Acknowledge the failure.
Fix the failure.
Not going to happen. No corporate lawyer worthy of their job is going to let a company admit something like that. So stop using an apology or admission of wrongdoing as your barometer for happiness. It's not happening. Neither is the rollback. Sonos isn't going to give up the end of fiscal year headphone sales by rolling back the app.
I now own $20k worth of e-waste. To those of you defending Sonos, go back on your lithium. Worst performance in the history of technology. AOL dial-up was faster. Horrible UI. Lost features. All to sell headphones. Stock is declining, execs are dumping stock options, and ceo is an arrogant liar. Chief product officer just quit - weird. #firespence.
Time for a company that understands software and UX to acquire them. Fire sale!
This new app may be the worst app I’ve ever used. The old app wasn’t perfect but so much better!!! Please bring it back until you can fix this piece of junk. So many problems I don’t know where to begin. I guess ditto to everything everyone else has said! I used to love Sonos and own at least a dozen speakers. But now I’m going to start looking at others. Stop marketing your new headphones and products until this app is fixed. Seriously, why would anyone want to add to their existing system if this is going to be the interface?
Sonos stock down again today. Has been dropping since the app rollout. Hopefully the stock keeps dropping, the only chance we have to get someone’s attention. Maybe the CEO will claim only 1% of the people are selling stock and 99% love it.
The ceo claims we’re the vocal minority. We all know a small subset of people respond to surveys. I also know a lot of owners never use the app. My fil has a bunch of Sonos equipment, but it’s only for watching tv. He wouldn’t ever use the app, but spent a ton of money on the hardware. He probably doesn’t even realize his equipment isn’t working.
Bye Spence bye. We won’t miss you at all. Don’t let the door hit you.
Hatetheapp, my guess is the CEO is lying and those of us that are disgusted are greater than 1% but probably smaller than it would appear out on the forums.
Personally I won’t buy another Sonos product until this CEO is gone. He knowingly forced everyone to use an app he knew had significant problems. To me that kind of total disregard for his existing customer base can’t be rewarded with further purchases. My hope is the company continues to decline and becomes a takeover target. I’d love to see Apple buy out Sonos.
I won’t spend another penny with them. The company is imploding. I predict an acquisition within 6 months. Apple would be a great acquirer. They actually understand apps and ux.
Y’al fumbled the football on this app. Pick it up and try again.
I downloaded the app on my new Mac and didn’t bother installing because it needs Rosetta to work. When will an app be available that is made for the M chips?
You’ve tinkered with something that worked fine. Now, every morning instead of waking up refreshed from a night’s glorious slumber I have to deal with resetting my favourite radio station. So now I’m grumpy and frustrated. I imagine this is why everyone is also so angry on x (twitter). Did Elon Musk put you up to this?
Agree with everything said thus far. The worst part is the terrible lag in the app - volume control now seems to be very hit and miss - will it change or won’t it? I too have decided to not buy any further hardware until this mess is cleared up - I’m too invested to ditch existing kit but I am no longer an active advocate for Sonos - would feel terrible recommending such a crap UI to anybody I know! I do hope Sonos survives this debacle but they really need to do some corporate soul searching and reflect upon the key to all successful businesses which is the customer - lose them and you are stuffed.
@Sonos, you can’t update yourself out of this.
Admit your mistake, show that you listen to your users
Bring back the old app
Go forward from there
This app feels like a pre-alpha in usability and takes away (meaningful access ) to features that have been enjoyed by the community for years. What’s the point of bringing a new app that has no way of competing with the old app within a reasonable timeframe?
The official statement is that Sonos is struggling to keep up with the vast amount of feedback but it can really be summed up in one sentence. The new app makes people's systems unusable and takes away the joy of using the system.
Long-standing users currently have no working alternative and are expected to wait, without music next to their useless systems. Make the old app available again then figure out what to do next. This is a reasonable solution while you still have users.
Sonos stock down again today. Has been dropping since the app rollout. Hopefully the stock keeps dropping, the only chance we have to get someone’s attention. Maybe the CEO will claim only 1% of the people are selling stock and 99% love it.
On social media there are people defending Sonos. On here there have been 2 that I've come across and they are reluctant but support staff are nowhere to be seen. The Community Forum was Sonos best selling point and I haven't chatted to anyone who wasn't a customer for 10 years + here. So they can claim that the complaints are from '1%' but the reality is the change in platform to the web will cause connectivity problems for everyone (of course the fans have internet that defies the laws of physics). And on Google Play in the UK and elsewhere everyone has re rated the app down. It is now 1.1 which is as low as you can go. Where are the 99% there? They could easily just rate the app anonymously.
I have lost faith in Sonos. Like many of us I have major issues with the new app. But just as bad, when issues are “fixed” it seems Sonos can't "resolve" them for long. For example, this morning all the favourites I have assigned to CBC Radio live stations stopped working AGAIN. Removing them and trying to re-add only results in the dreaded “something went wrong” error that I see so often. Yet other favourites are working fine and non-CBC favourites can be added in the app. The CBC Sonos service, which is my most used, has been a joke since the release of the new app. For days, it didn't work at all. Then it worked sporadically, with stations sometimes playing, sometimes not. Although it has improved lately, with stations playing most (but not all) of the time, now there are no favourites once more. Who know what will (or won't) be next?
Yeah something went wrong is getting old. Having to restart the app because it finds nothing the first time you start it is also very annoying.
My Apple app is still totally non-functional. I made several calls and took several hours to finally get to level 2 support. They got me to the point where I can get most done via the website but instead of clicking on the app I have to log in the website, putting in my username and password every time I want to listen to music. Yesterday my alarm that I turned off because I could sleep in that day still went off. I have my alarms set with soft music but instead it couldn’t find my music so defaulted to playing that loud abrasive alarm. I went to turn it off so I could go back to sleep but had to get up and log in the website just to turn my alarm off. By the time I did this I was wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep. Starting my day off sleepy and hating Sonos …
Yeah something went wrong is getting old. Having to restart the app because it finds nothing the first time you start it is also very annoying.
Perhaps “something went wrong" should be the new Sonos business slogan.
Dear SONOS Management
May is coming to an end. The new app is not only missing features, In some usage environments, it seems that it continues to not function as a speaker in the first place. All of these are things that were previously usable without problems, or were purchased on the premise that they would be usable.
It is a very sad state of affairs that the company has no appropriate response or explanation for customer feedback in this situation. Although the company has stated that it will respond to the sequential addition of new features in the current new application, It is absolutely impossible to do so in terms of functionality, quality, timeframe, and acceptability. As a purchaser, there is no way I can be convinced.
Management needs to get out of their confirmation bias. This is not the time for the chief technical officer to be selling his company's stock. I hope that you will make a decision that you can explain to your customers, employees, and other stakeholders, as well as your close family members, with a sense of pride.
This is probably the last time to prevent the company from going to a worse stage.
I don't want to be treated as a complainer and I don't want to waste your time, so I will end my post now, but I would appreciate your sincere consideration.
--5/21-- More time has passed since the incident occurred. I have read your company's views in the community, but to begin with, for users, this incident is in a completely different situation than the gradual addition of features to a completely new service. This is how users, including myself, perceive it. The traditional features and quality of SONOS products, including the reasons for their selection, are not being maintained. The failure is ongoing and SONOS does not understand (or acknowledge) this. Therefore, your company's positive explanation of the functionality and quality (and its partial revival) is also incomprehensible to users, including myself, during the outage, and is emotionally fuel for the fire. To repeat my earlier post, this is a crisis management aspect of management. SONOS engineers should follow their conscience and accurately report to the decision makers the actual situation in terms of function and quality. Customer contact persons should also, in good conscience, accurately report customer complaints to the decision makers. Decision makers/management should accept accurate reports and get rid of confirmation bias. Although management may no longer be exempt from management responsibility after all this time, please look to the users for the future survival of the company. I need SONOS which has enhanced my life so far.
--5/17-- Dear SONOS Community Moderators & Staff I know you are busy, but I would appreciate it if you could answer just the following two questions. (1) Is the situation of this community and the screams of users reaching the SONOS decision makers with a real sense of reality? (2) Are you currently considering new user-oriented measures, such as parallel provision of S2 apps, in response to this outcry?
--5/15-- Dear SONOS Much time has passed since this incident occurred, and users' expectations and trust in your company tend to deteriorate day by day. The problem that users are currently facing can be solved by simply providing the S2 app in parallel with the new app for the time being, just as you did with the S1 app. We hope that SONOS will be sincere in its response to users. (If there is a fatal problem that prevents you from continuing to provide the S2 app, we would like an explanation as to why.)
--5/13-- As a user, it has been quite some time since this incident occurred. We recognize that this incident is already not only a problem for your software development team, but should be addressed company-wide as a crisis management issue. Due to the nature of your product, unlike hardware products, the application affects almost all existing users. Also, this incident is not about a simple bug. As a company, you have made a decision to unilaterally remove several basic functions without prior notice to users. Therefore, this incident has the potential to result in the loss of existing customers and various other risks to the company's operations. It would be better if the impact of this incident on users and their reactions had been escalated internally and the entire company, including management, had responded to it.... I hope that your company can recover from the loss of corporate credibility and customer experience caused by the mishandling of the release procedure and decision-making of this new version by taking smooth and prompt action.
...I. Still dont mind the missing functions as much as I would settle with an app that actually JUST WORKED!
I’m probably on the wrong side of sane posting in this community, but I finally had the luck to get through to a support-assistant through the chat. I spend 2 hours waiting in line and 1 hour and 40 minutes on the chat, believing that there was an actual work-around the never-ending-update-loop-hell that have left me with a completely useless Sonos-system. I cant play anything, since the app always prompts the updates, that always ends in a “error 1000” message. And then once more. Once more.
At the end of the conversation with Sonos Support I was told that I just have to wait til the developers gets to these problems, since “Error 1000# is just a general error-message and no one knows why or what causes it!
Then what about just stating that clear and obvious?!?!?!?! Stop waisting out time!?!?!?!
You forced this giant pile of manure on us, disguised as a new and revolutionary app. An app that just broke our speaker-systems?
And you just continue to hide behind your support-staff and beat your marketing drums with your new and utterly useless new headphones, which I think is the reason to why you decided to launch the new app in the first case, because the useless headphones needs the new app??!?!
The decider behind this giant cluster-* should be…
