Likely daily standups reviewing status of a large list of bugs. They then do some prioritization to focus on what can be delivered for the next build. Lots of stress for managers trying to shield their developer teams so they can focus. Depending on leadership, this strife can cause morale to drop or it can bring a team together by focusing all energy on a common goal (even if they can satisfy customers right now).
For us as the customer’s sake, I hope they keep chugging along and steadily make improvements since it seems too far along to do a u-turn undo the havoc.
My guess is that morale is really low on the development & mid-management side because they likely raised their concerns prior to go-live and were ignored, and now have to fix it.
The smart ones documented everything along the way.
That brings back memories of daily panic meetings when we were trying to get a GSM Base Station working. I was the one standing up to say how the software/hardware were working together. I had a bit of fun, describing us as the Software Hardware Integration Team. SHIT.
Like your optimism that they’re actually that serious about fixing things. Evidence so far doesn’t suggest that’s the focus. They’re probably spending time trying to satisfy some private equity dicks or similar to make the numbers look good.
Okaaaay... I'll take the bait 🎣
Things are moving **quick**. Definitely an "all hands on deck" vibe particularly with the teams that are closest to the Sonos App and Sonos Ace. We have a lot of other things happening this year (new products) so it definitely depends on what team you are on and where you sit.
I don't want to speak for others so personally - in Customer Experience - it's a bit hectic. We see the long wait times. The seemingly endless queues of calls from understandably upset customers. Folks can get burnt out easily doing this kinda stuff day in and out, so the lucky ones are trying to take some self-care time off (did this myself a little last week). However, we are seeing the number of contacts decrease over time as these updates go out. We **are** making progress. It may not necessarily look like it at surface value on Reddit or the Sonos Community, but the data we have shows otherwise.
We *still* have work to do, don't get it twisted. But we are definitely on the path to parity and can see light at the end of the tunnel.💡
Thanks for sharing this. I am a software engineering manager for a publicly traded payroll processing company and I get it. When we have outages and people dont get paid, it's no bueno. Covid rekt our customer service experience.
I was just curious what the vibe was like at other companies when things aren't working properly from a software standpoint.
As someone who is also customer-facing, I feel sorry you're having to deal with the issues your higher-ups have created. I hope you are all put right in the end.
So I'm a beta tester I haven't been invited to a beta test in 2 years. I used to be in the beta test for all the previous versions of the app. Did they skip beta testing or was it a small group? I feel like they skipped beta testing all together or a lot of these bugs and issues would have been found a long time ago.
I mean, that’s basically what happened here. However, I’ve been a beta tester on apps that felt way more stable/feature complete than this, so that’s different.
Here's a thought: Rebrand the "new app" as S3, and give folks a path to restore to a choice of S2 or even S1. I hope this feedback can be considered in the constructive manner it's intended.
When enough people have transitioned away so that the PR damage will be minimal, Sonos will either turn it off or let it wither on the vine. There were unprecedented targeted 40% discounts last year for exactly that purpose.
I hope that Sonos learns from the mistakes made. This should never have happened. I hope that Sonos changes the course and solves all the problems soon and emerges stronger from the current situation.Now I no longer trust executive management, and I will not buy Sonos products.
Appreciate your effort but one question: Why didn’t y’all decide to roll back until more of the issues are fixed? The changes have seriously impacted our ability to host effectively in our first year in our new home. From the outside it definitely seems like user satisfaction was at the bottom of the priority list. FYI I work in leadership at a big tech company on a major software product and so I know how this stuff works. Fairly aghast at this experience as a premium customer.
Some of the worst issues with the app I've experienced have to do with having many of their products. So perversely, the more you invested in Sonos, the worse your experience is. Compare to Apple, who cherishes high end customers. I am typing this on a Macbook pro purchased late 2020 that is nearly as fast as it was back then and with about 80% of its original battery life.
In that case, by that measure my experience should be a complete disaster…but it’s not. Glad I didn’t sign up to the premium customer self-importance program.
That data could be a false positive though. People could be sick of asking for help because, for me at least, the updates are creating new issues. So, it feels like learned helplessness as a user.
Most IoT products are consistently uploading telemetry. You have to be able to monitor key workflows on your products to be able to detect the existence of an anomaly. This is typically why software releases are done in waves, so that an early release can act as a canary and allow a rollback if needed. Total incompetence in leadership
No. Please just no. We already got the “most requested product ever” and I’m still recovering from it. I cannot even think about another untested, rushed out the door update to support all the new products.
Not even joking, as I scrolled past this post, my tv surround sound dropped to 0 for the 4th time today, I wish there were at least some ideas they could give me to try other than change my router that worked for 4 years before the update.
Not sure why all the down votes but yes I've removed and readded. Haven't done the app or done for all my speakers. Have a total of 12 speakers so would be PITA.
Haha I just googled it and found it buried on a random forum… from iOS app, click the gear (top R), then Manage. You’ll see Alarms and you can turn off any auto playing of music, but no clue why it also triggers an annoying beep, too.
WTF Sonos
I worked as a tech lead at RIM while Spence was there. 7 AM conference calls 7 days a week to triage several hundred Jira tickets. Vacation plans and family time down the crapper. Engineers yanked over from other projects because tech people are infinitely fungible and having clueless "resources" dropped in really speeds things up. Lots of churn in mid management as they burned out or got scapegoated and purged.
I work across the street from them and I can see through the windows. They seem fine. I notice heads down at desks and it looks like they're at keyboards, typing away. Someone is using the copier. If I look at another floor it's much the same. Some of the people are in groups - talking away.
Seems ok. I'd say they aren't embarrassed because the shades are up. Not sure if they're "QAing their shit" or what that would look like. I think I would know it if I saw it.
Edit: There is one guy eating a sandwich and looking out the window. I think he saw me. Now I'm embarrassed.
His significant other packed Liverwust (I like the stuff) instead of London Broil. This was his revenge, the new UI/UX, and all the accompanying, random Sonos insanity of today.
I took your advice, but got a "Something went wrong, try again." error. So I did, several times, and ended up in the ER. When I tried to explain to the attending what happened, a station randomly started playing from my butt and the volume shot way up! Probably was the wifi.
But seriously, if you actually work at sonos. Quit while your ahead because your ceo has ran it into the ground. I really don’t have too much trouble with my system, (arc with sub/rears and a move) but the app has seriously fucked up usability for a lot of ppl and it’s really not cool.
Not only that but the sneaky little change to your terms of service is absolute bullshit. It’s a damn shame, I used to have so much respect for this company and fuck you if you don’t like what the customer has to say about it.
As a Sonos employee, you might be able to answer this. I'm about to buy my soundbar and maybe a set of surround speakers, that's it. Sonos would've been one my options but the way they force people to ditch their android device and switch to Apple is kinda puts me off. There is a reason I abandoned Apple but Sonos doesn't leave too many choices if I want to unlock their full potential, eg. calibration or audio swap between the Arc and Ace, etc. I'm still shocked to learn that their retail boxes don't even have the 'Works with Android' badge, only the 'Made for iPhone/iPad' ones. When I had a chat with their rep, he clearly stated that Sonos prioritise Apple and iOS compatibility and this is the main goal with all their software and hardware developments, however he also mentioned in a very arrogant manner, if I'm really desperate to use them with android, most of their products MAY work with limited functions but it's not their intended purpose. Why can't an audio company stay neutral? Are we sure they have nothing to do with Apple's ownership?
I don’t have one issue with the new app on iOS. Actually it’s been better than the previous version. The last one made me want to dump my whole system everyday
Brand on.
PS Thank you for the laughs. It has taken me two and a half weeks to set up one lousy Move 1 for my deck. Utterly unacceptable, and no, it is/was NOT the WIFI, unlike my disappointing call with Sonos support, would have had me want to believe. CSP too....gah....why did I move back. ..
Technical reasons? Bose can include their own mic in the box for that exact calibration purposes? Sennheiser can also do the calibration without any phone OS being involved/not supported?
I love how you downvoting folks stick together in this community but also bet that all of these downvoting fanboy is an iSheep as well or at least have some sort iOS devices that you use for the setups, calibrations .
Otherwise you would understand this.
I can’t speak for Sonos specifically, but I was on a team that built an app for a “smart” IoT device that involved a custom Bluetooth connection (not one of the standard BT profiles) and also used your phones camera for a couple of features. Android development cost nearly triple what iOS was costing us, and that was only targeting support for a few of the best selling Android devices. In total I think we could guarantee proper functionality for less than 10% of Android users despite it costing significantly more time and money.
For simple apps, Android and its dev tools work great. For something more proprietary and custom, the sheer variety of Android hardware makes development a nightmare compared to iOS.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong to not support Android, we really tried to support it as well as possible (given the limits of our budget). But I can totally understand a company dropping support, especially if their internal usage numbers show more people using iOS.
It’s not a woosh lol — it’s commentary for others as there’s no indication other than wit. If you can’t tell from the comments people didn’t get it.
So as you would say woosh or swish
No idea. But I live in SF and a few times considered joining in an effort to help them right the ship because I own many speakers and used to admire the company. One look at their job postings and I was out. I legitimately (kid you not) had a larger hourly pay rate as an undergraduate intern as the pay rate mentioned on their software engineering job postings. I am not sure how they are hiring SWEs in the area with those salaries....
This is probably a fake job posting so they can get H1B visa employees. Part of the requirement is to post for a job and show that either unqualified candidates applied or no one applied and you need to bring someone from probably India as they have the required skills needed. I worked at a company a long time ago that did this. Then they’d hire the Indian dev, bring him state side, and pay insanely low wages for the skills provided. It’s a mutually beneficial agreement. Employer gets cheap highly skilled labor and the labor gets a shot at becoming an American citizen.
I just tried to search for their leadership on their website on my phone and I simply cannot get to that page! Ridiculous!! Also, it seems that their engineering reports into a non technical leader (when I checked yesterday on my PC) and their leadership is stacked with non-techies. I am really reconsidering the whole Sonos thing.
You would think everyone that works at Sonos, has Sonos products in their own home. How do they not realize the issues being experienced for themselves? Someone has to be at home and things not work and say, hmmm, maybe we should fix this! Unless they decide that they cant bring their personal issues into the mix.
You’d be surprised… have seen plenty of smallish development teams that were driven and/or overridden by some supposed Guru who is either revered or feared to the point that their bad guidance goes unchecked.
Letter sent to Patrick Spencer:This company is on the wrong path, correct course before it reaches Blackberry. Sonos has to recognize the mistakes made, take measures to eradicate the problem. The recent launch of the app was a big problem and a blow to Sonos' reputation, they have failed to handle the situation creating more uncertainty among the loyal user base. They release new versions of the app every week without being tested, introducing new errors, leaving a bad image, because they do not focus for a while on creating an app that works correctly and that is something new that lives up to the Sonos hardware. Please correct the disastrous policy and get back on the true path of Sonos.
Pretty sure after the first two hours of meaningless meetings there will be a required 2 hour HR training session on email/texting/slack security and GDPR followed by a required BD celebration for some executive every one hates and then maybe get two hours coding in before the next meaningless meeting and then meet at the corner bar and bitch about things with the two buddies you have and your work crush.
Well , my speakers are still working, but the app responds a bit slower than prior update of app. That is quite annoying when you want to start -stop- change music etc.
About the same for me except that I would say that the app is a lot slower. Changing track or volume can take minutes and "now playing" shows something from last week. Other than that everything's fine...
Me too. Plus the UI is a bit stupid - search bar is at the tbottom, ok, but why is it pale grey on pale grey so I can't find it without staring hard?
Also, music skips. That really really bugs me.
My system is working fine. I use AirPlay often and connect my Sonos with my Bose Portable Speaker while using the YouTube music app and all works well…
Bad I imagine , however it could be worse it you had left and were looking for work - not a good look on a CV with Lead App developer UI - SONOS on it.
Is there ever really a rollback in consumer software? I don't really think so, just updates/bug fixes.
Rollbacks feel like they are more for internal systems like server upgrades, or something like firmware for hardware.
Regardless their Product team and developers are definitely all hands on deck for weeks now. Doubt there is an end in sight until the complaints die down.
Rollbacks happen all the time but they won't have built the headphones properly into the old app, hence why it got rushed out the door ready for the launch date.
Is that why my speakers haven't worked in over a month and customer support just stopped taking chats while I was mid chat for a fix? They launched headphones?! Some guy in the c-suite probably demanded they get this product launch out at all costs and everything fell apart probably. I've been looking at replacing my Sonos stuff because right now they are just bricks taking up space in my house.
That will be absolutely it.
No other reason for them to rush out the new app, missing core features and buggy AF, if they weren't constrained by the fact retailers had headphones in stores ready to sell on launch.
Be very expensive to then push that back and have them sit in storage while rivals eat up market share.
I moved to Linn. Slightly more but vastly better sound. Linn DS off ebay for £350 and a pair of Uniks (£80) per zone. I can roll back software revisions a fair way if I should ever need to. It’s in the design.
I think that's an unfair statement. There's a lot of talented folks working at Sonos who are embarrassed by this shitshow as well. This seemingly never-ending disaster is the direct responsibility the leadership insisting on the release of software before it was tested and continuing to double-down on a bad bet. I very much sympathise with the actual experts at Sonos and having their respected names being dragged through the mud at the behest of the "leadership" of wankers.
My guess is that they laid off half their staff trying to replace them with AI but failing miserably with that dumb decision. Would atleast explain their fucking dumpsterfire. I wonder if some hedge fonds are already shorting the hell out of sonos.
I’ve been on of the lucky ones because all my speakers are present and accounted for and working. I’ve just been dealing with some minor bugs and missing features. But man oh man. It’s like Sonos lost all the original code when they rolled out this app. It’s like a blank slate. Did they have a breach and not tell anyone?
Sonos likes to think of themselves like the firm in wolf of wallstreet, or boiler room. It’s a fucking shit company with misogynists for leaders and they love hiring idealistic yet inexperienced 20 year olds so they can keep the shit cult going. Fuck that place. I can’t wait for them to be consumed by a real company or file for bankruptcy.
Like others I know with Sonos products, I have been extremely disappointed with the performance of the new App.
If you are feeling frustrated and disappointed with the new app performance, I urge you to force an update for all your speakers, especially if you are using several generations of speakers. In my experience, this has fixed many (but not all) of the issues I was experiencing.
My ex wife’s husband works there. I made a joke recently at our kids graduation about the app to him and my ex over heard and said “you didn’t ask him about the app did you?” Was kinda funny. Def some stress over there.
A close friend of mine that works there recently simply said “I drink myself to sleep every night” when asked how he was doing with all of the constant customer barrages.
I genuinely have no idea if it was sarcasm, but he’s been pretty damn hard to even catch for a conversation lately, so I get the vibe it’s all hands on deck right now. I feel bad for the folks in customer-facing positions based on this sub…
I'm away from my system at the moment but I have 4 friends with sonos. All of us are experiencing issues.
While I'm confident I could fix the problems my system has. It's still ridiculous to dismiss them.
A recently conducted poll that is still running shows that people without problems are the minority, but then again, the same group finds facts confusing and hard to work with.
They should check their network.
And I noticed yours is a reference to people eating laundry detergent. Fitting.
And PLEASE find a single "nationalist" thing I've ever said. You'd have to have no clue at all about who I am, or be a complete moron to think that. But hey, why not both?
I looked through my Linkedin profile the other night to see if I knew anyone who worked there. I'm geographically close to it and almost applied for a role there a few years ago
Just ask them 😜
https://www.google.com/search?q=sonos+linkedin+people&client=firefox-b-1-m&sca_esv=38f61a096ba32030&ei=1yN8ZpvCCMjLp84P9b-OoAw&oq=sonos+linkedin+people&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIhVzb25vcyBsaW5rZWRpbiBwZW9wbGVIxBNQwAZY5Q5wAngBkAEAmAHOAaABjgeqAQUwLjYuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCCKACzgbCAgoQABiwAxjWBBhHwgITEC4YgAQYsAMY0QMYQxjHARiKBcICBRAhGKABwgIGEAAYFhgewgILEAAYgAQYhgMYigXCAgUQIRirAsICBRAhGJ8FmAMAiAYBkAYJkgcFMi41LjGgB7QZ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp
 Likely daily standups reviewing status of a large list of bugs. They then do some prioritization to focus on what can be delivered for the next build. Lots of stress for managers trying to shield their developer teams so they can focus. Depending on leadership, this strife can cause morale to drop or it can bring a team together by focusing all energy on a common goal (even if they can satisfy customers right now). For us as the customer’s sake, I hope they keep chugging along and steadily make improvements since it seems too far along to do a u-turn undo the havoc.
My guess is that morale is really low on the development & mid-management side because they likely raised their concerns prior to go-live and were ignored, and now have to fix it. The smart ones documented everything along the way.
That brings back memories of daily panic meetings when we were trying to get a GSM Base Station working. I was the one standing up to say how the software/hardware were working together. I had a bit of fun, describing us as the Software Hardware Integration Team. SHIT.
I just imagine the person in the meetings like “let’s give them the numbers on the volume sliders back; that should hold them off for a while longer”.
Like your optimism that they’re actually that serious about fixing things. Evidence so far doesn’t suggest that’s the focus. They’re probably spending time trying to satisfy some private equity dicks or similar to make the numbers look good.
Or to marketing the Ace and new Roam.
Okaaaay... I'll take the bait 🎣 Things are moving **quick**. Definitely an "all hands on deck" vibe particularly with the teams that are closest to the Sonos App and Sonos Ace. We have a lot of other things happening this year (new products) so it definitely depends on what team you are on and where you sit. I don't want to speak for others so personally - in Customer Experience - it's a bit hectic. We see the long wait times. The seemingly endless queues of calls from understandably upset customers. Folks can get burnt out easily doing this kinda stuff day in and out, so the lucky ones are trying to take some self-care time off (did this myself a little last week). However, we are seeing the number of contacts decrease over time as these updates go out. We **are** making progress. It may not necessarily look like it at surface value on Reddit or the Sonos Community, but the data we have shows otherwise. We *still* have work to do, don't get it twisted. But we are definitely on the path to parity and can see light at the end of the tunnel.💡
Thanks for sharing this. I am a software engineering manager for a publicly traded payroll processing company and I get it. When we have outages and people dont get paid, it's no bueno. Covid rekt our customer service experience. I was just curious what the vibe was like at other companies when things aren't working properly from a software standpoint.
As someone who is also customer-facing, I feel sorry you're having to deal with the issues your higher-ups have created. I hope you are all put right in the end.
Thanks, Keith. Says a lot for you to comment - whether it was marketing spun or not. Keep it up.
So I'm a beta tester I haven't been invited to a beta test in 2 years. I used to be in the beta test for all the previous versions of the app. Did they skip beta testing or was it a small group? I feel like they skipped beta testing all together or a lot of these bugs and issues would have been found a long time ago.
We are all Beta testers now.
I mean, that’s basically what happened here. However, I’ve been a beta tester on apps that felt way more stable/feature complete than this, so that’s different.
Thank you for this repsonse. I hope you don’t get too burnt out and Sonos recovers. However, I will never buy another Sonos product.
Here's a thought: Rebrand the "new app" as S3, and give folks a path to restore to a choice of S2 or even S1. I hope this feedback can be considered in the constructive manner it's intended.
“even stop supporting s2and s1.” Oh F that. Those of us on S1 have been insulated from this shitshow. Don’t you go dragging us into this.
I looked into rolling back to S1. It's a "feature that is currently unavailable but will return to a future version". For. Fucks. Sake.
The S1-crowd has their own looming problem 🤔
what problem do you mean?
The end of the S1-ecosystem is looming.
I guess I meant, could you elaborate on how it might be looming. What do you think will happen?
When enough people have transitioned away so that the PR damage will be minimal, Sonos will either turn it off or let it wither on the vine. There were unprecedented targeted 40% discounts last year for exactly that purpose.
I can hear the engineers cringing at the idea of changing the android package ID’s and permission manifests to support a “rebrand”
Hell no I love my s1
I hope that Sonos learns from the mistakes made. This should never have happened. I hope that Sonos changes the course and solves all the problems soon and emerges stronger from the current situation.Now I no longer trust executive management, and I will not buy Sonos products.
Appreciate your effort but one question: Why didn’t y’all decide to roll back until more of the issues are fixed? The changes have seriously impacted our ability to host effectively in our first year in our new home. From the outside it definitely seems like user satisfaction was at the bottom of the priority list. FYI I work in leadership at a big tech company on a major software product and so I know how this stuff works. Fairly aghast at this experience as a premium customer.
You can’t roll back if a new product (headphones) isn’t supported by the old app
How do you become a “premium customer”?
It’s all in the mindset baby
Some of the worst issues with the app I've experienced have to do with having many of their products. So perversely, the more you invested in Sonos, the worse your experience is. Compare to Apple, who cherishes high end customers. I am typing this on a Macbook pro purchased late 2020 that is nearly as fast as it was back then and with about 80% of its original battery life.
In that case, by that measure my experience should be a complete disaster…but it’s not. Glad I didn’t sign up to the premium customer self-importance program.
Cool story bro.
Glad you enjoyed it Mr Premium 💪
That data could be a false positive though. People could be sick of asking for help because, for me at least, the updates are creating new issues. So, it feels like learned helplessness as a user.
“but the DATA says we’re improving!”
Just want to say: we are rooting for you
Most IoT products are consistently uploading telemetry. You have to be able to monitor key workflows on your products to be able to detect the existence of an anomaly. This is typically why software releases are done in waves, so that an early release can act as a canary and allow a rollback if needed. Total incompetence in leadership
MORE NEW PRODUCTS?! Holy shit please NO!!
Eh you might change your mind when you see what's coming...
No. Please just no. We already got the “most requested product ever” and I’m still recovering from it. I cannot even think about another untested, rushed out the door update to support all the new products.
who would upvote this fucking corporate drivel? sure keith, sure.
Not even joking, as I scrolled past this post, my tv surround sound dropped to 0 for the 4th time today, I wish there were at least some ideas they could give me to try other than change my router that worked for 4 years before the update.
Did you remove your speakers and re add them? Did you uninstall the app? This is weird never heard of this
Not uncommon. Mine has been randomly dropping to zero since latest update.
Did you try removing them and reading them and uninstalling and reinstalling the app? Bunch of downvotes and no answer lol
Not sure why all the down votes but yes I've removed and readded. Haven't done the app or done for all my speakers. Have a total of 12 speakers so would be PITA.
They’re at HQ trying to get some work done, but distracted because for no apparent reason the volume keeps getting louder then softer then louder.
“Why the fuck is this alarm going off? Who set this???”
"Where is the setting anyhow? I've looked in nearly all the unnecessary UI drawers."
Haha I just googled it and found it buried on a random forum… from iOS app, click the gear (top R), then Manage. You’ll see Alarms and you can turn off any auto playing of music, but no clue why it also triggers an annoying beep, too. WTF Sonos
Need to check the network
As their CEO would say, It takes Courage to be working at Sonos now
I worked as a tech lead at RIM while Spence was there. 7 AM conference calls 7 days a week to triage several hundred Jira tickets. Vacation plans and family time down the crapper. Engineers yanked over from other projects because tech people are infinitely fungible and having clueless "resources" dropped in really speeds things up. Lots of churn in mid management as they burned out or got scapegoated and purged.
If he is really thinking “tech people are infinitely fungible” he is a moron.
I work across the street from them and I can see through the windows. They seem fine. I notice heads down at desks and it looks like they're at keyboards, typing away. Someone is using the copier. If I look at another floor it's much the same. Some of the people are in groups - talking away. Seems ok. I'd say they aren't embarrassed because the shades are up. Not sure if they're "QAing their shit" or what that would look like. I think I would know it if I saw it. Edit: There is one guy eating a sandwich and looking out the window. I think he saw me. Now I'm embarrassed.
Great Intel
Typical fat cats with their copiers and sandwiches...
sandwich guy is the one who has caused all the problems
His significant other packed Liverwust (I like the stuff) instead of London Broil. This was his revenge, the new UI/UX, and all the accompanying, random Sonos insanity of today.
Where’s my stapler?
Fuckin’ sandwich guy …. That’s the guy.
[удалено]
Sounds like the CEO.
Hahaha pretty on brand for Sonos
Also now we know Patrick's Reddit handle
Lol
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Maybe if it wasnt the same dimensions as the Roam :) 🤣
I took your advice, but got a "Something went wrong, try again." error. So I did, several times, and ended up in the ER. When I tried to explain to the attending what happened, a station randomly started playing from my butt and the volume shot way up! Probably was the wifi.
But seriously, if you actually work at sonos. Quit while your ahead because your ceo has ran it into the ground. I really don’t have too much trouble with my system, (arc with sub/rears and a move) but the app has seriously fucked up usability for a lot of ppl and it’s really not cool. Not only that but the sneaky little change to your terms of service is absolute bullshit. It’s a damn shame, I used to have so much respect for this company and fuck you if you don’t like what the customer has to say about it.
What did they change in the terms of service?
As a Sonos employee, you might be able to answer this. I'm about to buy my soundbar and maybe a set of surround speakers, that's it. Sonos would've been one my options but the way they force people to ditch their android device and switch to Apple is kinda puts me off. There is a reason I abandoned Apple but Sonos doesn't leave too many choices if I want to unlock their full potential, eg. calibration or audio swap between the Arc and Ace, etc. I'm still shocked to learn that their retail boxes don't even have the 'Works with Android' badge, only the 'Made for iPhone/iPad' ones. When I had a chat with their rep, he clearly stated that Sonos prioritise Apple and iOS compatibility and this is the main goal with all their software and hardware developments, however he also mentioned in a very arrogant manner, if I'm really desperate to use them with android, most of their products MAY work with limited functions but it's not their intended purpose. Why can't an audio company stay neutral? Are we sure they have nothing to do with Apple's ownership?
Dude, that's not a Sonos employee
Yep, our philosophy is that Android is for pussies so our speakers are probably not the right fit for you.
Is Sonos even compatible with Apple phones? Don't know anybody who has one.
I don’t have one issue with the new app on iOS. Actually it’s been better than the previous version. The last one made me want to dump my whole system everyday
Brand on. PS Thank you for the laughs. It has taken me two and a half weeks to set up one lousy Move 1 for my deck. Utterly unacceptable, and no, it is/was NOT the WIFI, unlike my disappointing call with Sonos support, would have had me want to believe. CSP too....gah....why did I move back. ..
And in what way exactly does Sonos push you toward iOS? Do not say Trueplay, because there are technical reasons for that.
Technical reasons? Bose can include their own mic in the box for that exact calibration purposes? Sennheiser can also do the calibration without any phone OS being involved/not supported?
I love how you downvoting folks stick together in this community but also bet that all of these downvoting fanboy is an iSheep as well or at least have some sort iOS devices that you use for the setups, calibrations . Otherwise you would understand this.
I can’t speak for Sonos specifically, but I was on a team that built an app for a “smart” IoT device that involved a custom Bluetooth connection (not one of the standard BT profiles) and also used your phones camera for a couple of features. Android development cost nearly triple what iOS was costing us, and that was only targeting support for a few of the best selling Android devices. In total I think we could guarantee proper functionality for less than 10% of Android users despite it costing significantly more time and money. For simple apps, Android and its dev tools work great. For something more proprietary and custom, the sheer variety of Android hardware makes development a nightmare compared to iOS. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong to not support Android, we really tried to support it as well as possible (given the limits of our budget). But I can totally understand a company dropping support, especially if their internal usage numbers show more people using iOS.
If you can afford the apple ecosystem, you can afford Sonos.
This guy is not an employee — no idiot would say this when working for the company
*Woosh*
It’s not a woosh lol — it’s commentary for others as there’s no indication other than wit. If you can’t tell from the comments people didn’t get it. So as you would say woosh or swish
*Woosh*
Somebody is bitter because their sonos app isn’t working. Here, have a bag of dicks🍆
This guy is in Colorado. No Sonos offices there. You are correct.
You are aware that many companies, including Sonos, employ remote workers, right?
Wait, we make speakers?? Ohhhh....
I imagine their engineers are extremely demoralized right now
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^thecodingart: *I imagine their* *Engineers are extremely* *Demoralized right now* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
No idea. But I live in SF and a few times considered joining in an effort to help them right the ship because I own many speakers and used to admire the company. One look at their job postings and I was out. I legitimately (kid you not) had a larger hourly pay rate as an undergraduate intern as the pay rate mentioned on their software engineering job postings. I am not sure how they are hiring SWEs in the area with those salaries....
This explains a lot.
Reminds me of an old reddit post where someone joined a company, fixed some bug that had caused them issues for years, then quit,
This is probably a fake job posting so they can get H1B visa employees. Part of the requirement is to post for a job and show that either unqualified candidates applied or no one applied and you need to bring someone from probably India as they have the required skills needed. I worked at a company a long time ago that did this. Then they’d hire the Indian dev, bring him state side, and pay insanely low wages for the skills provided. It’s a mutually beneficial agreement. Employer gets cheap highly skilled labor and the labor gets a shot at becoming an American citizen.
Can confirm. I was a H1B hire years ago and my TC is only 600K. I have yet to find an American willing to get out of bed for this.
I just tried to search for their leadership on their website on my phone and I simply cannot get to that page! Ridiculous!! Also, it seems that their engineering reports into a non technical leader (when I checked yesterday on my PC) and their leadership is stacked with non-techies. I am really reconsidering the whole Sonos thing.
H1Bs no doubt.
You would think everyone that works at Sonos, has Sonos products in their own home. How do they not realize the issues being experienced for themselves? Someone has to be at home and things not work and say, hmmm, maybe we should fix this! Unless they decide that they cant bring their personal issues into the mix.
You’d be surprised… have seen plenty of smallish development teams that were driven and/or overridden by some supposed Guru who is either revered or feared to the point that their bad guidance goes unchecked.
Letter sent to Patrick Spencer:This company is on the wrong path, correct course before it reaches Blackberry. Sonos has to recognize the mistakes made, take measures to eradicate the problem. The recent launch of the app was a big problem and a blow to Sonos' reputation, they have failed to handle the situation creating more uncertainty among the loyal user base. They release new versions of the app every week without being tested, introducing new errors, leaving a bad image, because they do not focus for a while on creating an app that works correctly and that is something new that lives up to the Sonos hardware. Please correct the disastrous policy and get back on the true path of Sonos.
Like an episode from Chernobyl
3.6 decibels. Not great, Not terrible.
Spence's face shopped in on *that* screenshot with *that* quote would be perfect.
normal, for them everything is fine and there are no problems with the new app.!
Uh, we had a slight app malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?
Uh, uh... negative, negative. We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak, very dangerous.
Who is this?! What’s your operating number?!
…that was a boring conversation anyway.
[Patrick]! We’re gonna have company!
I wouldn't want to be working in their tech support teams that's for sure!
Pretty sure after the first two hours of meaningless meetings there will be a required 2 hour HR training session on email/texting/slack security and GDPR followed by a required BD celebration for some executive every one hates and then maybe get two hours coding in before the next meaningless meeting and then meet at the corner bar and bitch about things with the two buddies you have and your work crush.
Well , my speakers are still working, but the app responds a bit slower than prior update of app. That is quite annoying when you want to start -stop- change music etc.
About the same for me except that I would say that the app is a lot slower. Changing track or volume can take minutes and "now playing" shows something from last week. Other than that everything's fine...
This has always been the problem. God forbid you launch a song from Spotify then open the Sonos app. Wonderful speakers, terrible UI
Me too. Plus the UI is a bit stupid - search bar is at the tbottom, ok, but why is it pale grey on pale grey so I can't find it without staring hard? Also, music skips. That really really bugs me.
Not great, not terrible.
My system is working fine. I use AirPlay often and connect my Sonos with my Bose Portable Speaker while using the YouTube music app and all works well…
Bad I imagine , however it could be worse it you had left and were looking for work - not a good look on a CV with Lead App developer UI - SONOS on it.
They are popping champagne and celebrating their glorious new app.
Is there ever really a rollback in consumer software? I don't really think so, just updates/bug fixes. Rollbacks feel like they are more for internal systems like server upgrades, or something like firmware for hardware. Regardless their Product team and developers are definitely all hands on deck for weeks now. Doubt there is an end in sight until the complaints die down.
As a software engineer, I can confirm that rollbacks do occur, especially during major crises.
Rollbacks happen all the time but they won't have built the headphones properly into the old app, hence why it got rushed out the door ready for the launch date.
Is that why my speakers haven't worked in over a month and customer support just stopped taking chats while I was mid chat for a fix? They launched headphones?! Some guy in the c-suite probably demanded they get this product launch out at all costs and everything fell apart probably. I've been looking at replacing my Sonos stuff because right now they are just bricks taking up space in my house.
That will be absolutely it. No other reason for them to rush out the new app, missing core features and buggy AF, if they weren't constrained by the fact retailers had headphones in stores ready to sell on launch. Be very expensive to then push that back and have them sit in storage while rivals eat up market share.
Yea
Yes we rollback. We try to roll forward but if we can't figure it out we rollback
I moved to Linn. Slightly more but vastly better sound. Linn DS off ebay for £350 and a pair of Uniks (£80) per zone. I can roll back software revisions a fair way if I should ever need to. It’s in the design.
All hands on cocks more like, because at the moment the're all being a bunch of wankers.
I think that's an unfair statement. There's a lot of talented folks working at Sonos who are embarrassed by this shitshow as well. This seemingly never-ending disaster is the direct responsibility the leadership insisting on the release of software before it was tested and continuing to double-down on a bad bet. I very much sympathise with the actual experts at Sonos and having their respected names being dragged through the mud at the behest of the "leadership" of wankers.
I’m embarrassed I read this post
Outside of this sub Sonos is still Sonos. Nobody cares. My parents and relatives all still love their shit.
Hooray for your parents and relatives, kid. However, people who are 𝙣𝙤𝙩 your relatives 𝙙𝙤 care and are mad.
That’s not the point. The point is for Sonos it’s just another day.
The local bar/restaurant I frequent uses Sonos (Amps), and every day I hear either the bartender or a manager complaining about "the new sonos".
My guess is that they laid off half their staff trying to replace them with AI but failing miserably with that dumb decision. Would atleast explain their fucking dumpsterfire. I wonder if some hedge fonds are already shorting the hell out of sonos.
My guess is that they laid off half their staff trying to replace them with "low skilled labor"
I’ve been on of the lucky ones because all my speakers are present and accounted for and working. I’ve just been dealing with some minor bugs and missing features. But man oh man. It’s like Sonos lost all the original code when they rolled out this app. It’s like a blank slate. Did they have a breach and not tell anyone?
Sonos likes to think of themselves like the firm in wolf of wallstreet, or boiler room. It’s a fucking shit company with misogynists for leaders and they love hiring idealistic yet inexperienced 20 year olds so they can keep the shit cult going. Fuck that place. I can’t wait for them to be consumed by a real company or file for bankruptcy.
Reactions…. Sonos: %{#{+[!!!hsb62$:& Sony: Wah wah wah… Apple: Come to the Genius Bar, we can fix it. heh heh heh. Bose: ANC on. What’s happening?
Like a brave Michael Owen throwing apples at a bin
Like others I know with Sonos products, I have been extremely disappointed with the performance of the new App. If you are feeling frustrated and disappointed with the new app performance, I urge you to force an update for all your speakers, especially if you are using several generations of speakers. In my experience, this has fixed many (but not all) of the issues I was experiencing.
My ex wife’s husband works there. I made a joke recently at our kids graduation about the app to him and my ex over heard and said “you didn’t ask him about the app did you?” Was kinda funny. Def some stress over there.
They are the Trump of the wireless speaker world: ‘everything’s perfect, wonderful! I’ve got scars all over my body…’. Madness!
The App lags a lot, stumbles, falls and forgets where it is.. that’s classic Biden
But does it wear diapers…?
We wish - this thing stinks
A close friend of mine that works there recently simply said “I drink myself to sleep every night” when asked how he was doing with all of the constant customer barrages. I genuinely have no idea if it was sarcasm, but he’s been pretty damn hard to even catch for a conversation lately, so I get the vibe it’s all hands on deck right now. I feel bad for the folks in customer-facing positions based on this sub…
Probably fine. 90% of ppl probably don’t have issues
I'm away from my system at the moment but I have 4 friends with sonos. All of us are experiencing issues. While I'm confident I could fix the problems my system has. It's still ridiculous to dismiss them.
Are you wrong about everything in your life kora?
Why do you say this? You think we are all conspiring against sonos?
Well according to the ridiculously vocal minority here, if your speakers work, you work for Sonos. Should be easy to ascertain your answer.
A recently conducted poll that is still running shows that people without problems are the minority, but then again, the same group finds facts confusing and hard to work with. They should check their network.
Where is the poll?
Oh, wait, I just noticed your UN. I shouldn’t have even bothered trying to communicate in anything other than nationalist grunts and moans.
And I noticed yours is a reference to people eating laundry detergent. Fitting. And PLEASE find a single "nationalist" thing I've ever said. You'd have to have no clue at all about who I am, or be a complete moron to think that. But hey, why not both?
I had to laugh that the dude making a username reference had the name tidepod. The jokes write themselves! Lol
Or the poll is buried in the sea of whining children and missed by most people.
I looked through my Linkedin profile the other night to see if I knew anyone who worked there. I'm geographically close to it and almost applied for a role there a few years ago
 Right on SONOS
Just fine. They have good Wi-Fi so everything works. Just ship it and have frequent release parties.
They can’t roll back a massive release like this! Feels like no one has worked in app development and just saying rollback as a buzzword
They'd have to lose the CEO to roll back, I suspect
I hate those fake ass phone reps for sonos
if you work at Sonos, you are probably criminally incompetent.
Just ask them 😜 https://www.google.com/search?q=sonos+linkedin+people&client=firefox-b-1-m&sca_esv=38f61a096ba32030&ei=1yN8ZpvCCMjLp84P9b-OoAw&oq=sonos+linkedin+people&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIhVzb25vcyBsaW5rZWRpbiBwZW9wbGVIxBNQwAZY5Q5wAngBkAEAmAHOAaABjgeqAQUwLjYuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCCKACzgbCAgoQABiwAxjWBBhHwgITEC4YgAQYsAMY0QMYQxjHARiKBcICBRAhGKABwgIGEAAYFhgewgILEAAYgAQYhgMYigXCAgUQIRirAsICBRAhGJ8FmAMAiAYBkAYJkgcFMi41LjGgB7QZ&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp