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Hello everyone,

We wanted to take a moment to address concerns regarding our new app that launched in May. At Sonos, delivering an exceptional experience is paramount to all that we do. Unfortunately, your experiences over the past several weeks have fallen short of our commitment to you.

Today, our CEO Patrick Spence published a letter that includes a detailed update on the progress we’ve been making and plans going forward. You can read the full letter here.

We sincerely appreciate your patience and continued support. We are working hard to earn back your trust and are more committed than ever to delivering a consistently great Sonos experience for everyone.

Thank you all for your patience,
Your Sonos Team

My system was rock solid before this horrible app change.  This begs the question:  Do you, as the CEO of Sonos, use Sonos equipment in your home?  If so, how did you possibly sign off on this?


My system was rock solid before this horrible app change.  This begs the question:  Do you, as the CEO of Sonos, use Sonos equipment in your home?  If so, how did you possibly sign off on this?

Yes, he's used it (the new App etc.) since around Christmas and it's great he says.

Assuming he's not lying, I'm not sure how that's possible though.


Hello everyone,

We wanted to take a moment to address concerns regarding our new app that launched in May. At Sonos, delivering an exceptional experience is paramount to all that we do. Unfortunately, your experiences over the past several weeks have fallen short of our commitment to you.

Today, our CEO Patrick Spence published a letter that includes a detailed update on the progress we’ve been making and plans going forward. You can read the full letter here.

We sincerely appreciate your patience and continued support. We are working hard to earn back your trust and are more committed than ever to delivering a consistently great Sonos experience for everyone.

Thank you all for your patience,
Your Sonos Team

The Sonos CEO needs to realize this is going to destroy the Sonos brand if it continues for even another month.  The time I have wasted trying to dig though bulls*** worthless tech support articles that don’t solve any of the issues is more valuable than my investment in Sonos products.  Either roll back the Sonos 2 software for Windows PC app and Android app soon, or I will be commit to weaving this experience into my public speaking engagements for years to come as a generational case study of the worst beta testing implementation for any software update, the most incredible quality control failure, and the most devastating customer technical service failures of all time, all on the very same software update supporting a well loved brand.

I don’t know what the technical support team is telling the CEO, but hopefully it is NOT the truth.  As a brief back story, I have been an Avid Sonos fan and user for many year.  The hardware quality and the concept are the best speaker tech innovations I have ever seen!  For years, it facilitated unprecedented wireless control of music throughout my home and outdoor areas, all connected to wifi and without installation of miles of speaker wires to each speaker. The new Move speakers added a great new capability to have rechargable, portable speakers outdoors without an outlet.

The recent Sonos 2 App update experience and the ongoing inability to access my music library on my computers’ hard drives has rendered my $4,000+ investment in Sonos hardware unusable for weeks and weeks and weeks, and weeks….. this has definitely become the WORST product ownership experience in my entire life, and I am semi-retired and well traveled.

If ANY of the industry minimum standards for product testing, quality control, issue resolution or technical support were properly functioning within Sonos, this would never have happened.  The CEO needs to get their head out of their ass, realize this is a complete dumpster fire, and hire a new software development lead, a new software QC/QA manager, and a new tech support leader or resign and find someone that has the ability to lead before you destroy a well-loved brand.

 

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


And still not working at all on my side with no system find even if google vocal command still working. Spotify not detecting as well…

Any workaround possible suggested by community ?

 


Yes, he's used it (the new App etc.) since around Christmas and it's great he says.

Assuming he's not lying, I'm not sure how that's possible though.

He is probably lying for this reason: in his place, with the money I would be making, I would go for the best, including having a ethernet backbone at home. 

Sonos made good kit, but at a price point. If those price points were completely irrelevant for someone with a lot of dollars to spend on a state of art home audio set up, Sonos in the home would just for show, not regular daily use.


There CEO’s statement says that releases will be fortnightly. That hasn’t happened.

The current app for MacOs is dated 1/July/24 (today is 18th August 24). That release is not in the release notes linked from the post announcing an apology and that things will be getting better.

I still can’t access my music on my local library.

The return of playlists is meaningless because my playlists include my own locally stored music.

Nothing has actually changed since 25th July. The promised release milestones have not been met.

I think the credibility of the CEO and board have now reached the same point as their software products. Their customers cannot rely on them or anything that is promised.


A Mac OS and Android update was released on the 6th Aug. If you use a local library and haven’t already installed speaker firmware 16.3 or 16.3.1 then my recommendation would be to only update the app. Do NOT update the speakers. If you do, there’s a(nother) bug around how the speakers index compilations… 


The version 16.3 still shows a created and modified date of 1 July 2024. And, again, there is no release notes for a MacOs version on that date. There is for iOS.

It still shows a copyright to 2023 on the file info.

I am using 16.3 already.

All this shows is that the release of software is as badly managed as the rest of the process.

There has been a change since 1 July, because I can now create a music library, but if I use a NAS drive it fails after a couple of seconds of indexing (a local copy still fails with an error, so that’s still the same).


@Rhonny cant wait.   Overdue but welcomed. 

Agreed. My system is largely fine (although the app couldn’t find my system for 30 mins this evening…)…

Come on, sort your network out……

Or use a non-Sonos App.

Or reboot everything again.

Or factory reset stuff again.

Generally, stuff you didn't need to do before the update, but, remember, the App is fiiiiiiiine, it's your network that has the problem, not the App!!!…..


It WAS my network. The app is rock solid.

 


I actually meant to put a 😉 after ‘sort your network out’ but forgot to.

What was your issue?

However, I'm not sure you can say “The app is rock solid.” when Sonos themselves accept it's far from it?


I actually meant to put a 😉 after ‘sort your network out’ but forgot to.

What was your issue?

However, I'm not sure you can say “The app is rock solid.” when Sonos themselves accept it's far from it?

Okay. I did wonder, seeing as it was a comment from you!

It was a mesh node that had gone red (no idea why) that needed restarting. 
(Maybe not rock solid - maybe tennis ball hard?)


I’ve been using my system a bit more lately and as well as the bug with the ambient settings for my surrounds my Ones and sub-mini, which I mostly use when listening to music, seem to be jumping straight the second song in any album I select from my library. Particularly noticeable the last couple of days. Clicking on the first song yields no error and the album plays fine after that.


The app is a disaster and Sonos has acknowledged problems with the announcement from the CEO. I have 12 Sonos devices. I only got issues aften the release of the new app.


@Renner 
I’m not disputing that, but the app is rock solid for me. That is a fact that I am unapologetic about. 


Every app that is rock solid requires $20-30m of expenditure to ‘improve’ it. 

No-one disputes your experience in your scenario. What people rightly dispute is the myopic view that because you have a good experience the app is not at fault. 

Even Sonos admit the app is at fault. 


Every app that is rock solid requires $20-30m of expenditure to ‘improve’ it. 

No-one disputes your experience in your scenario. What people rightly dispute is the myopic view that because you have a good experience the app is not at fault. 

Even Sonos admit the app is at fault. 

Maybe today's app update will help people further. (Or tomorrow’s- but we’re due one early this week. I really hope this fortnight they’ve coded like they’ve never coded before…)


I wonder how long to fix the ambient settings for my surrounds. I don’t like using full.

 

Edit for clarity.


I’m still on the old version of the app so wondered if they have now put back the mute button in this new app? Also have they improved the volume control to include the number display as well?

Thanks

 


I wonder how long to fix the ambient settings for my surrounds. I did like using full.

Why is the app behaving so differently for some and not for others. Why has it decided to afflict you with no Ambient vs Full..?? My concern is that Sonos will say ‘ta-da, all fixed!’ And whilst 75% will rejoice, anomalies like this will remain…


I’m still on the old version of the app so wondered if they have now put back the mute button in this new app? Also have they improved the volume control to include the number display as well?

Thanks

 

Mute capability has been back a while now. And yes, volume includes numbers.


I wonder how long to fix the ambient settings for my surrounds. I did like using full.

Why is the app behaving so differently for some and not for others. Why has it decided to afflict you with no Ambient vs Full..?? My concern is that Sonos will say ‘ta-da, all fixed!’ And whilst 75% will rejoice, anomalies like this will remain…

 

? I want ambient. I don't have it.


From what I am seeing at the moment they need a Bugzilla setup to start tracking issues. I’ve got a couple of bugs that need squishing.


Just double checked, the ambient setting has no effect for my Playbase and Play:1s.

 

My spare room is not skipping the first song though for some reason today.


Maybe today's app update will help people further. (Or tomorrow’s- but we’re due one early this week. I really hope this fortnight they’ve coded like they’ve never coded before…)

They’ve coded a lot, no doubt. 😁 And will code exponentially more in the next weeks/months.
What they really need to do like never before is to start thinking before coding, and testing after that.
Obviously they have problems with both.

 


Maybe today's app update will help people further. (Or tomorrow’s- but we’re due one early this week. I really hope this fortnight they’ve coded like they’ve never coded before…)

They’ve coded a lot, no doubt. 😁 And will code even more in the next weeks/months.
What they really need to do like never before is to start thinking before coding, and testing after that.
Obviously they have problems with both.

 

Headless chickens come to mind. Macfarlane, that is the Sonos equivalent of  Steve Jobs, must be turning in his “grave”.