8 ms·

Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

81 points by RyeCombinator 2y ago

aredox 2y ago
Enshitification will continue until morale improves.
krrrh 2y ago
The debacle caused me to try out all the third party apps and I finally found Clic (iOS only), which is made by an indie developer and implements lots of modern stuff that the official app will probably never get around to (live activities on the Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, an actually decent watch app). It’s such a great experience and I’m enjoying and using my Sonos system more than I have in years now. This has been a great example of how a company culture can go off the rails, and management can chase dubious ideas that sound good, like cloud mediated controls or a unified react native codebase, while a single dev can make something many times better by working off more pragmatic assumptions.
ryndbfsrw 2y ago
I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason. I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should use them. I already had a soundbar that I could stream music to. I now, out of politeness, had to use these new "wireless" speakers that demanded a constant wifi connection but still required their own Very Visible power cables along with its own dedicated app which was nothing but a wrapper for music services that logged me out after every software update. I couldn't even use it as a dumb speaker and operate it as part of my main sound system so now I have a soundbar that is nicely mounted to the wall and additionally these speakers that clutter my living room. Lovely.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  I don't mind devices that have "smarts" added (e.g. wireless audio can be convenience even if I have to have a wire for power) but I despise devices which don't check the "dumb" boxes before trying to be "smart". Sonos speakers are like you say, there are even plenty of Sonos models with line in but you still need to set them up in app. Getting smart devices without that kind of functionality is like getting a TV without an HDMI input - even if you don't think you'd need it day 1 you'll likely one day regret it.
- dr_kiszonka 2y ago
  Imagine living in a big house and having the music follow you from room to room, from one floor to another, playing from high def wireless speakers that you can place anywhere you want. I think that is a pretty neat idea. I don't have a house or Sonos speakers, but I can see how some people would want that experience.
  - portn0y 2y ago
    I have that experience. Like every other experience the novelty wears off and I find myself keeping the vibe to a room because it’s distracting; lizard brain stays connected to music and I forget why I went across the house. In the end I use it so sparingly (social gatherings) owners of detached homes without shared walls, could save the money and time and just turn up the volume. That said, as always, YMMV
    - voisin 2y ago
      Is there a way to set up Sonos so the music follows you from room to room?
    - mturmon 2y ago
      100%. I have the same experience - my home runs seven Logitech (formerly Slim Devices) “squeezebox” players from a home server with a ripped collection and options for Spotify. The networked players either have their own speaker, or are connected to amp/speakers. In practice almost all of our music plays through these devices. It’s great. The only time we connect multiple players to sync up is at larger parties, like once a year. It’s just one button press to do it, so not using this capability isn’t that it’s too complex, it just turns out not to be that useful to us. The main use case for multi zone audio is handled by the A/B/A+B speaker setting on one particular amp. As you say, YMMV.
nfriedly 2y ago
I recently set up shairport-sync[0] on a pair of Raspberry Pi's w/ USB DACs and nice speakers to get multi-room audio from Apple music. It's pretty nice! It definitely was a bit of a process to set up, but well documented and much less painful than what this sounds like. I also put headless plexamp on one, which lets me play my music from Plex, although I haven't gotten around to putting it on the other one yet for multi-room audio. [0] : https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync
- mafro 2y ago
  I tried shairport some time ago, but settled on https://github.com/badaix/snapcast https://github.com/badaix/snapcast and have a really great and reliable open-source multi-room setup
tikkun 2y ago
Sonos owner; I strongly dislike it. I disliked it on the old app, too. Will get Apple homepods next.
- krrrh 2y ago
  I was going to do the same thing. I posted elsewhere on this thread how the third party app Clic for Sonos has saved me. Might be worth a try before you go through the expense of changing over.
- jitl 2y ago
  I haven’t had good experienced getting HomePods to play well from a Mac. They do alright enough from my phone or AppleTV but they’re much less reliable than 3rd party Airplay2 speakers like the Kef LS 50 Wireless II I have upstairs. I swear the next time I get an audio drop or stutter from them or an infinite beach ball trying to press play in Spotify Mac, I’m retiring them to “set timer” only duty and buying something else, maybe the desktop speakers from KEF or whatever looks good on audiosciencereview.com for desk form factor Airplay2 to my Apple TV and from the TV through to a “dumb” receiver and speakers works great, I would highly suggest that route for your main system. For me it’s the right balance between “just works” convenience and audiophile sound quality.
- 0x008 2y ago
  Apple forces you to use Apple Music though :/
  - trainspotter 2y ago
    No they don’t. I use Spotify on mine all the time.
    - kotaKat 2y ago
      The only problem is that you get a non-optimal experience because Daniel Ek has decided "fairness for me, not for thee" and refuses to implement AirPlay 2 support for years now while crying that Apple is so unfair to them.
Spivak 2y ago
What's the current best whole home audio setup that doesn't locks you into a specific brand/product line? Must work on iOS/Android/PC, sorry AirPlay. I'm okay with smart dongle-y things that don't fit the criteria so long as they could run on a set of passive speakers. Because if they turn to shit I just pitch them.
- mingus88 2y ago
  Roon perhaps
- raffraffraff 2y ago
  Ask yourself if you really need "whole home" audio. Most people assume they do, but then find that they never use that feature in several rooms. If you're likely to play the same music in two adjoining rooms (that's what I do) then regular old hifi with an extra cable run works. You could link the tape/MD record output of an main amp into one of the inputs of a secondary amp so they play the same thing. Then book a dumb-dumb Logitech Bluetooth audio receiver to the main amp. Voila, extremely simple two room audio on a shoestring. The amp for room 2 can switch inputs or be turned off.
- fragmede 2y ago
  I've got several Chromecast products, including Chromecasts in regular and ultra flavors, a Chromecast audio (discontinued), Chromecast mini speakers, and a regular Chromecast that I use with an HDMI audio splitter to hook it up to dumb speakers. I'm not going to lie, the UX is kinda terrible compared to Sonos, but it means not paying Sonos, and it's functional. Not that Google hasn't done bad things in general, but in this area Sonos is the bad actor, which is why I chose this ecosystem despite the downsides.
teruakohatu 2y ago
From the reddit post: > Alarm functionality as a highlight feature wtf, dude I can write bash scripts that handle alarm systems reliably on an IoT network, NO PROBLEM … Queue logic systems are the most basic shit I've ever seen. Are you serious? I don’t know what to make of this. While the app may be a disaster claiming alarms are nothing more than a bash script on a distributed IOT system seems odd. Networked queues with multiple clients is not as simple as the author implies either.
stephenitis 2y ago
My Sonos experience has been fine eight years now 10+ devices. That said I do dislike the new app rollout. I do feel like there has been 500ms to 2 seconds of added lag in certain actions. I can't quite place what's going on though. Not enough to be a deal breaker yet. I feel the surround sound experience has been very hit or miss but can't tell if it's Sonos or the media platform I'm watching videos on.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  The deal breaker for me has been the loss of certain features. Specifically for me, they removed most of the functionality related to local network music libraries. Originally they said the feature was totally supported but just didn't make the cut for the initial app release. I've heard that story before, including from my own PMs. Can't say I'm too surprised that the feature still isn't supported and I've yet to see any further mention of adding it back.
  - HelloMcFly 2y ago
    Being forced to unplug my speaker to get the music to stop playing was my deal breaker for the new app. That having been said, I've been a longtime Sonos customer and have loved the experience until this disaster. Unlike other commenters in this thread, my family has loved the ease of use and ability to move music between rooms and add / remove speakers. We also have our record player hooked-up with the Sonos Bridge. I don't want to run a server, and it would be an absolute nightmare to hardwire my house. I hope they get it figured out, I'm not throwing away my speakers but it'll be years before I make a new Sonos purchase (if ever).
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      If I was more invested I'd stick it out as well. I have to expect they'll figure this out, its just a bad look and will take them time to dig out of this mess. I live in a small place and only have a couple original Sonos 1's. Even then we usually only have one playing. I'm just going to sell both and get a similarly small speaker with an Aux input, it'd be just as convenient for me to plug in a phone and stream music from either Spotify or our home server.
tennisflyi 2y ago
Not sure what people have in mind with regards to the growth of a company? Get to know more people? Get to know them more closely? Less debt/overhead? More agility? Less stakeholders?
hedora 2y ago
I’m happily still using S1. Given that upper management agrees the new S2 is a company ending level screwup, I wonder why they don’t just publish an S2 classic app, spin up old backends from their disaster recovery / business continuity plan, and move on with things.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  I had heard that Sonos claimed updates made to both their servers and customers' hardware following the app update can't reasonably be rolled back and wouldn't work with the previous S2 app. Basically, they dragged their feet denying the new app issues long enough to make rolling back infeasible.
belZaah 2y ago
I know this feeling, having seen an universally loved service made by passionate excellent engineers, my people, driven to shit along with the organization. It took a long time to get to grips with it. But then I realized, that the people who did it, made a whole lot of money. I might think it morally wrong, but I also understand I might not be able to resist the temptation to do the same, if someone promised me the same piles of cash. Gotta accept the failures of the man.
floppiplopp 2y ago
"Just an honest opinion from a huge fan of Sonos speakers." Ah yes, of course, the most honest opinions come from the hugest of fans. But in all seriousness: I will make fun of every single person who will show this level (or less) of emotional attachment to any tech. It's literally "victim of product and an abusive relationship with company".
- radicality 2y ago
  I mean, the guy worked there as a hardware engineer for some years years, it would be a little bit strange if he showed zero emotional attachment to it.
oliwarner 2y ago
A million years ago when Sonos and Slimdevices/Logitech Squeezebox were both newish, I was cheap and chose Logitech on price and an open source server. Today we have their devices in 6 rooms, and open source players in 2 more. Logitech abandoned the ecosystem almost immediately after I started buying into it and I've worried what would happen but the open source community has made these things better than ever. Don't get me wrong, there have been teething issues with Spotify, breakages in service, and any new hardware is all a bit DIY, but I'm glad I chose the open solution. The community is currently rebranding everything to Lyrion and you can get started without any official hardware. https://lyrion.org/ https://lyrion.org/
- com 2y ago
  Are there new hardware options for new adopters of Lyrion?
  - oliwarner 2y ago
    It's mostly DACs and amps for Raspberry Pis. There are also some ESP32 boards that show promise. They're all mostly good enough but hardly as polished as the original Slim devices.

81 points by RyeCombinator 2y ago

Enshitification will continue until morale improves.

The debacle caused me to try out all the third party apps and I finally found Clic (iOS only), which is made by an indie developer and implements lots of modern stuff that the official app will probably never get around to (live activities on the Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, an actually decent watch app). It’s such a great experience and I’m enjoying and using my Sonos system more than I have in years now. This has been a great example of how a company culture can go off the rails, and management can chase dubious ideas that sound good, like cloud mediated controls or a unified react native codebase, while a single dev can make something many times better by working off more pragmatic assumptions.

ryndbfsrw 2y ago

I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason. I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should use them. I already had a soundbar that I could stream music to. I now, out of politeness, had to use these new "wireless" speakers that demanded a constant wifi connection but still required their own Very Visible power cables along with its own dedicated app which was nothing but a wrapper for music services that logged me out after every software update. I couldn't even use it as a dumb speaker and operate it as part of my main sound system so now I have a soundbar that is nicely mounted to the wall and additionally these speakers that clutter my living room. Lovely.

zamadatix 2y ago
I don't mind devices that have "smarts" added (e.g. wireless audio can be convenience even if I have to have a wire for power) but I despise devices which don't check the "dumb" boxes before trying to be "smart". Sonos speakers are like you say, there are even plenty of Sonos models with line in but you still need to set them up in app. Getting smart devices without that kind of functionality is like getting a TV without an HDMI input - even if you don't think you'd need it day 1 you'll likely one day regret it.
dr_kiszonka 2y ago
Imagine living in a big house and having the music follow you from room to room, from one floor to another, playing from high def wireless speakers that you can place anywhere you want. I think that is a pretty neat idea. I don't have a house or Sonos speakers, but I can see how some people would want that experience.
- portn0y 2y ago
  I have that experience. Like every other experience the novelty wears off and I find myself keeping the vibe to a room because it’s distracting; lizard brain stays connected to music and I forget why I went across the house. In the end I use it so sparingly (social gatherings) owners of detached homes without shared walls, could save the money and time and just turn up the volume. That said, as always, YMMV
  - voisin 2y ago
    Is there a way to set up Sonos so the music follows you from room to room?
  - mturmon 2y ago
    100%. I have the same experience - my home runs seven Logitech (formerly Slim Devices) “squeezebox” players from a home server with a ripped collection and options for Spotify. The networked players either have their own speaker, or are connected to amp/speakers. In practice almost all of our music plays through these devices. It’s great. The only time we connect multiple players to sync up is at larger parties, like once a year. It’s just one button press to do it, so not using this capability isn’t that it’s too complex, it just turns out not to be that useful to us. The main use case for multi zone audio is handled by the A/B/A+B speaker setting on one particular amp. As you say, YMMV.

nfriedly 2y ago

I recently set up shairport-sync[0] on a pair of Raspberry Pi's w/ USB DACs and nice speakers to get multi-room audio from Apple music. It's pretty nice! It definitely was a bit of a process to set up, but well documented and much less painful than what this sounds like. I also put headless plexamp on one, which lets me play my music from Plex, although I haven't gotten around to putting it on the other one yet for multi-room audio. [0] : https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync

mafro 2y ago
I tried shairport some time ago, but settled on https://github.com/badaix/snapcast https://github.com/badaix/snapcast and have a really great and reliable open-source multi-room setup

tikkun 2y ago

Sonos owner; I strongly dislike it. I disliked it on the old app, too. Will get Apple homepods next.

krrrh 2y ago
I was going to do the same thing. I posted elsewhere on this thread how the third party app Clic for Sonos has saved me. Might be worth a try before you go through the expense of changing over.
jitl 2y ago
I haven’t had good experienced getting HomePods to play well from a Mac. They do alright enough from my phone or AppleTV but they’re much less reliable than 3rd party Airplay2 speakers like the Kef LS 50 Wireless II I have upstairs. I swear the next time I get an audio drop or stutter from them or an infinite beach ball trying to press play in Spotify Mac, I’m retiring them to “set timer” only duty and buying something else, maybe the desktop speakers from KEF or whatever looks good on audiosciencereview.com for desk form factor Airplay2 to my Apple TV and from the TV through to a “dumb” receiver and speakers works great, I would highly suggest that route for your main system. For me it’s the right balance between “just works” convenience and audiophile sound quality.
0x008 2y ago
Apple forces you to use Apple Music though :/
- trainspotter 2y ago
  No they don’t. I use Spotify on mine all the time.
  - kotaKat 2y ago
    The only problem is that you get a non-optimal experience because Daniel Ek has decided "fairness for me, not for thee" and refuses to implement AirPlay 2 support for years now while crying that Apple is so unfair to them.

Spivak 2y ago

What's the current best whole home audio setup that doesn't locks you into a specific brand/product line? Must work on iOS/Android/PC, sorry AirPlay. I'm okay with smart dongle-y things that don't fit the criteria so long as they could run on a set of passive speakers. Because if they turn to shit I just pitch them.

mingus88 2y ago
Roon perhaps
raffraffraff 2y ago
Ask yourself if you really need "whole home" audio. Most people assume they do, but then find that they never use that feature in several rooms. If you're likely to play the same music in two adjoining rooms (that's what I do) then regular old hifi with an extra cable run works. You could link the tape/MD record output of an main amp into one of the inputs of a secondary amp so they play the same thing. Then book a dumb-dumb Logitech Bluetooth audio receiver to the main amp. Voila, extremely simple two room audio on a shoestring. The amp for room 2 can switch inputs or be turned off.
fragmede 2y ago
I've got several Chromecast products, including Chromecasts in regular and ultra flavors, a Chromecast audio (discontinued), Chromecast mini speakers, and a regular Chromecast that I use with an HDMI audio splitter to hook it up to dumb speakers. I'm not going to lie, the UX is kinda terrible compared to Sonos, but it means not paying Sonos, and it's functional. Not that Google hasn't done bad things in general, but in this area Sonos is the bad actor, which is why I chose this ecosystem despite the downsides.

teruakohatu 2y ago

From the reddit post: > Alarm functionality as a highlight feature wtf, dude I can write bash scripts that handle alarm systems reliably on an IoT network, NO PROBLEM … Queue logic systems are the most basic shit I've ever seen. Are you serious? I don’t know what to make of this. While the app may be a disaster claiming alarms are nothing more than a bash script on a distributed IOT system seems odd. Networked queues with multiple clients is not as simple as the author implies either.

stephenitis 2y ago

My Sonos experience has been fine eight years now 10+ devices. That said I do dislike the new app rollout. I do feel like there has been 500ms to 2 seconds of added lag in certain actions. I can't quite place what's going on though. Not enough to be a deal breaker yet. I feel the surround sound experience has been very hit or miss but can't tell if it's Sonos or the media platform I'm watching videos on.

_heimdall 2y ago
The deal breaker for me has been the loss of certain features. Specifically for me, they removed most of the functionality related to local network music libraries. Originally they said the feature was totally supported but just didn't make the cut for the initial app release. I've heard that story before, including from my own PMs. Can't say I'm too surprised that the feature still isn't supported and I've yet to see any further mention of adding it back.
- HelloMcFly 2y ago
  Being forced to unplug my speaker to get the music to stop playing was my deal breaker for the new app. That having been said, I've been a longtime Sonos customer and have loved the experience until this disaster. Unlike other commenters in this thread, my family has loved the ease of use and ability to move music between rooms and add / remove speakers. We also have our record player hooked-up with the Sonos Bridge. I don't want to run a server, and it would be an absolute nightmare to hardwire my house. I hope they get it figured out, I'm not throwing away my speakers but it'll be years before I make a new Sonos purchase (if ever).
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    If I was more invested I'd stick it out as well. I have to expect they'll figure this out, its just a bad look and will take them time to dig out of this mess. I live in a small place and only have a couple original Sonos 1's. Even then we usually only have one playing. I'm just going to sell both and get a similarly small speaker with an Aux input, it'd be just as convenient for me to plug in a phone and stream music from either Spotify or our home server.

tennisflyi 2y ago

Not sure what people have in mind with regards to the growth of a company? Get to know more people? Get to know them more closely? Less debt/overhead? More agility? Less stakeholders?

hedora 2y ago

I’m happily still using S1. Given that upper management agrees the new S2 is a company ending level screwup, I wonder why they don’t just publish an S2 classic app, spin up old backends from their disaster recovery / business continuity plan, and move on with things.

_heimdall 2y ago
I had heard that Sonos claimed updates made to both their servers and customers' hardware following the app update can't reasonably be rolled back and wouldn't work with the previous S2 app. Basically, they dragged their feet denying the new app issues long enough to make rolling back infeasible.

belZaah 2y ago

I know this feeling, having seen an universally loved service made by passionate excellent engineers, my people, driven to shit along with the organization. It took a long time to get to grips with it. But then I realized, that the people who did it, made a whole lot of money. I might think it morally wrong, but I also understand I might not be able to resist the temptation to do the same, if someone promised me the same piles of cash. Gotta accept the failures of the man.

floppiplopp 2y ago

"Just an honest opinion from a huge fan of Sonos speakers." Ah yes, of course, the most honest opinions come from the hugest of fans. But in all seriousness: I will make fun of every single person who will show this level (or less) of emotional attachment to any tech. It's literally "victim of product and an abusive relationship with company".

radicality 2y ago
I mean, the guy worked there as a hardware engineer for some years years, it would be a little bit strange if he showed zero emotional attachment to it.

oliwarner 2y ago

A million years ago when Sonos and Slimdevices/Logitech Squeezebox were both newish, I was cheap and chose Logitech on price and an open source server. Today we have their devices in 6 rooms, and open source players in 2 more. Logitech abandoned the ecosystem almost immediately after I started buying into it and I've worried what would happen but the open source community has made these things better than ever. Don't get me wrong, there have been teething issues with Spotify, breakages in service, and any new hardware is all a bit DIY, but I'm glad I chose the open solution. The community is currently rebranding everything to Lyrion and you can get started without any official hardware. https://lyrion.org/ https://lyrion.org/

com 2y ago
Are there new hardware options for new adopters of Lyrion?
- oliwarner 2y ago
  It's mostly DACs and amps for Raspberry Pis. There are also some ESP32 boards that show promise. They're all mostly good enough but hardly as polished as the original Slim devices.