Update on the Sonos App from Patrick Spence

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.

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 ?

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).

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?