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After months of misery with this god awful app and failing cloud service, I'm saying goodbye to my Sonos system. 

A minimum a speaker should be able to do is play music from your supported music service. If you can't even do that properly anymore then there's no point sticking around. 

I ordered a set of Audio Pro instead. 

Goodbye Sonos. You will not be missed

Hello ​@ycooreman, welcome to the Sonos Community!

I am sorry to hear you are experiencing issues with the Sonos App and your Sonos system.

In order to offer some assistance to you, either from me or our users here, some information about the issues you are having would be great.

I had a look internally and I was not able to find any cases from our Support Team so it is not clear if you’ve attempted to contact us or did any troubleshooting steps.

I would recommend you reach out to our Support Team as they have tools at their disposal to provide you with advice and information about your Sonos system and what it reports.


No, I have not attempted to contact the support team because there’s nothing they will do anyway.

YouTube Music has been broken for over a year (it only plays 100 songs in any playlist), so I don’t think your support is going to help me with that, especially considering the vast amount of people frustrated over the same issue.

I don’t think your support is going to provide me any help when my system refuses to play any music, either from YouTube Music or locally on my network. What a good idea it was moving to cloud services entirely! Definitely no recipe for disaster.

Every app or system update has proven to be a gamble: will it still work after the update? Will it not? What a fun game that was! 

 


Anyway.. you crippled your app and you crippled your services.

I don’t trust you anymore, and I’m done being a beta tester for your services.. so I’m out. 


I’m not sure how selling or tossing out your system that you’ve already paid for sends a message to Sonos to improve things.  They’ve already got your money and by your own admission, they can’t do anything to get you to buy more. 

But you do you, OP. 


I ordered a set of Audio Pro instead. 

WiiM Edition? 


I’m not sure how selling or tossing out your system that you’ve already paid for sends a message to Sonos to improve things.  They’ve already got your money and by your own admission, they can’t do anything to get you to buy more. 

But you do you, OP. 

Well, they kicked out their CEO. I’m sure they’re not surprised by how people feel about their stuff at the moment. And they haven’t come across as people who want to improve things for users. Lots of courage though. Very Apple of them and no surprise, that being another company that couldn’t give a crap about what their users want.

The fact that I paid for this but they constantly provide a bad service is a very good reason to stop using it and stop any future flow of cash going their way.

Retention is what keeps them going. They’ve lost a mighty big chunk of that because of their shenanigans.

 


I ordered a set of Audio Pro instead. 

WiiM Edition? 

It is. I switched to Tidal as well.
 


Well, they kicked out their CEO. I’m sure they’re not surprised by how people feel about their stuff at the moment. And they haven’t come across as people who want to improve things for users. Lots of courage though. Very Apple of them and no surprise, that being another company that couldn’t give a crap about what their users want.

The fact that I paid for this but they constantly provide a bad service is a very good reason to stop using it and stop any future flow of cash going their way.

Retention is what keeps them going. They’ve lost a mighty big chunk of that because of their shenanigans.

 

 

Again, why should they care about retaining someone who has already left? 


Well, they kicked out their CEO. I’m sure they’re not surprised by how people feel about their stuff at the moment. And they haven’t come across as people who want to improve things for users. Lots of courage though. Very Apple of them and no surprise, that being another company that couldn’t give a crap about what their users want.

The fact that I paid for this but they constantly provide a bad service is a very good reason to stop using it and stop any future flow of cash going their way.

Retention is what keeps them going. They’ve lost a mighty big chunk of that because of their shenanigans.

 

 

Again, why should they care about retaining someone who has already left? 

Did I sound like someone who cares what Sonos does or does not do next for me?
I already bought different speakers.


It’s only fair to provide an update here…

 

Firstly: If you were planning on moving away form Sonos, using other speakers, Audio Pro might not be the best choice, depending on your use case. The playlist handling is NOT good.. at all. So they’re not an option for me. I have to stick with my Sonos speakers (for now, at least)

Second: I moved from YouTube Music to Tidal. The Sonos system does not have any problems with playlists when using Tidal.

 

So… I’m still pretty annoyed that my Sonos setup can seemingly just crumble after any update, which is not a good place to be. The fact that local network playback can be affected by cloud service issues, is worrying.

Sonos is getting a second (third? fourth? I lost count) chance for now.


As you have Tidal, check out Roon. Sonos hardware is good. Roon is a much more capable solution for control. It should also drive the WiiM Audio Pro units, once they’re Roon Ready. 


As you have Tidal, check out Roon. Sonos hardware is good. Roon is a much more capable solution for control. It should also drive the WiiM Audio Pro units, once they’re Roon Ready. 

I’ve had my eye on it for a while. Will probably take the plunge at some point.


My dilemma is I have an original Play:1 … it has been hooked up and worked fine with my system. When I went through the software upgrade it didn’t come along for the ride. I’ve spent hours resetting it etc, … been on the phone with a tech. Cannot get it to become part of my S2 App. Tried making it part of the S1 App 👎👎 … same thing. No Likey 

but remember - it was hooked up and working … 

If I plug it in the button flashes white for days. 

Never goes steady white - EVER.

If I reset it goes flashing Orange … will not play the audible tone … can’t get past that

Ethernet direct to Router. 👎

unplug Router 👎

My system is a Playbar with 2 Play:1s as surrounds (just like the one that won’t connect)

2 Roams

1 Move

Works great.

I have a neighbor with the exact same problem with a old Play:1 … has a newer Play:1 and an old (like mine) that work fine. The one that wasn’t working did work with her system until I hooked up the newer Play:1 … now endless Flashing white and all of the above. On the phone for an hour before tech gave up helping us. All documented. Both of us … submit diagnostics … all to no avail.
 

this is all written for ME.

 


It took me hours to get my speakers working again after the new app first hit us straight in the face like a brick travelling at 200mph.

I first, of course, had to factory reset everything. It then only worked for one speaker. I had to transfer my system to myself (a non-documented hack that I read about in the community here). Still didn’t want to register the second speaker. I think in the end the fairy speaker godmother felt sorry for me and sprinkled some magic over the speaker, making it being picked up… or I found a fix from a user here. There was no help from Sonos.

Then I found out that my local share didn’t work anymore.. because of all the “courage” from Sonos which had led them to remove everything we use from the app, and also break everything they did keep in.

Anyway.. they’ve clearly felt the backlash from their dissastrous handling of the update.

I hope they display some common sense form here onward.


My dilemma is I have an original Play:1 … it has been hooked up and worked fine with my system. When I went through the software upgrade it didn’t come along for the ride. I’ve spent hours resetting it etc, … been on the phone with a tech. Cannot get it to become part of my S2 App. Tried making it part of the S1 App 👎👎 … same thing. No Likey 

but remember - it was hooked up and working … 

If I plug it in the button flashes white for days. 

Never goes steady white - EVER.

If I reset it goes flashing Orange … will not play the audible tone … can’t get past that

Ethernet direct to Router. 👎

unplug Router 👎

My system is a Playbar with 2 Play:1s as surrounds (just like the one that won’t connect)

2 Roams

1 Move

Works great.

I have a neighbor with the exact same problem with a old Play:1 … has a newer Play:1 and an old (like mine) that work fine. The one that wasn’t working did work with her system until I hooked up the newer Play:1 … now endless Flashing white and all of the above. On the phone for an hour before tech gave up helping us. All documented. Both of us … submit diagnostics … all to no avail.
 

this is all written for ME.

 

Call support. Sometimes the speakers can’t handle too big a “jump” in versions, and an older Play:1 might have that issue. Others in this situation have received interim updates from Sonos that will then enable them to move up to the current version. 


I was offered a 30% discount off any Sonos product to GO AWAY. 


I’m not sure how selling or tossing out your system that you’ve already paid for sends a message to Sonos to improve things.  They’ve already got your money and by your own admission, they can’t do anything to get you to buy more. 

But you do you, OP. 

Well, they kicked out their CEO. I’m sure they’re not surprised by how people feel about their stuff at the moment. And they haven’t come across as people who want to improve things for users. Lots of courage though. Very Apple of them and no surprise, that being another company that couldn’t give a crap about what their users want.

The fact that I paid for this but they constantly provide a bad service is a very good reason to stop using it and stop any future flow of cash going their way.

Retention is what keeps them going. They’ve lost a mighty big chunk of that because of their shenanigans.

 

Sonos’ business depends largely on speaker sales. If existing users stop upgrading/expanding and stop recommending Sonos to their friends and neighbors, that a big problem for Sonos. To the extent Sonos makes money from services offered on Sonos, loss of customers results in reduced revenues there too. So asking why Sonos would care if someone leaves seems like a strange question. They care. That’s why Sonos’ support team immediately responded to OP asking for a second (third, fourth, fifth) chance to fix the problem(s). Sonos makes excellent wireless speaker systems. No question. But the App has always been its Achille’s heal. It’s never been good with UI and stability problems. Folks overlooked those issues because the speakers were very good and the convenience was exceptional and it mostly sort of worked most of the time. The problem now is that the App is causing serious problems keeping speakers connected, choosing speakers, maintaining consistent connections with content, and other core issues -- and that does not even account for the various playlist, radio, services, and other issues that continue to plague the new app. It just doesn't work well most of the time. A lot of us with extensive Sonos investments are leaving for alternatives that are more reliable so we can spend our time listening to musing instead of trouble shooting. I get that many people have just one of two speakers and use it occasionally, so they are willing to still with Sonos. For the rest of us who listen to music every day and are tired of spending several minutes to hours trouble shooting every other time we try to listen, we’re gone. Its not dead to us -- maybe things will get better and some of us will return one day -- but for now we’re done being beta testers for a team with poor UI instincts and no apparent quality control procedures.   


Sonos’ business depends largely on speaker sales. If existing users stop upgrading/expanding and stop recommending Sonos to their friends and neighbors, that a big problem for Sonos. To the extent Sonos makes money from services offered on Sonos, loss of customers results in reduced revenues there too. So asking why Sonos would care if someone leaves seems like a strange question. They care. That’s why Sonos’ support team immediately responded to OP asking for a second (third, fourth, fifth) chance to fix the problem(s). Sonos makes excellent wireless speaker systems. No question. But the App has always been its Achille’s heal. It’s never been good with UI and stability problems. Folks overlooked those issues because the speakers were very good and the convenience was exceptional and it mostly sort of worked most of the time. The problem now is that the App is causing serious problems keeping speakers connected, choosing speakers, maintaining consistent connections with content, and other core issues -- and that does not even account for the various playlist, radio, services, and other issues that continue to plague the new app. It just doesn't work well most of the time. A lot of us with extensive Sonos investments are leaving for alternatives that are more reliable so we can spend our time listening to musing instead of trouble shooting. I get that many people have just one of two speakers and use it occasionally, so they are willing to still with Sonos. For the rest of us who listen to music every day and are tired of spending several minutes to hours trouble shooting every other time we try to listen, we’re gone. Its not dead to us -- maybe things will get better and some of us will return one day -- but for now we’re done being beta testers for a team with poor UI instincts and no apparent quality control procedures.   

Well said!  Not only the loss of future revenue from current customers but:

  1. My household (and some of my family members) were anxious to purchase the Arc Ultra +Sub+2 Era 300’s for a new LG TV.  While we are able to operate our current Sonos system using the old S2, there is LITTLE chance we will invest in any new Sonos purchases OR services (which would force use to go through the HELL of setting up the still half-cooked app).
  2. Friends who were looking into expanding their current Sonos Gen 2 systems accidentally updated to S2/2 and have nothing but problems and terrible experiences with trying to get support.  So they will NEVER trust Sonos again and are likely to sell off the products on Facebook Marketplace or Offerup.
  3. An associate in Tech was also looking to add a Sonos soundbar/surround sound system for a new 77” TV in time for the SuperBowl event, until they did a little research on the Apple app store S2 recent reviews + Amazon recent reviews on Sonos gear + the Verge + Wired mag +++.  No 1st Sonos purchase for them now or probably forever.  

SONOS HAS TO CARE ABOUT THESE CUSTOMERS!  Yet not a PEEP out of Tom C. since he took over.