Why don't Sonos offer a repair service?

Play units are complicated pieces of kit made in china.
They will last nowhere near as long as a conventional speaker. At least they have a 2year warranty.
Sonos's first move could be to offer an additional 5yr warranty, the same as tv manufacturers.
Most warranties are outsourced to insurance companies like domestic & general.
This was not even mentioned in latest survey, so doubt they are even thinking about it........

Anybody talked to folks like squaretrade.com about a Sonos policy? They have a couple 3 year plans for misc electronics if no other option is available.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

SONOS' warranty is further backed up by the SOGA/CRA - which stipulates that legally, provided the user can prove the unit did not die because of something they did (being dropped, damaged etc.) then they have to provide a free repair or replacement for up to 6 years from the point of purchase.

Companies do get taken to court for these issues, and they do indeed lose these cases. It is not a case of whether it is a 'fair' offer: they have legal obligations to keep... the question boils down to whether or not the customer is prepared to go through with taking them to court without the *guarantee* of winning.

I did just realise I meant repair or refund* and not replacement! It's been a while since I've looked at Consumer Law legislation!

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.

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.

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.

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.