Sonos Pinewood Streaming Box

It’s an interesting development, to be sure, although the stated reason does make sense to me. 

The app still needs work as far as I’m concerned and I would also like the companies financial numbers to improve before considering any purchases. Arc Ultra would be a good replacement for my Playbase but not happening for at least a couple of quarters. 

Same here, 2 households holding off on any Sonos purchases until the company gets back on track with better support, and a fully functionally app that DOES NOT depend on the cloud and servers for local control.  With the news article referenced above, I do note that this means NO new products for Sonos in 2025. This could lead to a continued spiral where revenue projections get lowered quarter by quarter resulting in more staff reductions & even greater reduction in support.  

See also many almost monthly SALES promotions ongoing.  Realizing Sonos products have always been overpriced, it’s kind of like a Nordstroms sales = MSRP ;-)

Considering this further, the functionality of wireless connectivity to speakers for TV Audio is what I was looking forwaed to. The video streaming services are almost irrelevant.

If Sonos turned  the "Pinewood" project into a Sonos "Hub" to enable this functionality and forget the video streaming services, that would be a great product (if the price was right). 

Sonos, please consider this. 

A simpler, more price-competitive box? What if Sonos could still release a connection box? Only it wouldn't include the smart TV part, which means it needs much less powerful processing. It would still include HDMI pass-through and switching functionality, as well as wireless connectivity with Sonos speakers; it would probably cost around $200. It's not cheap, but as part of a proper speaker system, it might be worth it. That's what several of us here are asking for.

I am very disappointed with this news, I was waiting for this product, I am willing to pay the 400 dollars for this if they were to sell it with HDMI ARC or EARC inputs and be able to send the wireless audio to my Sonos Era 100 speakers without having to use a sound bar, I need it to be able to listen to the audio from my TV, I just need it to have HDMI ARC inputs without any other outputs, just what I sent the wireless audio.

I think this a necessity step. Sonos needs to work on the fundamentals immediately or go out of business.

Full focus is needed with a transparent pipeline to regain trust. This is an 24 month journey (minimum!) to unpick and rebuild the disaster with considerable re-engineering no doubt required.
 

As a wireless ecosystem, the interface and functionality should be rock solid, reliable and intuitive. Users should not be expected to be network engineers to tinker and solve wide spread network mesh compatibility problems for example. It should just work, out of the box like so many competitors. This is 2025 not 2005. 

I say good luck to the engineers. Some hard choices will need to be made with regards to the older hardware set I’m sure…

110% agree. I was VERY much looking forward to this product. The pass-thru feature been amazing to help free up HDMI ports on TV. Being able to add 2 more Era 300s for front L and R been game changing as well.

But, honestly, what can you expect from a company that constantly tries to advertise themselves as “home theater” when not even support DTS:X for their products.

For the price Sonos charges for their products and NOT offer DTS:X and an extra HDMI port is absolute criminal and lazy!