Update on the Sonos App from Patrick Spence

Sonophone app sort of fixed it

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/sonophone-for-sonos/id815251931

Sadly not available for Android. :(

Sonophone will let you play music much easier than the Sonos app but beware that it will not do “admin” things such as grouping speakers. It plays music to existing groups of speakers very well and is very responsive but you will still need to use the Sonos app for things beyond just playing music. For me it was $4 well spent considering I still can’t see all of my Spotify playlists in the Sonos app… but I can using Sonophone. 👍

In reply to some of the posts here, I suspect they won’t roll-back to the previous version because it didn’t accommodate the new headphones.

I use Sonopad now, and it’s great. Would never go back to the S2 app for regular playing of music. I sure at some point the new app becomes usable, however.

Resharing my letter to the CEO:
 

Dear Patrick,

First of all, thank you for addressing the issue in your open letter; I appreciate it. I wanted to share my feelings about Sonos over the past couple of months, hoping you will find this insightful.

For me, the biggest issue the update caused was tuning my setup with Trueplay. The timing was terrible as I had just moved my speakers and needed retuning after the app update. Sadly, it took 1-2 months for this fix to arrive. I called support multiple times and felt they neither knew about nor cared for this issue. This made me lose trust in the company. I relied on Reddit posts to help me install the old version of the app using questionable techniques, only to find that the old app didn't let me tune either as it instructed me to update.

I had planned to purchase a Sonos Ace, and as I told support, due to these trust issues, I bought a Sony headphone instead. Even though I am hearing great things about the product, it is really hard to spend more money on something that is expensive and potentially loses important features for months.

I want to trust Sonos again. I love my Arc, Sub Mini, and Era 300s (although I had a bumpy start with constant clicking noises, which also took a long time to fix). I might be one customer, but I know that at least two of my friends bought Sonos because of me, and now they are cautious too.

In the future, I would really appreciate earlier communication and, more importantly, action. In this case, allowing customers to roll back to the previous application until the new app had full features and no bugs would have been the perfect solution. It would have saved you from this PR nightmare.

App can’t find my Move 2 to add back in, nor my Soundbar, nor my Sub. Who knows how long the support chat queue is, I gave up my spot after 45 minutes of nothing. I’ve been a fan of Sonos for 7+ years now, not sure how much more they could have crapped the bed.

Thank you for recognizing that there is an issue. Unfortunately the experience is still really bad. Please roll back to the version that worked. Nevermind all the bugs and missing features that came with the new release, the UX design is confusing and clunky.

The experience has become so convoluted that the act of simply finding a track and pressing play on the right device/zone, an action that should take seconds, takes minutes and much frustration.

Make updates to please the customer.  From the start, this seemed like a marketing update. Hard to find the buttons I use.  Perhaps allow more customizations to be done by the customer. Not everyone uses Sonos the same way. 

Thanks for acknowledging the issues.  That is a start. 

I don’t envy the Sonos support staff. They were sent out on the front lines to deal with hordes of distraught and angry Sonos users and, in most cases, with no way to resolve their problems. The folks at the top of the Sonos pyramid did not merely lose the confidence of even longtime, diehard Sonos customers; they also imposed a heavy burden on their support staff — many of whom I’d wager are seeking other employment as a result of this fiasco.

None of this mess is a matter of life and death, but it’s reminiscent of Kubrick’s ‘Paths of Glory.’ Mr. Spence might do well to take the time to watch that film and take a few lessons from it.