Why don't Sonos offer a repair service?


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Sonos are no longer a young start up, that has not had time to think about repair. Sonos, like all electronic products, occasionally one goes wrong. Your products are expensive to buy, and you could set up a repair workshop and repair them (or even contract it out). I'm sure this could be a revenue centre not a cost centre.

I am a long time user with a reasonable investment in Sonos (seven units) - or six working units and a faulty one!

I used be proud of my Sonos system, and promote the Sonos products amongst my friends, but this looks like you don't care about your users. If users don't feel valued, they stop caring about the company.

How many other users have faulty units at home?

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94 replies

This is hysterical because I have a 2.5 yr old sonos 5 that stopped working and I was basically told tough luck and buy a new one for $350 US...an expensive speaker is now useless and clearly they don’t care. Don’t know how anyone can defend them. Speakers sound great when working but as soon as it doesn’t they don’t care one bit. Really upset I bought a couple more speaker from them over the last year. Save yourself time and purchase Bose or other brands.
Userlevel 4
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Personally, I had a great experience with Sonos warranty / repair service.

I bought a used Connect Amp that showed up DOA from the seller. I emailed Sonos, told them the truth about the situation and asked about the cost to repair it. I wasn’t expecting much, but they offered to take it back and send me one that worked, for a very reasonable price. I forget exactly what they charged but it was a bargain. Remember this was used, broken, out of warranty and from a third party seller.

The kicker was they sent me the new one as soon as they had a tracking number for the old one. I got it like the next day. I don’t know if this is their SOP but it worked out great for me and I’m sure they made a couple bucks in the transaction as well.

Sonos was one of the best customer service experiences I’ve had. Just FYI, Fossil watches have great customer service too. Panasonic does not. Even actual warranty service costs too much with Panasonic.
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I had a play 5 gen 1 unit fail after 3 years. It was paired with another Play5 gen 1, which is useless as a stereo set-up since can't offer you a unit t any price. this is $1000.00 worth of equipment 3 years old now worthless. Even pc's can be repaired, not this. Sonos's attitude is who cares.:@
My sonos 5 broke when it was 2 days out of warranty. The best they can apparently offer is a £129 repair. Very frustrating and I feel I’ve been treated very unfairly, especially as it actually broke earlier, just that I didn’t know the exact dates so didn’t phone customer services on time.
My advice: don’t buy any sonos products. They’re expensive, not built to last, and poor customer service.
I own seven units. One day the wireless component on the play 5 stopped working. I called in, and ten minutes and a diagnostic later, they said they’d ship me a working unit within a week. At first, I was a little upset. I care for my units and frankly, love them. I didn’t want to see my beautiful unit end up in a garage in China. However, after thinking a few minutes, it’s a pretty awesome solution and I will get and working unit immediately. Either way I’d be waiting for a repair, so the end result is the same. I only wish they would extend this into a longer warranty, I promise they would get a bulk of the industry if they did. My father just got his 1975 Bose 901’s out of storage and it was cool to hook them up with him after all these years later in 2018. I hope I can do the same with my Sonos speakers and my son one day down the line. I’m still a happy Sonos customer and probably more so after my experience. I couldn’t imagine Bose replacing anything on my Dad’s speakers, or any other major electronics manufacturer for that matter. Well done Sonos.
Userlevel 1
I'm not sure I see the problem here. When out of warranty, Sonos most often offers a refurbished unit at a significantly reduced price in lieu of repairing. It then takes the returned unit and sends it out for refurbishing. Not exactly sure how keeping the customer's unit for repair, during which time the customer is without use of the unit, would be more beneficial than immediately issuing a replacement. I personally would be far more satisfied to receive a like-new unit at a reduced price than paying a significant repair bill and being without the unit for the time it takes to repair.

Sure - what's the problem here! I tell you what the problem is: greed or total customer disregard - pick your motif.
I was just offered a replacement for my broken sonos 5 - kaputt after just 2.5y (after firmware upgrade!!) and was offered a totally gracious £349 replacement fee. What a rip-off (I paid 350 on Amazon for the new device). Even Apple charges less for repair of devices twice the cost (e.g. Apple charges £120 for screen replacement for an £800 phone).
Based on that experience I cannot recommend Sonos to anyone, having been a loyal customer I now wait for the other four Sonos to break and move on to other brands. Bye-bye Sonos.
Userlevel 2
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If you're in the UK/EU, under consumer law (Sales Of Goods Act) you have a legal right to expect the item to work for 6 YEARS from the date of purchase: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2006/mar/25/consumernews.howtocomplain. The hard part is that after 6 months it is up to YOU to prove it stopped working because of a hardware failure and not your own.

Try mentioning that to them and if they decline to offer a replacement for free, you can take them to court. It's a rule that manufacturers pretend they don't know about, and consumers usually don't know about...
Sonos are no longer a young start up, that has not had time to think about repair. Sonos, like all electronic products, occasionally one goes wrong. Your products are expensive to buy, and you could set up a repair workshop and repair them (or even contract it out). I'm sure this could be a revenue centre not a cost centre.

I am a long time user with a reasonable investment in Sonos (seven units) - or six working units and a faulty one!

I used be proud of my Sonos system, and promote the Sonos products amongst my friends, but this looks like you don't care about your users. If users don't feel valued, they stop caring about the company.

How many other users have faulty units at home?


Agreed. I basically have a super expensive paperweight on my hands now. 2.5 years. Thats all my unit lasted me. Its not like i used it daily. Im extremely disappointed in the quality of Sonos products. I see this happening all over the forum. How many people has this happened to that haven't stumble on the forums yet.
Userlevel 2
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My sonos 5 broke when it was 2 days out of warranty. The best they can apparently offer is a £129 repair. Very frustrating and I feel I’ve been treated very unfairly, especially as it actually broke earlier, just that I didn’t know the exact dates so didn’t phone customer services on time.
My advice: don’t buy any sonos products. They’re expensive, not built to last, and poor customer service.


Again, see my post about the Sales of Goods / Consumer Rights Act - do not be fobbed off by them, they are legally obliged to comply with the law whether they want to or not. If they refuse to comply, report them to Trading Standards etc.

After 6 months from purchase *you* have to be the one who proves the unit had broken through no fault of your own, but provided you can do that, they have to provide a repair or replacement for free.

It's also worth taking screenshots and making notes of links to any posts where others are saying the same thing about both their product and their resulting customer service as evidence - should you need to take them to court.
Userlevel 7
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My sonos 5 broke when it was 2 days out of warranty. The best they can apparently offer is a £129 repair. Very frustrating and I feel I’ve been treated very unfairly, especially as it actually broke earlier, just that I didn’t know the exact dates so didn’t phone customer services on time.
My advice: don’t buy any sonos products. They’re expensive, not built to last, and poor customer service.


Again, see my post about the Sales of Goods / Consumer Rights Act - do not be fobbed off by them, they are legally obliged to comply with the law whether they want to or not. If they refuse to comply, report them to Trading Standards etc.

After 6 months from purchase *you* have to be the one who proves the unit had broken through no fault of your own, but provided you can do that, they have to provide a repair or replacement for free.

It's also worth taking screenshots and making notes of links to any posts where others are saying the same thing about both their product and their resulting customer service as evidence - should you need to take them to court.


Assuming Hgc123 is in the UK (which is fair enough as the price quoted is in pounds) then Sonos are obliged to offer a 2 year warranty. They have offered a replacement unit for £129 which is a significant discount on a new unit.

I sympathise with Hgc123's frustration but Sonos' offer is above and beyond and no court in England is going to accept it isn't a fair and reasonable offer.
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Well Sonos have declared to the world in the YouTube video for the making of the new play 5 they expect it to last ten years. That’s an implied warranty in Australia. I’ve downloaded the video so they can’t remove it and get away from it.
Userlevel 2
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Well Sonos have declared to the world in the YouTube video for the making of the new play 5 they expect it to last ten years. That’s an implied warranty in Australia. I’ve downloaded the video so they can’t remove it and get away from it.

I had to speak to SONOS' legal department, but they have now replaced the speaker free of charge. In the UK they are required by law to repair goods for free provided you can prove no damage has occurred as a result of your own actions.

They very kindly replaced my Gen1 with a Gen2 (taking the old unit back), which is far more than I expected and I am very pleased with. I said I was more than happy to pay for a repair but as they don't offer them... They should offer repairs, but if they don't you are also entitled to a refund.

Ultimately you have to be prepared to take them to court if you're really going to stick to your guns, but obviously there is no guarantee to win. The best you can do is collect as much evidence as you can showing that there is a history of problems with your units (you can find reviews and complaints all over the boards and by Googling) and take screenshots and links. You can then do the same with evidence supporting that they're failing to meet their commitments in regards to repair services (which again are easy to find). Give all the evidence over to their legal team to decide what to do as a fair opportunity and you may find you get a response.

Obviously all of this is only going to be relevant to those in the UK, although the EU have very similar laws so it's worth checking.

I'm very pleased with the outcome (I certainly wasn't expecting anything more than them to take my old unit and have a look to see what was wrong), but I am really annoyed that I had to go via their legal department to do it.
Userlevel 1
My Connect Amp has also "just stopped working" and now that I think of it, it was after a firmware upgrade. like its bricked or something. I purchased it in summer 2015 used it to power outdoor patio speakers. unit is inside a cool clean and dry basement away from any heat/sun. used only during warm months so unit is plugged in for maybe 3 months a year after that I unplug it because theirs no reason to have this thing powered up. Now it wont boot up and only flashed the white light. $500 unit is a paperweight. SONOS reply buy a new one for a reduced rate of $350.......YEAH that's what I want to do after spending $500 for a unit used for a total of like 5 months of random use. I will NEVER buy SONOS or recommend them again for their lack of customer service AND all you defenders of sonos......your day like ours IS in your future and lets hear the tune you play then LOL.

We should consider legal action - I contacted their CEO but, as expected, did neither hear back from him nor from the support team when complaining about this attitude and the apparent rip-off. I think Samsung has a class action lawsuit pending for bricking devices, including damage of property. I'll certainly exhaust all means I have to tell people about this so they know before they purchase.
Userlevel 1
A fuss about nothing??!! Its $500! If thats nothing to you then I guess your one of those people that just pile expensive electronics on the curb because it don't march your decor any more. This thing stopped working after I was made to accept the latest firmware update and I should just accept that? Maybe you...but not me
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for informational perpose
If you Live in the UK sevenoaks sound and vision and richersounds offer an 6 year warranty on all sonos products. i got mine from sevenoaks sound and vision
Userlevel 1
Today I was contacted back by SONOS support and they explained the £350 charge was due to the fact that they would replace my broken 1st gen Player 5 with the latest generation (which currently sells for twice what I had originally paid). I argued back that I was not particular interested in the new Player 5 and would rather accept a Player 3 if that would allow them to waive the fee.
I also stated how many Sonos devices i own and that i had considered myself a loyal customer up to this point (including recommending SONOS to a number of friends which resulted in purchases).
They offered me in the end a replacement under warranty. So I am a happy camper. Though I still find SONOS' approach and fee structure questionable and would urge them to reconsider their practices. Charging reasonable fees would safe them the hassle of arguing with disgruntled customers and is possibly not more expensive than waiving unreasonably high fees ever so often. I do like that they offer sending the new unit first, so one can reuse the packaging for the return.
Userlevel 7
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Today I was contacted back by SONOS support and they explained the £350 charge was due to the fact that they would replace my broken 1st gen Player 5 with the latest generation (which currently sells for twice what I had originally paid). I argued back that I was not particular interested in the new Player 5 and would rather accept a Player 3 if that would allow them to waive the fee.
I also stated how many Sonos devices i own and that i had considered myself a loyal customer up to this point (including recommending SONOS to a number of friends which resulted in purchases).
They offered me in the end a replacement under warranty. So I am a happy camper. Though I still find SONOS' approach and fee structure questionable and would urge them to reconsider their practices. Charging reasonable fees would safe them the hassle of arguing with disgruntled customers and is possibly not more expensive than waiving unreasonably high fees ever so often. I do like that they offer sending the new unit first, so one can reuse the packaging for the return.

I am by no means a "Sonos fan-boy" but being offered an upgrade from 1st gen to 2nd gen for half price does not seem too shabby to me. Sonos then went on to offer a warranty replacement, ok it took a bit of pushing, but that also seems like good customer service to me.

Looks like Sonos have not forgotten all of their old customer service ethos, even if recently have done much to ruin their great reputation in this area.
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.... They are just a little bit better at hiding it than the guy who comes right out and mentions the CR100 (See above). Best to just ignore it.
I cannot find the post with CR100 mentioned anywhere, am I just bad at finding it or has the post been "moderated"? 😳
I have found my experience with Sonos customer support was well mannered. Like many of you, I have found one of my Sonos (Play 5 gen 1) simply didn't power up and Sonos had kindly offered a discount at £359 for a Play 5 gen 2. Although I've been offered a better product, but I rather repair than get a newer speaker-more environmentally friendly and also why spend more money?

However I do find it slightly hard to understand Sonos doesn't offer any repair services. I grew up with Bang and Olufsen in New Zealand, even they provide repair services at the bottom of the world in the 90s! Sonos is a GLOBAL company now, not a small start up. They can at least provide repair services in major cities or town. IMHO there are no excuses that their equipment is this "complicated" to repair. I collect watches, Rolex and Patek will not say to you, I will give you a discount to buy a new one because your watch no longer functions, they fix it (or even send it back to Geneva) and I am sure is more complicated than Sonos when we are talking perpetual calendar or minute repeater functions.
I’m so frustrated with Sonos. As many of you, I’m heavily invested in hardware and to replace the whole thing would be such a waste. I mistakenly purchased THREE Play 5 Gen 1 units when they came out (along with others). The last 18 months, two went and only one was under warranty through the third party vendor (store) that I bought it from. Now the third one has gone and I’m disappointed that with all the complaints and known issues with the Gen 1, Sonos isn’t taking care of its early adopters. I don’t want to spend another £350 / $500 on another unguaranteed product - I just want to fix mine! My father continues to laugh at me because his speakers are over 25 years old and he’s never had a problem with them.

Get it together Sonos! Your Gen I customers are the reason you’re successful now...


They are not being honest about the lack of a repair process, most products can be repaired and its just weird that they think this is acceptable.

Essentially, everything they make is there to be replaced after a few years. If you look at the Sonos Bridge it has tiny holes underneath for ventilation, this is bound to fail as it will overheat as did mine.

NO POINT COMPLAINING> they know what they are doing
I'm not sure I see the problem here. When out of warranty, Sonos most often offers a refurbished unit at a significantly reduced price in lieu of repairing. It then takes the returned unit and sends it out for refurbishing. Not exactly sure how keeping the customer's unit for repair, during which time the customer is without use of the unit, would be more beneficial than immediately issuing a replacement. I personally would be far more satisfied to receive a like-new unit at a reduced price than paying a significant repair bill and being without the unit for the time it takes to repair.
Userlevel 5
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Sonos are no longer a young start up, that has not had time to think about repair. Sonos, like all electronic products, occasionally one goes wrong. Your products are expensive to buy, and you could set up a repair workshop and repair them (or even contract it out). I'm sure this could be a revenue centre not a cost centre.

I used be proud of my Sonos system, and promote the Sonos products amongst my friends, but this looks like you don't care about your users. If users don't feel valued, they stop caring about the company.

Most modern electronics, due to complexity, cost of manufacturing, shipping, and a whole host of issues are more expensive to repair than simply produce. It doesn't have anything to do with the size of the company or something like that. It's just too dang expensive to keep skilled labor around to repair things. Items are refurbished to try and recoup some lost money, but it's certainly not for significant profit.

You can misinterpret that result as Sonos being unfair or something equally bizarre, but it's the way of the world.

You can misinterpret that result as Sonos being unfair or something equally bizarre, but it's the way of the world.

It is a consequence of make in "China" and a price to pay for a lower upfront price. Which isn't to say that this is good consequence, responsible for landfills larger than they need to be and other environmental damage to the commons.
Support have clarified. Sonos will NOT offer any replacement service for any unit that does not have an out of warranty manufacturing defect. I stand by my 'Sonos is promoting landfill" statement. I have no replacement option from the company I purchased the product from.

If someone can give a link/pointer to a replacement mesh material, then I may take a stab at self repair.


No, the units do not go in a landfill, they are refurbished and used to replace those units that do have a defect as decided on a case by case basis. So as I stated, your landfill remark is rubbish. Pun intended.
I and many before me have not been offered a refurbished item to purchase as a swap. Ask Sonos for yourself and you'll soon see that if you've damaged your unit, you are at a dead end. Unless you're willing to have a damaged unit on display, then there is no route forward.

Which part of this do you not understand?