Update on the Sonos App from Patrick Spence

This is very much inline with my thinking, @Kumar, and I’ll add one wrinkle. If you’re after a great user experience, you need to pay someone who delivers great music software.

Not everyone demands a great UX, and those folks may be fine with the bundleware shipped with their streamer. But it is unrealistic to expect a hardware company to deliver fabulous software.

My winning formula: Audirvana > Chromecast > Streaming Endpoint > Quality Hi-Fi Gear

Is one of the main reasons I chose Yamaha as my replacement. While there is MusicCast built in, the devices work and are controllable without it, so can add a streamer when needed. Same principle I use with my TV. When the inbuilt streaming stops working or doesn’t do what I want, add an external player and carry on.

I can even say no to firmware updates, run the devices on different versions and everything just works. Would you believe, they only need one app to use with the v1 and v2 musiccast devices due to versioned on device apis? 😱

I’ve turned all my players into openhome renderers with bubbleupnp server for per device queues with Rigelean. At the moment I use a mix of Rigelean for it’s music focused ui, and the musiccast app. 🤷

For those that are able to pursue such solutions after having knowledge of them, for sure. There is an analogy there from the old days of HiFi separates.

What I have found that just using Spotify on my phone, selecting the music/playlist I want to listen to and then casting that to an Echo Show 8 wired to Sonos serves my needs for a music play UX. And when I am vacuuming or feeling lazier than usual, I can do this via a voice command to the Echo, asking it to play, usually from remembered play lists. 

In my case it also helps to have accepted that there is nothing audible to be heard from a pursuit of higher data streams as are used for Hi Res. Any benefit gets lost in the ambient sound floor levels of even a quiet room, even when heard from better speakers than Sonos. Quality headphones may show the benefit, but since I don’t use them, that does not bear in my case.

I just noticed, with my lounge room playbase and play 1s, that the ambient setting no longer works for the play 1 surrounds.  I like the playbase to do the heavy lifting up front. I can turn them down but shouldn't need to?

How do you tag a Sonos person?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/sonos-software-meltdown/

“ Sonos owners have been in their own special circle of hell since mid-May, when a now-infamous update to the Sonos app and the platform as a whole went very, very wrong. Not helping matters is that the upgrade-that-wasn’t has hit folks in different ways. Some have reported few problems. Others have serious issues getting their Sonos system — which until now had been mostly rock solid in its ability to play music wirelessly throughout a house — to do anything at all.”

“ You wouldn’t be wrong in feeling like your Sonos system has held you hostage a little bit. Sure, you’re not actually tied down to anything and can walk out the door anytime, but you’ll be poorer for it. Or you can stick things out and hope for the best.”

“Customers are going to grumble. A lot. And very loudly. They’re not wrong to do so. And what other choice do they have? Sonos setups aren’t cheap, even in their smallest iteration. And unless you don’t mind setting money on fire, you’re likely just going to ride this one out and hope things get better sooner rather than later. But until then, everyone’s being held hostage by a broken system they want to love again.”

Copy/pasted from the excellent linked article that sums it all up very well, for those that don’t want to be reminded of all the gory detail!

OK so CEO wrote some message but nothing has changed! The app is still TERRIBLE!!! when will they fix it already :(

Hmmmm, 12 months free....but during that 12 months your SONOS product doesn't work anyhow.

I would like a working product which I am entitled to under Australian consumer law.

Managing a company during a crisis is undoubtedly challenging. I’ve followed the timeline of updates from CEO Patrick Spence, and I recognize that the team at Sonos is working hard to navigate through this difficult situation.

However, from the perspective of a long-time customer, the efforts so far don’t feel sufficient. Publishing a timeline and closing local support offices, firing employees, while understandable, don’t address the core issues that customers like myself are facing. Sonos, it’s time to step up instead!

I own five Sonos devices (an amp, three One speakers, and a One SL) and have been a loyal Sonos user for over seven years. Until recently, my experience with the system has been nothing short of excellent. Unfortunately, everything changed with the release of the new app. Now, none of my devices are recognized by the system. I’ve followed all the troubleshooting suggestions—factory resets, router resets, hardwired connections, WiFi connections—yet the problem persists. Occasionally, a device may be detected, but an error inevitably occurs, rendering the system unusable.

It’s been three months without music, and despite investing countless hours trying to resolve this, I’m left feeling frustrated and unsupported. It’s disheartening to see Sonos continuing to advertise new products on the website while existing customers struggle without a solution. If you can send emails promoting new devices, why not communicate more effectively with those of us who are still waiting for the app to function properly?

As a once-enthusiastic Sonos advocate, I need to be confident in your products before considering any future purchases. Please fix the app, bring back the old app, whatever and be more supportive to your loyal customers—only then will I consider adding something by Sonos ever again.

Again, for those of you in the back, all they had to do was rename and re-release 16.1 as a branch while they ironed out this new Jackson Pollock UI/UX.

That they didn’t and won’t says they don’t care about you. Even you Ken G.