When establishing my Sonos residence theater system, I had a persistent downside. I used to be making an attempt 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 making an attempt to attach a grey field labeled “product” with a serial quantity that had nothing to do with something.
“I believed the good residence was alleged to make your life simpler,” my husband commented mildly, as he watched me factory-reset the Sub a couple of instances, 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 assist.
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 a variety of key options—equivalent to the flexibility to change the amount on a few of its speaker programs—and angered numerous longtime Sonos followers.
In the present day, greater than two months after the contentious redesign, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence lastly acknowledged the overall buyer disappointment in an extended observe posted to the corporate’s Instagram account. “Since launch we’ve got had a variety of points,” he wrote in a hilarious tone of wry British understatement. Spence apologized for the frustration the replace precipitated, and famous that fixing the damaged app continues to be Sonos’ “primary precedence.”
The submit refers clients to the detailed record of Sonos software program updates which have already been launched, and lays out a street map for additional enhancements to the hobbled app. Listed below 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 record, and possibly it is too brief. 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 shopper tech reporter and editor, I can’t consider one other software program replace that took away customers’ means to manage the amount.
Greater than that, I can’t consider one other replace that took away customers’ means to manage the amount 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 shopper 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. Once I lastly acquired my Sonos residence theater system up, my jaw dropped on the richness and depth of the jungle noises in Land of Unhealthy. (Bomb go increase!)
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 residence and out to my husband’s workshop. I ditched the Play system in 2020 as a result of I may 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 wish 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. Perhaps I am simply one other silly lovely dreamer. No less than my Roku TV nonetheless works.
