When organising my Sonos dwelling theater system, I had a persistent downside. I used to be attempting so as to add a Sonos wi-fi subwoofer to my community, however in line with Sonos’ cell app, the Sub was nowhere to be discovered. The app would throw a “Couldn’t join” message, or—even weirder—present me that I used to be attempting to attach a grey field labeled “product” with a serial quantity that had nothing to do with something.
“I believed the good dwelling was presupposed to make your life simpler,” my husband commented mildly, as he watched me factory-reset the Sub a number of occasions, flip my cellphone on and off once more, toggle Bluetooth, swap telephones, and eventually bang my head in opposition to a wall and cry earlier than calling Sonos tech help.
As everyone knows, I’m removed from the one one who has issues with Sonos’ new app; the corporate pushed out a radical redesign in Might that broke quite a lot of key options—corresponding to the flexibility to change the quantity on a few of its speaker methods—and angered numerous longtime Sonos followers.
Immediately, greater than two months after the contentious redesign, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence lastly acknowledged the final buyer disappointment in a protracted word posted to the corporate’s Instagram account. “Since launch we have now had quite a lot of points,” he wrote in a hilarious tone of wry British understatement. Spence apologized for the frustration the replace brought on, and famous that fixing the damaged app continues to be Sonos’ “primary precedence.”
The submit refers prospects to the detailed checklist of Sonos software program updates which have already been launched, and lays out a highway map for additional enhancements to the hobbled app. Listed here are among the issues that Sonos guarantees to repair within the upcoming months:
- Implementing Music Library configuration, browse, search, and play (in July and August)
- Bettering quantity responsiveness (in August)
- Bettering alarm consistency and reliability (in September)
- Restoring edit mode for playlists (in September and October)
That is a brief checklist, and perhaps it is too quick. The variety of enhancements the corporate must make is—no level in beating across the bush right here—preposterous. I’m having bother pondering of an app replace fiasco massive sufficient to match it to this one, as a result of in my time as a client tech reporter and editor, I can’t consider one other software program replace that took away customers’ capability to manage the quantity.
Greater than that, I can’t consider one other replace that took away customers’ capability to manage the quantity after which didn’t instantly repair that. For months! I reached out to Sonos asking why Spence’s timeline for fixes is so extended. The corporate has not but responded.
It’s value nothing right here that Sonos’ {hardware} stays the gold commonplace within the premium client audio world. My colleague Parker Corridor refers back to the Period 100 because the new good speaker commonplace; the Ace wi-fi headphones earned an 8/10 and a WIRED Recommends badge. After I lastly bought my Sonos dwelling theater system up, my jaw dropped on the richness and depth of the jungle noises in Land of Unhealthy. (Bomb go growth!)
And but, this sense of pissed off disappointment is oddly acquainted. My household was once a completely Sonos family, with Play audio system extending all through our dwelling and out to my husband’s workshop. I ditched the Play system in 2020 as a result of I might now not take care of the corporate’s choice to separate its controller software program into two separate Sonos apps, one for brand new audio system and one for legacy audio system. Why do I must do some psychological math to recollect which app controls which speaker each time I need to change the music?
But right here I’m once more, held hostage by {hardware}, stranded by software program, unable to edit my Sonos playlists till September. Possibly I am simply one other silly lovely dreamer. At the least my Roku TV nonetheless works.