It would appear that this will be the last year of Sonos. Between the cancer of their lousy 5.0 app their anti-customer policy of outright refusing to fix it, their market lead will almost certainly be gone by X-mas. Look at the list of companies currently selling directly competitive products and note that nearly every one of them has vastly greater name recognition and audio experience than Sonos:
And note that DTS, the audio granddaddy of them all has gone all-in, along with Qualcomm, the true granddaddy of wireless audio. The audio giants have released the open standards Allplay and Play-Fi, allowing consumers to mix/match their WiFi audio brands/products as easily as we do with other WiFi devices.
Today Sonos has a significant edge over every one of these offerings, but will they still have it 3 months from now? There will surely be a half-dozen more brands announced within the next 60 days and within the next 6 months at least one of them will get their software right. What are the chances that it will be Sonos?
Panasonic and Altec Lansing have already announced products. What's going to happen when Sony, Logitech, JBL, and Harman Kardon enter the market? What about Beats, with their $3 Billion cash infusion from Apple? One or more of these companies is going to find the right mix of quality, price, functionality and style. Meanwhile the obscure underdog Sonos will likely continue to battle against their customers until there is nothing left to fight over.
Farewell Sonos, we hardly knew you.
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Dunno, bro. The app works for me and Sonos just replaced a six year old failing Connect for $120 brand new. Yes, there are some issues I'm not thrilled with, but all companies have them. I've risen above the rhetoric and embraced the future they will present.
Doubtful. In fact, I'll bet they double their revenues again this year. Check out their jobs postings. Check out their sales rankings on Amazon. They're still growing healthily.
Farewell Sonos, we hardly knew you.
Speaking for yourself are you? - as a generalisation, this is vastly off the mark.
And note that DTS, the audio granddaddy of them all has gone all-in, along with Qualcomm, the true granddaddy of wireless audio. The audio giants have released the open standards Allplay and Play-Fi, allowing consumers to mix/match their WiFi audio brands/products as easily as we do with other WiFi devices.
Today Sonos has a significant edge over every one of these offerings, but will they still have it 3 months from now? There will surely be a half-dozen more brands announced within the next 60 days and within the next 6 months at least one of them will get their software right. What are the chances that it will be Sonos?
Panasonic and Altec Lansing have already announced products. What's going to happen when Sony, Logitech, JBL, and Harman Kardon enter the market? What about Beats, with their $3 Billion cash infusion from Apple? One or more of these companies is going to find the right mix of quality, price, functionality and style. Meanwhile the obscure underdog Sonos will likely continue to battle against their customers until there is nothing left to fight over.
Farewell Sonos, we hardly knew you.
Bwahahahaha!
Nor we you, since you only recently signed up to the forums. Perhaps you've not been a Sonos owner long enough to recall previous failed attempts to dislodge them: products launched then withdrawn owing to lacklustre sales.
Of course other manufacturers will jump in, and that's good for competition and validating the market space. But until another vendor comes up with a wireless system as robust as SonosNet frankly I'm just not interested.
As for the 5.0 controller, well it seems it's like Marmite. Some like it, others hate it. Personally for me it does the job: search for, set up and play music.
I'm pretty sure this is spot on, considering he/she asked "What's going to happen when Sony, Logitech, JBL . . . enter the market", without realizing that all three have already entered the market, and subsequently exited, as failures.
Monster. LOL.
There's a lot of ignorance around how consumer markets work. Most people don't really understand them, and that's how we get statements like the OP's.
The reality is consumer markets move quite slowly most of the time. It takes years for product-based brands to become established and, after that, years for them to fail. Established companies like Sonos don't just go from being successful to failing all of a sudden because of a competitors product. A lot of the time (e.g. in developing markets) competing products can actually boost the sales of existing companies in that market. I remember talking to a Sonos rep some time back who was gutted when the Linksys streaming product failed.
Even if we assume the market is approaching saturation (which it's nowhere near) and that competing products will be successful (which they historically haven't) and that they start to seriously erode Sonos's sales (unlikely given Sonos's position), Sonos probably has a buffer period of 2-3 years notice before it starts to affect them badly. That's plenty of time to change strategy if it is required.
The same goes for enhancements: I have lost count of the number of times people have predicted Sonos's death because they didn't support a specific file format, or service, or other feature.
Hires is a classic one: the first predictions of the death of Sonos and the meteoric rise of hires into the mainstream were back in 2005. And here we are nearly 10 years later, and all of those predictions have turned out to have been nonsense.
If nothing else predictions like the one in this thread give those of us with a bit of a clue a good chuckle.
Cheers,
Keith
The reality is consumer markets move quite slowly most of the time. It takes years for product-based brands to become established and, after that, years for them to fail. Established companies like Sonos don't just go from being successful to failing all of a sudden because of a competitors product. A lot of the time (e.g. in developing markets) competing products can actually boost the sales of existing companies in that market. I remember talking to a Sonos rep some time back who was gutted when the Linksys streaming product failed.
Even if we assume the market is approaching saturation (which it's nowhere near) and that competing products will be successful (which they historically haven't) and that they start to seriously erode Sonos's sales (unlikely given Sonos's position), Sonos probably has a buffer period of 2-3 years notice before it starts to affect them badly. That's plenty of time to change strategy if it is required.
The same goes for enhancements: I have lost count of the number of times people have predicted Sonos's death because they didn't support a specific file format, or service, or other feature.
Hires is a classic one: the first predictions of the death of Sonos and the meteoric rise of hires into the mainstream were back in 2005. And here we are nearly 10 years later, and all of those predictions have turned out to have been nonsense.
If nothing else predictions like the one in this thread give those of us with a bit of a clue a good chuckle.
Cheers,
Keith
I welcome competition in the market space; increased awareness inevitably drives Sonos volumes, there are actually very few substitutes from true / mesh multi zone, multiple ecosystem steamers.
What's your intent Vespa? Don't like SOnos - take ir back or sell it? Very well formatted post but gaps in the logic.
Millions to maple syrup or marmite Apple never adopts All Play nor Play Fi.
So what's the differentiation for the OEMs - it will be like Android devices, where the licensor makes more coin than the licensee. They're all getting into this space as traditional equipment sales were largely gutted by mobile devices and streamers.
Let's see what happens!
What about Beats, with their $3 Billion cash infusion from Apple? One or more of these companies is going to find the right mix of quality, price, functionality and style. Meanwhile the obscure underdog Sonos will likely continue to battle against their customers until there is nothing left to fight over.
What's your intent Vespa? Don't like SOnos - take ir back or sell it? Very well formatted post but gaps in the logic.
Millions to maple syrup or marmite Apple never adopts All Play nor Play Fi.
So what's the differentiation for the OEMs - it will be like Android devices, where the licensor makes more coin than the licensee. They're all getting into this space as traditional equipment sales were largely gutted by mobile devices and streamers.
Let's see what happens!
If you haven't noticed, all articles that mention _any_ wireless kind of speakers, and especially multiroom solutions, will mention Sonos as the leading competitor. With that kind of free PR, it is almost desirable for Sonos to get competition.
Of course, when someone comes up with a superior product, they will have to work harder to keep up with the competition, but I consider that to be a good thing. I think the LG system is the one that offers the best competition today, and it actually has some features that are superior to Sonos, including 5GHz mesh network and support for Spotify Connect.
But, the one thing that will be hard to break is long term support and longevity of products. Sonos has been on the market for almost 10 years, and to enter a market and convince people that they will support their products and services for that kind of period is hard. I have seen it several times, when it comes to phones, mediaplayers etc. You can be cheaper, better, but what use is it if all support is dropped after 2 years? Especially today, when most of the music consumption is based on streaming, that would require constant support and updates in order to have it functional.
Of course, when someone comes up with a superior product, they will have to work harder to keep up with the competition, but I consider that to be a good thing. I think the LG system is the one that offers the best competition today, and it actually has some features that are superior to Sonos, including 5GHz mesh network and support for Spotify Connect.
But, the one thing that will be hard to break is long term support and longevity of products. Sonos has been on the market for almost 10 years, and to enter a market and convince people that they will support their products and services for that kind of period is hard. I have seen it several times, when it comes to phones, mediaplayers etc. You can be cheaper, better, but what use is it if all support is dropped after 2 years? Especially today, when most of the music consumption is based on streaming, that would require constant support and updates in order to have it functional.
The truth is that in its market of multi room wireless audio, Sonos is still the gold standard - even compared to solutions many price points higher. And it has been so for a long time relative to this market environment. It isn't guaranteed that place, but any system that unseats it is going to have to be very special and something to look forward to, while enjoying all that Sonos has to offer today and tomorrow. What form or shape that system will take is an unknown, in my view - I haven't seen anything of the kind in anything announced so far.
The "multi-room" aspect of the competition is lacking. Most of them top out in the four to six room range. The recently announced MONSTER system claims ten rooms. At ten rooms SONOS is just reaching its stride.
Until the recent firmware update the easiest marketplace "bash" against SONOS was "Can't use WiFi, our product uses WiFi, everyone has WiFi in their home, SONOS requires extra product (the BRIDGE)". It was relatively easy for SONOS to eliminate this bash. It is not so easy for the competition to cross that six to ten room threshold without tripping over the SONOS patents -- and leaving WiFi behind.
For those who understand the technology BRIDGE is not required, but is convenient in some cases. I think SONOS tried to counter the "bash" by giving away the BRIDGE, but the competition countered by claiming that BRIDGE "complicated" the installation process or added unnecessary clutter. Now all of these bashing points are removed and there is a flood of inexpensive BRIDGE's on the market. When alert types figure out the drill, these cheap BRIDGES can be used to inexpensively solve nasty WiFi issues and open the door for adding more SONOS kit.
In a few cases the competition is touting "5GHz". PLAYBAR, SUB, PLAY:1 and PLAY:3 already use 5GHz for surround. The yet to be released SONOS BOOST will make an already robust system better. I think that it is obvious that this improved wireless technology can be pushed throughout the whole line, resulting in an across the board improvement in robustness.
Until the recent firmware update the easiest marketplace "bash" against SONOS was "Can't use WiFi, our product uses WiFi, everyone has WiFi in their home, SONOS requires extra product (the BRIDGE)". It was relatively easy for SONOS to eliminate this bash. It is not so easy for the competition to cross that six to ten room threshold without tripping over the SONOS patents -- and leaving WiFi behind.
For those who understand the technology BRIDGE is not required, but is convenient in some cases. I think SONOS tried to counter the "bash" by giving away the BRIDGE, but the competition countered by claiming that BRIDGE "complicated" the installation process or added unnecessary clutter. Now all of these bashing points are removed and there is a flood of inexpensive BRIDGE's on the market. When alert types figure out the drill, these cheap BRIDGES can be used to inexpensively solve nasty WiFi issues and open the door for adding more SONOS kit.
In a few cases the competition is touting "5GHz". PLAYBAR, SUB, PLAY:1 and PLAY:3 already use 5GHz for surround. The yet to be released SONOS BOOST will make an already robust system better. I think that it is obvious that this improved wireless technology can be pushed throughout the whole line, resulting in an across the board improvement in robustness.
Thanks OP, this was a good laugh!
I love it when people talk about economics, politics and so on, in much the same way that they talk about the last soccer game. It's fun!
Sonos is not perfect. The competition is trying hard to catch up indeed. The last user interface doesn't please every single customer (but, quite frankly, I think it's a real upgrade...).
But with the Playbar and the Play:1, Sonos is probably selling many more units than they ever have. They are probably in very good shape! (I'm saying probably, because I don't have the numbers as I am not their accountant - neither is OP...) It's not gonna last forever, as is the case for literally all companies. But right now, they are not far from peeking.
OP, I think you're mourning the death of your idea of Sonos. Of your idealized Sonos world. It's OK, you'll find another trendy company that hipsters will tell you to love!
I love it when people talk about economics, politics and so on, in much the same way that they talk about the last soccer game. It's fun!
Sonos is not perfect. The competition is trying hard to catch up indeed. The last user interface doesn't please every single customer (but, quite frankly, I think it's a real upgrade...).
But with the Playbar and the Play:1, Sonos is probably selling many more units than they ever have. They are probably in very good shape! (I'm saying probably, because I don't have the numbers as I am not their accountant - neither is OP...) It's not gonna last forever, as is the case for literally all companies. But right now, they are not far from peeking.
OP, I think you're mourning the death of your idea of Sonos. Of your idealized Sonos world. It's OK, you'll find another trendy company that hipsters will tell you to love!
Click bait thread title meant to create uncertainty, fear, and doubt
con·jec·ture - the formation of a theory without sufficient evidence for proof - a guess - speculation.
con·jec·ture - the formation of a theory without sufficient evidence for proof - a guess - speculation.
You forgot the Denon system...
http://usa.denon.com/us/heos
The Sonos app works great for me so YMMV
From what I can tell of all the competitors they are all years behind still. Some of the speaker units can not be used in pairs to create a stereo stage. Big FAIL for me. Not sure if this is a shortcoming of the Play-Fi platform or not.
The Denon system looks promising only because they are integrating the Connect type functionality into their new receivers/HT amps.
But it will take YEARS for any of these companies to get traction. To begin with the US market for audio equipment that costs $1k or more is very small. This stuff needs to be sub $200 to shift units in a meaningful way. This is why Denon integrating it into their integrated amps is potentially a big win for them. Suddenly spending $200 will get you two rooms if you already have a new Denon HT receiver.
Second. The holidays are not a good time to launch expensive audio equipment. It's a largely christian country and few people spend that kind of coin on themselves in Q4 because they are spending gobs of money on family and friends. But even if that wasn't the case it would still take years for a competitor to take over. It took Sonos 10 years to get to 1MM units. This is good for competitors because they can coattail onto all of the awareness Sonos has created for the wireless audio market.
I think you just need to chill out. The app is not bad and I have had stellar experiences with their customer service. Competition is good. It will make SONOS try even harder which will be good for consumers.
peace
It would appear that this will be the last year of Sonos. Between the cancer of their lousy 5.0 app their anti-customer policy of outright refusing to fix it, their market lead will almost certainly be gone by X-mas. Look at the list of companies currently selling directly competitive products and note that nearly every one of them has vastly greater name recognition and audio experience than Sonos:
And note that DTS, the audio granddaddy of them all has gone all-in, along with Qualcomm, the true granddaddy of wireless audio. The audio giants have released the open standards Allplay and Play-Fi, allowing consumers to mix/match their WiFi audio brands/products as easily as we do with other WiFi devices.
Today Sonos has a significant edge over every one of these offerings, but will they still have it 3 months from now? There will surely be a half-dozen more brands announced within the next 60 days and within the next 6 months at least one of them will get their software right. What are the chances that it will be Sonos?
Panasonic and Altec Lansing have already announced products. What's going to happen when Sony, Logitech, JBL, and Harman Kardon enter the market? What about Beats, with their $3 Billion cash infusion from Apple? One or more of these companies is going to find the right mix of quality, price, functionality and style. Meanwhile the obscure underdog Sonos will likely continue to battle against their customers until there is nothing left to fight over.
Farewell Sonos, we hardly knew you.
http://usa.denon.com/us/heos
The Sonos app works great for me so YMMV
From what I can tell of all the competitors they are all years behind still. Some of the speaker units can not be used in pairs to create a stereo stage. Big FAIL for me. Not sure if this is a shortcoming of the Play-Fi platform or not.
The Denon system looks promising only because they are integrating the Connect type functionality into their new receivers/HT amps.
But it will take YEARS for any of these companies to get traction. To begin with the US market for audio equipment that costs $1k or more is very small. This stuff needs to be sub $200 to shift units in a meaningful way. This is why Denon integrating it into their integrated amps is potentially a big win for them. Suddenly spending $200 will get you two rooms if you already have a new Denon HT receiver.
Second. The holidays are not a good time to launch expensive audio equipment. It's a largely christian country and few people spend that kind of coin on themselves in Q4 because they are spending gobs of money on family and friends. But even if that wasn't the case it would still take years for a competitor to take over. It took Sonos 10 years to get to 1MM units. This is good for competitors because they can coattail onto all of the awareness Sonos has created for the wireless audio market.
I think you just need to chill out. The app is not bad and I have had stellar experiences with their customer service. Competition is good. It will make SONOS try even harder which will be good for consumers.
peace
And note that DTS, the audio granddaddy of them all has gone all-in, along with Qualcomm, the true granddaddy of wireless audio. The audio giants have released the open standards Allplay and Play-Fi, allowing consumers to mix/match their WiFi audio brands/products as easily as we do with other WiFi devices.
Today Sonos has a significant edge over every one of these offerings, but will they still have it 3 months from now? There will surely be a half-dozen more brands announced within the next 60 days and within the next 6 months at least one of them will get their software right. What are the chances that it will be Sonos?
Panasonic and Altec Lansing have already announced products. What's going to happen when Sony, Logitech, JBL, and Harman Kardon enter the market? What about Beats, with their $3 Billion cash infusion from Apple? One or more of these companies is going to find the right mix of quality, price, functionality and style. Meanwhile the obscure underdog Sonos will likely continue to battle against their customers until there is nothing left to fight over.
Farewell Sonos, we hardly knew you.
My thoughts exactly 🙂
Don't see them going anywhere anytime soon. They're product is one of the best -- if not the best -- on the market. Excellent performance through their mesh network (only hiccups I've had is with STP issues with multiple wired components which I chose to wire instead of making wireless).
IMO, there's no doubt that over time, Sonos will lose some existing customers who want Hi-Rez, along with losing out on some new customers who want Hi-Rez.
Also, IMHO, Sonos will drop the price/replace the connect/connect amp going forward to fend off competitors.
Competition is good.
Also, IMHO, Sonos will drop the price/replace the connect/connect amp going forward to fend off competitors.
Competition is good.
Also, IMHO, Sonos will drop the price/replace the connect/connect amp going forward to fend off competitors.
Competition is good.
As far as I can tell, none of the competitors listed by the OP have Hi-Res capability.
I'm pretty sure that BlueSound does.
"Hear every detail of the world’s most accurate 24-bit/192kHz studio master recordings in lossless FLAC format (assuming your speakers are up to the challenge). Also plays WAV, AIFF, AAC, WMA, MP3, and other standard audio formats with gapless playback."
Looks like Sonos' is at least starting to acknowledge certain issues:
Sonos drops price of music systems and plans hi-res update
OP can't hear you. He's over at the iPhone forum predicting the demise of Apple. 😃
"Hear every detail of the world’s most accurate 24-bit/192kHz studio master recordings in lossless FLAC format (assuming your speakers are up to the challenge). Also plays WAV, AIFF, AAC, WMA, MP3, and other standard audio formats with gapless playback."
Looks like Sonos' is at least starting to acknowledge certain issues:
Sonos drops price of music systems and plans hi-res update
Bluesound wasn't listed by the OP.
And that Guardian article has never been verified by anyone, and the hi-res Idea over at ask.Sonos is still marked 'Unplanned'. As such, I personally take it as a out of context answer to a highly leading question.
And that Guardian article has never been verified by anyone, and the hi-res Idea over at ask.Sonos is still marked 'Unplanned'. As such, I personally take it as a out of context answer to a highly leading question.
His mistake, not mine.
It's possible that Sonos may just be putting out lip-service via back-channels re: Hi-Rez and competitors. If they do, they will suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, so will existing Sonos customers who want Sonos to continue to upgrade.
It's possible that Sonos may just be putting out lip-service via back-channels re: Hi-Rez and competitors. If they do, they will suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, so will existing Sonos customers who want Sonos to continue to upgrade.
People have been claiming Sonos will "suffer the consequences" of not supporting Hi-Res for going on 10 years. In that time, Sonos has become the second largest speaker manufacturer in the world, whereas the competitors who offer Hi-Res have either failed, or barely dented the market. In addition, big name competitors (Bose, Samsung, Denon) have come forward and none of them offer Hi-Res capability. Methinks you overestimate the effect Hi-res has on the audio streaming market.
Why are you so defensive? Do you have an equity stake in Sonos?
Sonos is not going to disappear due to not being on board with Hi-Rez. Hi-Rez/High Fidelity is a small subset of the market. However, Sonos needs to be mindful that they will be facing much stiffer competition across the spectrum of potential offerings than they have in the past. Obviously, that is why they came out w/ the Play 1's (i..e., to fend off lower priced alternatives).
Going forward, they will lose market share, and that is to be expected with increased competition. Hopefully, they'll continue to improve their product and price it accordingly. If not, some customers will drop out and some potential customers will remain potential customers. That's reality.
Personally, I'd like to see them make it easier/less expensive to stream to existing speakers (that are of higher quality than Sonos' speakers) and/or produce some "higher end" Sonos' speakers. Sonos' has to figure out the tradeoffs between market share and losing out on sales of their own speakers. I'm assuming they want to remain mass-market and not turn into a niche "high-end" retailer.
If you are happy with Sonos, good for you. I'm fine with Sonos for now, going forward, it will depend upon how they compare to new competitors.
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