The Deal with Sonos: A User's Frustration and the Fallout

Hey everyone, Caleb here. So, the video that you're about to watch was recorded a little over a week ago, and since then, Sonos has deployed some more updates, steadily improving their app and restoring some of the functionality that was lost from the original release that you're about to hear about. Just wanted to put that out there before we got started. Still, everything that I say in this video was, and in some cases still is, true, so keep that in mind.

What's the deal with everyone being so pissed off at Sonos right now, and who or what is to blame? Let's talk about it. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Caleb Dennison, and if you're a Sonos user, you already know Sonos seriously botched its app up a couple of months ago when it rolled out a sweeping update that was intended to improve on Sonos' already legendary user-friendly experience while also adding support for the new Sonos Ace headphones.

Unfortunately, what happened instead is that Sonos rendered even its most basic features completely unusable, infuriating users who then flocked to forums in search of some kind of solace or reassurance. Reddit's main Sonos thread is loaded with posts like this, and I personally heard from a bunch of folks—both friends and just viewers of this channel—that they are frustrated, fed up, and everything in between.

The fallout has been significant. I mean, this debacle even prompted The Wirecutter to strip Sonos and its products of that publication's recommended status. First, here's the deal: this is unacceptable on multiple levels. Sonos' hardware itself is excellent, but it is almost entirely reliant on the Sonos app for setup and operation. If the app doesn't work, the hardware is seriously kneecapped.

There are a few exceptions—for example, if you have a Sonos soundbar and surround system already set up and configured, it'll still produce TV audio, but that's about it. Without the app, you can't stream audio—not from the Sonos app. You can't operate a multi-room audio system, reassign speakers, calibrate them, tune them—none of that. Many of those essential functions got busted, and many of them continue to be busted now, over two months later.

Fortunately, Sonos users have been able to use AirPlay, Spotify Connect, and Tidal Connect as a workaround, at least just to stream music to one of their speakers. But it's less than ideal if you've grown accustomed to working through the Sonos app or if you ever want to play to multiple Sonos speakers.

Now, to its credit, Sonos team members hopped into the public conversation pretty quickly after this started, acknowledging the problems, apologizing for them, and promising updates that would fix them. But those updates have been extremely slow to roll out and have only offered incremental fixes. The problems continue to this day, and some especially upset Sonos customers have said they will never trust Sonos again.

I think we also have to recognize that Sonos' CEO, Patrick Spence, recently made a public statement apologizing for the mess, acknowledging the frustration it has caused Sonos customers, and assuring everyone that it was priority number one at Sonos to fix this issue. But I think it's kind of interesting that it took over eight weeks for the Sonos CEO to step up to the mic and wear this problem.

The silence since May 7th has been deafening. Now, I was talking to my colleague Simon Cohen, who has been following the story as well, and he suggested the notion that perhaps the pressure to make the Sonos app ready for the huge launch of the new Sonos Ace headphones is potentially at the root of this problem. I mean, if they placed a huge importance on the launch of the Sonos Ace headphones and there was no way those headphones would work with the old version of the Sonos app, then you can kind of see Sonos saying,

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHey everyone, Caleb here. So, the video that you're about to watch was recorded a little over  a week ago, and since then, Sonos has deployed some more updates, steadily improving their app  and restoring some of the functionality that was lost from the original release that you're about  to hear about. Just wanted to put that out there before we got started. Still, everything that I  say in this video was, and in some cases still is, true, so keep that in mind. What's the deal with  everyone being so pissed off at Sonos right now, and who or what is to blame? Let's talk about it.Welcome back, everyone. I'm Caleb Dennison, and if you're a Sonos user,  you already know Sonos seriously botched its app up a couple of months ago when it rolled  out a sweeping update that was intended to improve on Sonos' already legendary  user-friendly experience while also adding support for the new Sonos Ace headphones. Unfortunately,  what happened instead is that Sonos rendered even its most basic features completely unusable,  infuriating users who then flocked to forums in search of some kind of solace or reassurance.  Reddit's main Sonos thread is loaded with posts like this, and I personally heard from a bunch of  folks—both friends and just viewers of this channel—that they are frustrated, fed up,  and everything in between. The fallout has been significant. I mean, this debacle even prompted  The Wirecutter to strip Sonos and its products of that publication's recommended status.First, here's the deal: this is unacceptable on multiple levels. Sonos' hardware itself is  excellent, but it is almost entirely reliant on the Sonos app for setup and operation. If the  app doesn't work, the hardware is seriously kneecapped. There are a few exceptions—for  example, if you have a Sonos soundbar and surround system already set up and configured,  it'll still produce TV audio, but that's about it. Without the app, you can't stream  audio—not from the Sonos app. You can't operate a multi-room audio system, reassign speakers,  calibrate them, tune them—none of that. Many of those essential functions got busted,  and many of them continue to be busted now, over two months later. Fortunately,  Sonos users have been able to use AirPlay, Spotify Connect, and Tidal Connect as a workaround,  at least just to stream music to one of their speakers. But it's less than ideal if you've grown  accustomed to working through the Sonos app or if you ever want to play to multiple Sonos speakers.Now, to its credit, Sonos team members hopped into the public conversation pretty quickly  after this started, acknowledging the problems, apologizing for them,  and promising updates that would fix them. But those updates have been extremely slow to  roll out and have only offered incremental fixes. The problems continue to this day,  and some especially upset Sonos customers have said they will never trust Sonos again.I think we also have to recognize that Sonos' CEO, Patrick Spence, recently made a public  statement apologizing for the mess, acknowledging the frustration it has caused Sonos customers,  and assuring everyone that it was priority number one at Sonos to fix this issue. But  I think it's kind of interesting that it took over eight weeks for the Sonos CEO  to step up to the mic and wear this problem. The silence since May 7th has been deafening.Now, unfortunately, we can only speculate about why Spence was silent all this time and about  what caused this mess in the first place because A) Sonos has not been forthcoming about this,  and B) I haven't yet spoken to Sonos about this, as a good journalist should—though I have reached  out as of today and will follow this video up if I get a chance to speak with them. With that said,  I can't help but wonder if even the Sonos CEO was surprised that the company couldn't remedy this  problem faster. I was talking to my colleague Simon Cohen, who has been following the story  as well, and he suggested the notion that perhaps the pressure to make the Sonos app ready for the  huge launch of the new Sonos Ace headphones is potentially at the root of this problem. I mean,  if they placed a huge importance on the launch of the Sonos Ace headphones  and there was no way those headphones would work with the old version of the Sonos app,  then you can kind of see Sonos saying, \"We got to get this app out there, come hell or high water.\"Setting all speculation aside, though, this is not something you can allow to happen to  your customers, period. Can you imagine the uproar if Apple botched its iPhones to the  point you couldn't make a phone call? I mean, granted, streaming music and watching movies  isn't as essential as making a phone call, but it's fair to point to Sonos here and say,  \"You had one job!\" Not to mention that Sonos' app is an essential part of their  brand's identity—its ease of use and capabilities are what make Sonos, Sonos.Now, to show some sympathy and understanding to Sonos here, I get that technology is prone  to unexpected bugs. Sometimes, unanticipated complications create hiccups, but the Sonos  app was so borked at launch it's impossible not to regard Sonos as borderline incompetent  here. These are the kind of issues that beta testing should have caught, and once caught,  Sonos should have fixed those issues and retested. Then the release of the new app should have been  staged—a few users at first, and only if that went well, should it have gone to the next stage. This  is not a novel approach, folks. This is how it's done across the tech industry. And hey,  I mean, maybe Sonos did proceed this way, and we're just hearing from a lot of folks because  even a small percentage of Sonos' customer base is still a massive number of people. But  even if that is true, when Sonos realized it had a catastrophic issue on its hands,  it should have immediately made a path to reverting the app back to its previous version,  giving its frustrated customers some relief. It's possible that you couldn't do that  without tabling the Sonos Ace, though, which the Sonos Ace keep coming up here.Now, if there's any good news to come of this, I think it's that Sonos will never let this  kind of thing happen again. It's unforgivable that Sonos would use unaware customers as beta  testers if that's what happened, and I think they've gotten that message loud and clear.  Perhaps the biggest bummer here, though, is that all the cool new features that Sonos meant for  its users to enjoy—those features aren't part of the conversation because of this messy rollout.  Most folks don't even know what cool new stuff their Sonos system may one day be able to do,  and if they're frustrated enough now to jump ship, they'll never get to experience them.So, Sonos now has a steep hill to climb to earn back the faith and trust of its present  and future customers, but I do know that Sonos will bounce back. I doubt that this destroys  Sonos. This is just a very major setback. I mean, don't believe me? Look at Chipotle,  right? Remember their PR nightmare a few years ago? And today, they're doing just fine, even  if they are getting skimpy on the meat. So, for those of you dealing with this Sonos frustration,  I hear you. A lot of people hear you, and a lot of people share your frustration. You're right;  this is ridiculous. For those of you considering purchasing Sonos gear,  or worse, maybe you just recently bought some Sonos gear and it's not working as expected—or  even at all—eventually, this will be solved, and I think you'll be happy with what you bought.And for anyone hoping I'll compare the Theater Quad from Sony to a Sonos system or something  like, I don't know, a new version of the—(or something that's just purely hypothetical)—well,  I hope you'll understand that I'm going to have to wait to do that until Sonos has everything back at  100%. I'm just going to have to steer clear. Let's just hope that we don't have to wait much longer.Thanks so much for watching, everyone. What do you think about my take on this? Please  leave a comment down below. Tell us about your experience with your Sonos gear. I'll  see you on the next one, and until then, here are two other videos I think you might like.More meat. I need more meat. Apologizing for the mess, acknowledging—oh my gosh, sorry.\n"