[HN Gopher] Sonos CEO steps down after app update debacle
___________________________________________________________________
Sonos CEO steps down after app update debacle
Author : saaaaaam
Score : 141 points
Date : 2025-01-13 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| saaaaaam wrote:
| No surprises here. Sonos has become pretty much unusable since
| the app "upgrade".
|
| I wanted to start some music playing via Sonos in another room
| for my dogs earlier while I was on a call.
|
| It took nearly two minutes for the app to update and be able to
| select my "calming cello music for dogs" playlist.
| ellieh wrote:
| I've spent a bunch of money on Sonos products in the past, and
| this app update basically killed it for me. Hopefully they can
| recover what they once had.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| Did you stop using it? For me it seems like a huge improvement
| now.
|
| I was really excited for the app update because the old app was
| really unstable. Then the update happened and it was like 10x
| worse than the old app. Then in the past few months it's gotten
| really solid (for me anyway) and I'm pretty happy with it.
| gnabgib wrote:
| Discussion (71 points, 6 hours ago, 118 comments)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683753
| alienallys wrote:
| Why does a single commodity product company have a stock when
| that says said commodity is not even the top spot in the
| category?
| causality0 wrote:
| It's strange. Tech journalism also has a bizarre fixation on
| them. There are tons of smart speaker companies out there but
| every time Sonos releases a product or really does anything
| they get tons of articles written about them.
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| I'm happily enjoying my move to Denon and HEOS. It was that bad
| that bad that I liquidated all my Sonos gear.
| jgrowl wrote:
| > The company said it would cost between $20 million and $30
| million to fix these issues and decided to cut about 6% of its
| staff.
|
| > Spence, in October, had acknowledged mistakes surrounding the
| app's release and said that he and seven other company leaders
| would forgo their bonuses.
|
| People out of a job because of you and you're gonna forgo your
| bonuses.
|
| > Spence, whose total compensation was $5.19 million in fiscal
| 2023, took a roughly $72,000 cash bonus.
| x0x0 wrote:
| > _People out of a job because of you and you 're gonna forgo
| your bonuses._
|
| Well, the board seems to have fired him too?
| soperj wrote:
| are you really fired when you get nearly $2 million in
| severance?
| elp wrote:
| For a CEO of a public company this is about as close to a
| perp walk with your stuff in a cardboard box as it gets.
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| Don't worry, they'll fail upwards like many other
| executives who leave dumpster fires behind them.
|
| Remember, though, conveniently, according to other
| executives, there's "only a limited number of people with
| the skills to be CEOs! So we have to pay them so much!"
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| You're right... but it's also not at all close to that.
| timewizard wrote:
| Yea. Poor guy. Having to stuff $2 million dollars into a
| measly cardboard box. I'll be he feels very chagrined and
| therefore I can relate to him now. :|
| GeertJohan wrote:
| I recently switched my system to the S2 app and protocol. I was
| still on the old S1 app for the past years which worked fine, but
| I wanted to add new Sonos devices that only supported the
| S2-protocol/app.
|
| I had checked the compatibility lists and found that one of my
| older sonos devices wouldnt be supported. But I accepted that as
| I really wanted to get a new Sonos Sub 4 (S2-only) to connect
| with my existing Sonos Playbar (which supports updating to S2).
|
| The upgrade process was bad, had to restart and reset devices a
| couple of times.. but after a while I got all my existing Sonos
| devices onto S2.
|
| When I added the Sub to the system, the app told me that I
| couldnt pair it with the playbar. The app adviced me to get one
| of the newer Sonos soundbars..
|
| I'm very disappointed that they did this.. I fully understand
| that some devices dont work with a new protocol, but after
| consulting the compatibility list I expected my Sonos Playbar
| would be able to pair with all other S2 devices.. what is even
| weirder is that it is possible to link the playbar with the older
| Subwoofer devices on the S2 network, so why couldnt a newer
| device be able to do the same thing..
|
| I returned the Sub and will be ditching Sonos (and probably any
| other system where you "buy into" the system only to be left with
| uncompatible gear after a while..
| GeertJohan wrote:
| I think from now on I will separate the "smart" from the "hifi"
| so I can combine and upgrade as I please.. will probably give
| Dante a try for networked audio, they have a good track record
| with quality and compatibility. Its quite prosumer though.
| Perhaps not as user-friendly as Sonos (was).
| frenchmajesty wrote:
| Interesting but I don't think the app is the only reason. The
| main reason is really the strong declining sales since last year.
|
| As CEO of a public company you get about 3 quarters down before
| you're out.
| threeseed wrote:
| But surely the main reason for declining sales is the app.
|
| And not just the app itself but the fact that despite mounting
| criticism from the community they didn't immediately revert it.
| Thus demonstrating that they don't really care about their own,
| up until that point, very loyal customers.
| massysett wrote:
| Even as a Sonos owner and former fan who detests the app, I
| doubt the app is the reason for declining sales. Competition
| is.
|
| Sonos has been around for many years now. When it launched,
| smartphones weren't dominant. To control a Sonos you had to
| buy a controller specifically for it. It had its own wireless
| networking because WiFi wasn't dominant. To use it with WiFi
| you needed to buy a separate bridge.
|
| Online music services weren't a thing like they are now.
| Music collections were on your local hard drive.
|
| Back then the main competition for Sonos was paying a pro to
| hard-wire a speaker system into your house. I saw one of
| these about five years ago. Built into the wall in the
| kitchen was a cassette tape deck.
|
| All that has changed. Now there are wireless speakers from
| JBL, Apple, Amazon, Bose, Google, and at least a dozen
| others. There's Bluetooth. There's AirPlay.
|
| The Sonos app was ok for its time, but it's an outdated model
| now. But at least the app used to be good at controlling
| Sonos. Now it's not even great for that.
|
| Without that outdated app model, there's no reason to buy
| Sonos. Just pick from...anybody else. Many are cheaper and
| sound just as good. They don't rely on an app, which is good-
| just use Airplay or Bluetooth.
|
| As bad as the app is, it's not a trigger of the decline of
| Sonos. Is just a symptom of it. The company has no future.
| Thus its release of headphones that don't even integrate well
| with the Sonos system. These are just as pointless as its
| speakers.
|
| I doubt Sonos is around in a few years' time.
| s__s wrote:
| Sonos makes great hardware. Those little mini speaker voice
| assistant things aren't even in the same ball park. If they
| stick to their target audience they'll be fine.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The mismatch here is Sonos' owners want Sonos' shares'
| returns to at least keep up with SP500, and Sonos'
| "target" audience wants speakers that sound great. And I
| don't know that that is possible, given the market for
| speakers.
| javier2 wrote:
| And there simply wont be online ad network money in
| pricey speakers
| gffrd wrote:
| It's hard for me to believe this is the main reason, but I'd
| love to be shown otherwise.
|
| My instinct is to think it's fuel on a fire that was already
| burning - declining sales across the market, smart speakers
| taking a big slice out of Sonos' pie, and missing the boat on
| new markets (headphones) ... and then a bad app release being
| the straw that broke the camel's back.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I actively tell friends and family to not try to imitate my
| home setup after this app garbage, where as I know specifically
| of a few friends who got into SONOS based directly on my
| recommendation and my demonstrations of the system.
| richardlblair wrote:
| When I was building my home back in 2022 the builder's audio
| person insisted I use Sonos. I said no. Then I said no another
| 100 times as this person just pushed and pushed and pushed. I
| eventually explained I didn't want to be vendor locked.
| Technology changes, and I don't want to be caught up in the BS.
|
| I ended up designing the system myself. Wired in speakers, down
| to the basement where all the receivers are. I'm really happy
| with the result, and grateful I didn't get bullied into a
| specific Vendor.
|
| Not everyone has this luxury. Once the drywall is up, it's really
| hard to get a decent whole home system and Sonos was the way to
| do that. My Dad and my father-in-law are in deep with Sonos. I
| can feel their anger and frustration when we're over. They really
| did their customers dirty.
| skrebbel wrote:
| I'm mostly impressed that your builder has an "audio person",
| must be a pretty fancy outfit!
| richardlblair wrote:
| Our home is pretty typical, with a few touches for my partner
| and I. It was definitely a more modest project for this
| particular builder, who typically builds homes 3x the size of
| ours.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| I bought a Sonos Move 2 and it's a good speaker for what it is,
| but the connectivity is abysmal. AirPlay only works after I open
| the Sonos app, and sometimes wouldn't start at all until I put my
| phone into airplane mode and back on. I thought I was buying into
| something sure, but it's really disappointing.
|
| Meanwhile, although twice the price, the Naim Mu-So Qb 2 I also
| bought recently is simply a marvel. Highly recommended.
| simlevesque wrote:
| Sonos is dead. You can get a better sounding and cheaper multi-
| room setup with WiiM devices.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Or just buy an old marantz or something similar and an old
| airport express and be done with it for life.
| Ringz wrote:
| Sold my great Onkyo and try to exactly revert it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42689139
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| I've been wondering for a while what the alternatives are.
|
| I've got a Denon amp which has Heos, had random Alexa/Google
| Home devices previously, random amps with just Bluetooth or
| line in whatever. Thought there must be a way to sync these
| things, think previously there was the Google Chrome audio?
|
| The WiiM devices seem nice but is that the price of entry to
| sync various unrelated audio ecosystems then?
|
| Edit: had only seen the price of the highest end ultra device,
| this is actually very reasonable..
| notatoad wrote:
| Yeah, the wiim mini is very reasonable.
|
| The other option for multi-room sync is AirPlay, on any
| device where that is possible (including wiim), so it's
| pretty easy to solve multi-room audio these days.
|
| Chromecast Audio lost the ability to do multi-room sync in a
| patent dispute with sonos
| crooked-v wrote:
| It's less the app, more the business decision to tell people who
| had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on elaborate sound
| systems to go throw it all in the trash and start over, all at
| once.
|
| Even Apple has never been that bad. They drop support for things
| over time but even their roughest transitions (x86, Apple
| Silicon) have come with extensive day 1 support for previous
| functionality.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Well that is basically the model of the home stereo today.
|
| People don't realize sound was solved decades ago. How they
| could get the same stereo their grandfather could have ordered
| from the sears catalog and some cabinets from that sears
| catalog and that would be better sound than they are capable of
| ever perceiving, and how it would last them their entire life
| on that one stereo and probably the lives of multiple
| generations of family members. With IO that has always been a
| standard and always will be a standard. And a stereo like this
| isn't even terribly expensive. A couple hundred up front for
| never having to make another home audio equipment purchase in
| your life is some serious savings.
|
| Instead they are sold soundbars and other crap tiny speakers
| that are not built to last, and might use specific io to
| connect over open standards that have been around for decades.
| They end up spending quite a lot more money for a shit
| experience that they are none the wiser that there are even
| alternatives to, without becoming audiophiles themselves
| consuming hundreds of pages of relevant media in that niche.
|
| What a cash cow of an industry.
| kd913 wrote:
| I think there can be a difference here.
|
| Was looking recently at the power requirements of an amp +
| subwoofer + 5 5.1 JBL surround speakers.
|
| The setup was done decade ago, and the power needed for it
| was nuts. Something like 500W for a Denon amp and 250W for a
| JBL subwoofer?
|
| For reference something like a OG HomePod consumes what 45W?
| The Sony srs xg500 boombox can last 30hours and is a giant
| room shaking boombox.
|
| The difference in power efficiency between these old and new
| setups are nuts. Nevermind compatibility with AirPlay,
| streaming etc...
| kingnothing wrote:
| There's also an absolutely massive difference in audio
| quality between a HomePod or Sonos anything and a proper
| amp + speakers.
| jkolio wrote:
| Yup. Newer products use various tricks to try to fill in
| the gaps that their physical reality can't overcome, but
| ultimately there's no getting around that reality.
|
| I will say that the Sony upright boom boxes aren't to be
| slept on (and, if one is active, fat chance). They're
| quite good for their intended use cases (parties, and
| closed Best Buys during clean-up/inventory).
| tpm wrote:
| A 500W amp is probably a class A and can't really be made
| more efficient. It would still be 500W in 2024. Decades ago
| there were more efficient setups too, though of course now
| they sound better and also have lots more features and
| connectivity.
| kristjansson wrote:
| > 500W
|
| Amplifiers are quoted in peak output, not average (and play
| some games with other parameters e.g. resistance) to
| capture bigger-number-better sales. A 750w system will
| consume nowhere near 750w at typical listening volumes
| (just like your 750w PC doesn't use 18 kWh every day.)
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| Unless you're playing REALLY loud, I don't think you are
| anywhere near 250 or 500W of consumption. I would guess it
| is the maximum rated power?
|
| Even with quite old and inefficient amp + speaker combo,
| 30W of sound is usually a lot(!).
|
| Tube amps are an exception. They can be very power hungry,
| but it's difficult to buy such tech today compared to class
| D etc.
| gazchop wrote:
| Nailed it. You don't even have to buy new stuff now.
|
| Still rocking my early 90s system. Has required a couple of
| amp repairs (capacitors and sticky relay) but no big issue.
| Bought a Bluetooth DAC for streaming stuff. Job done.
| worik wrote:
| > Well that is basically the model of the home stereo today.
|
| The entire digital ecosystem seems to be heading this way.
| Even cars
| stetrain wrote:
| Well one of those options lets me click a button on the phone
| in my pocket and play music across multiple rooms without
| running any wires between rooms. And similarly supports
| surround-sound audio without running wires around or inside
| walls.
|
| I appreciate the value in a basic stereo system but there are
| some major differences in functionality to the end user.
| xp84 wrote:
| I'd point out that all that was needed to add that
| capability to a 1970 stereo is one of these devices:
|
| https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/port
|
| Although I laughed out loud that they're asking $450 for
| that little box. That's pretty cheeky. The BOM on that must
| be $15. Margin level: Apple!
|
| I wonder if they make it $450 to discourage doing just what
| I'm describing. To make people consider that for that kind
| of money they could buy one decent Sonos speaker and
| "simplify." Even though the Sonos speaker won't have
| anywhere near the sound quality or longevity of a 40-year-
| old stereo amp and speakers.
| hmottestad wrote:
| I have a 40-year old amp and speakers at home. My dad's
| old stereo. Works fine, but it has so much static buzz.
|
| Sounds great though. I'm just a bit hesitant to leave it
| powered on all the time which means I don't use it much
| compared to my Bluetooth speakers. Old power supplies are
| not very efficient. They can get hot. There is also a
| decent amount of dust. And then there is the risk of some
| old cap blowing.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Sort-of.
|
| Neither a Sonos Port nor something like an Alexa Echo Dot
| nor the long-discontinued Chromecast Audio can awaken my
| stereo (whether from 1955 or 2025), select the
| appropriate input, and allow me to start playing music
| from my phone.
|
| A Sonos _speaker_ does allow that, though.
|
| And so might a modern sound bar when combined with things
| like CEC and a regular-ass $25 HDMI Chromecast.
| javier2 wrote:
| Yes, this is annoying. I settled for the cheap variant:
| Let any hdmi device grab focus. The tv has spdif to the
| amp. Amp is always on the spdif input. I can change
| sources on the tv and the sound will follow, if I want
| youtube or spotify to play, I have to use chromecast on
| the tv or airplay to apple tv. It works ok for only a
| single cable. If the tv is off, the sound is off.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I would be surprised if that device can power cycle or
| control the volume of a stereo from 1970.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| If only there was a small and very cheap device with wifi
| and aux out that you could plug into your old stereo, and
| instantly get the possibility to cast music directly from
| all your Android apps. Like a Chromecast but for Audio.
|
| Seriously, this was a thing 10 years ago! I bought five,
| and they all still work perfectly. They do multiroom audio.
| They are compatible with the new Nest speakers. The only
| reason we can't have them today is corporate greed and
| rent-seeking MBA fuckers.
| addicted wrote:
| The Chromecast Audio was a wonderful device. I
| unfortunately lost all mine in a move but there's been
| absolutely no way to replace them :-(
| dfltr wrote:
| It feels like one of those low-sci-fi settings where we
| thought it'd be funny and quaint to have post-collapse
| scavengers endlessly repairing retro tech, but now it's
| actually happening and it's not funny anymore.
|
| Like for example: My dad bought a hulking integrated Akai amp
| / cassette / turntable combo in the early 80s. Every user-
| facing component was brushed aluminum, the volume pot was the
| size of a Dallas church, and it probably would have killed
| any living organism you dropped it on.
|
| My dad died over a decade ago and I guarantee that amp is
| still sitting in someone's living room heating the place up.
| I'm just mad it's not in mine.
| mitjam wrote:
| Still enjoy my Elac speakers from 20+ years ago at an analog
| amp, a class D amp wouldn't be bad, though. For smaller
| speakers at computers I like active nearfield monitors and a
| good interface like Focusrite. Can recommend Genelec
| speakers, for example.
| rurp wrote:
| Yep, and this kind of needlessly wasteful consumerism is
| everywhere in the tech industry. All of the token statements
| about sustainability that come from the same industry that
| normalized and celebrates this kind of product strategy
| drives me a little crazy sometimes.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > A couple hundred up front for never having to make another
| home audio equipment purchase in your life is some serious
| savings.
|
| I have a rather nice NAD amplifier that I bought about 29
| years ago. It had to be repaired once at about the 6 year
| mark. Recently, it has developed a new electronic failure
| mode that I don't believe can be repaired.
|
| So ... yes, but let's not overdo the "never have to make
| another home audio purchase" part ...
| jnwatson wrote:
| I've been dabbling in Hifi for most of my life, a hobby
| inherited from my father. I have some awareness of consumer
| Hifi over the last 50 years.
|
| Speaker and amplifier design are vastly better than even 15
| years ago, partially because of better engineering and mostly
| because of advances in electronics. An entry level receiver
| today would wipe the floor with consumer level equipment from
| the 80s.
|
| Still, traditional Hifi is dying to the "crap tiny speaker"
| folks. The company that owns Denon and Marantz may go out
| business this year.
|
| It is ironic because traditional Hifi is in an amazing place
| in terms of value. I recently bought a budget (<$300) setup
| for my PC and I'm blown away by what a couple of modest
| bookshelf speakers, a modern mini-amp and a compact subwoofer
| can accomplish.
| jedberg wrote:
| > The company that owns Denon and Marantz may go out
| business this year.
|
| Oh man. I guess I better stock up on the latest Marantz
| before the go out of business. The last one I had was my
| dad's and it lasted 50 years. Actually, it still works, it
| just requires you to manually power it on.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Except the industry is nearly dead. Almost nobody is buying
| legitimate stereo systems anymore, and the ones that are out
| there (at almost any price) are mind-bogglingly incompetent.
| I'm shocked that Sonos is even a going concern at this point,
| although I suppose it is because of what I relate below.
|
| The home-audio market is consolidated into a tiny number of
| manufacturers masquerading under once-proud brands they
| bought. The crippling incompetence of the products themselves
| is depressing.
|
| A few years ago my Denon A/V receiver crapped out and I
| decided to go "upmarket" and get an NAD T758. I accept a bit
| of quirkiness from a smaller name, but "quirkiness" doesn't
| come close to describing the design and functionality defects
| that plagued this thing. Everything from baffling menu
| navigation (not kidding: Pressing Enter did not select a menu
| entry; you were supposed to use an arrow key) to the fact
| that it would only pass 720p video because it reported
| erroneous EDID info to HDMI devices. It didn't pass the info
| from the connected display device; it just provided its own
| EDID blob to everything, which reported a max resolution of
| 720p.
|
| The NAD also featured Dirac processing, which I shelled out
| for to get the full license and spent hours with a test mic
| profiling my room and speakers. Then... it would just lose
| the entire configuration. Deleted off the receiver. "We
| haven't been able to figure out why this happens," said NAD.
| In fact, in several years they never fixed a single one of
| the crippling defects I encountered and reported.
|
| But NAD isn't the only shitshow in town. Let me address the
| biggest impediment to whole-home audio (or even multi-zone
| audio): manufacturers' bizarre conceit that anyone can use
| secondary zones that only play ANALOG sources. The NAD was
| crippled by this stupidity, as is the top-of-the-line Pioneer
| I bought to replace it.
|
| In the case of the NAD, I addressed this defect by running
| RCA cables across the back of the receiver, from its preamp
| outputs to a CD-player input; and assigning that input to
| Zone 2. Why the hell didn't NAD just do that internally with
| a switch?
|
| On the Pioneer, it's actually worse. There ARE no preamp
| outputs. It has THREE zones, one of which I can tie to the
| main one but the third, yep, can only play analog sources.
|
| All I want to do is play the same shit on ALL MY SPEAKERS. My
| living-room ones, my patio ones, and my backyard ones. All I
| need is A, B, and C speaker switches. But NOPE. As far as I
| can tell, nobody makes this. Nobody addresses the 99% use
| case for multiple "zones." There are at least NINE AMPS in my
| receiver, but I can't play the same source on three pairs of
| speakers.
|
| BTW, I did build a patch bay with switches, to wire the
| secondary zone in parallel with the first... but this
| overloaded one pair of amps in the NAD and destroyed the
| entire receiver. Yep: NAD doesn't have a simple overload
| breaker. They just burn the entire amplifier board up; that's
| the breaker. Unfuckingbelievable.
|
| But back to the main issue: Who is seriously going to dick
| around trying to select sources and adjust volume to each
| zone (with what, by the way, an app?) on one receiver instead
| of simply buying a bookshelf system for every remote room you
| want to play music in? I sure as shit wouldn't, and I'm the
| kind of person who ran digital cables under my house to an
| equipment closet so I could have a proper surround setup in
| my living room. I have a projector and home-built screen, but
| even I would never bother with the stupid usage scenario
| Pioneer, NAD, and the two other makers envision:
|
| This scenario revolves around nonexistent people who are
| going to put on a RECORD or TAPE, then go to the other side
| of their house or down to their rec room for half an hour...
| and then come running back to the other side of the house to
| flip the record or tape over. WTF.
| 100pctremote wrote:
| The NAD downfall was so frustrating and sad to experience.
| Mine has been boxed and shelved in the garage for years
| now.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| They should just fold. I read in some other forum that
| they just cobble together crap that they source from
| numerous and variable providers, so one unit's guts can
| vary widely from the next.
|
| It's the absurd design defects that I will never excuse.
| I mean... incompetent MENUS? A modern receiver that
| doesn't support even HD video?
|
| My burned-out T758 is gathering dust in my office; I'm
| keeping it in hopes of using the chassis for a project
| case someday.
|
| I would replace my stupid Pioneer too if anyone made a
| stand-alone surround processor with preamp outputs. Then
| I'd get separate amplifiers and that would be that. But
| nobody makes such a processor, as far as I can tell.
| 100pctremote wrote:
| Yes. The entire platform -- hardware & software -- is
| just a mess. I bought an MDC phono module for my digital
| amp only to discover it wasn't supported by its firmware.
| I waited 18 months to be able to actually use it. I
| experienced the same non-persistent configuration problem
| you described and also very sketchy things like the power
| button simply not working. Unacceptable by any measure
| and at any price point as far as I'm concerned.
| vessenes wrote:
| Risking major flames here but .. my Sonos amps do this
| perfectly. Analog cable through the house, amps on eth in
| the media closet, it's is very very solid.
|
| Also I hate the new app with fiery passion
| theshrike79 wrote:
| I had a fancy separate stereo system with a HDMI switcher in
| the AV amp, well reviewed speakers I bought from a hi-fi
| enthusiast friend and all that.
|
| It was a massive pain to put out all the cables, adjust the
| system manually little by little (the setup mic kinda helped,
| but wasn't that good).
|
| Then I got a Sonos Beam and that set of "crap tiny speakers"
| with a fancy DSP brought so much more dimension to movies
| that it wasn't even funny. Upgraded to a Sub and it
| automatically offloaded those frequencies to it and the Beam
| got even better now that it didn't have to cosplay a
| subwoofer.
|
| For setup all I had to do was walk around the space and wave
| my phone around and the difference was clearly audible even
| to my non-discerning ears.
|
| Later I upgraded to an Arc + got two rears and everything got
| a lot better.
|
| The v2 app is utter crap, I haven't had to use it for
| anything else than Trueplay adjustment when we moved a while
| ago. The v1 let me debug what the soundbar was receiving (my
| TV was sending data in the wrong format and I was just
| getting fancy stereo instead of Dolby Atmos). V2 doesn't have
| any power user features at all.
|
| I'm not going back to a wired setup with a separate amp
| unless I get a dedicated theater room I can sound proof and
| manage the acoustics. I _am_ considering switching to a brand
| that doesn't need an app to setup, but it's slim pickings in
| the upper tier of soundbars.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Similar to you I had lugged my 7.1 speakers and amp and
| wires around to every address I've had in 20 years. For the
| current house I had enough and put a HomePod in every room
| and top tier Samsung bar + satellites + sub. It's not as
| good at dimensions as discrete speakers but now I have
| reflected Atmos Waves off the ceiling and setup was super
| easy. I had to use the app one time to calibrate but I
| already had it since I have a Washing machine it connects
| to.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| First of all "Even Apple" implies Apple is particularly bad, in
| fact it is one of the better ones in supporting older usecases
| and devices. But even then x86 to Apple silicon is not the
| roughest by far.
|
| For me, it is the removal of x86-32 bit software support. The
| removal wasn't needed at all and broke all the steam games.
| hmottestad wrote:
| I assumed it was part of the migration plan to Apple silicon.
| Rosetta 2 makes x86 apps work on Apple silicon, but I had
| assumed that Apple could only really get 64-bit x86 apps
| working smoothly and that's why they removed 32-bit support a
| few years earlier.
| dagmx wrote:
| Rosetta supports 32 bit apps. I've read conjecture on here
| that the removal of 32 bit was due to unresolvable pointer
| security issues on their 32 bit SDK, which was different
| than how its done with their 64 bit system.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| I mean, the week the iPhone X came out, they put out an
| irreversible update for the iPhone 7 that made it unusable.
| They also tried to charge me 2,300$ to fix just one broken
| keyboard key. Apple is definitely that bad.
| hmottestad wrote:
| I tried to search for info about an update that broke iPhone
| 7 phones. Couldn't find anything. Can you point me to some
| more info?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It never happened. I used a 6 and a 6S Plus, fully updated,
| for many years after my I got my wife an XS. Not that it
| proves nothing happened to the 7 the year before the XS
| came out, but,
|
| A) it would have been huge news if Apple bricked all iPhone
| 7, and
|
| B) it makes no sense to brick iPhone 7, but not the ones
| before it.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Yeah I used my original SE until iOS 16 came out
| (actually until last year) and it was never bricked.
| schappim wrote:
| > throw it all in the trash and start over
|
| People will think what you're saying is hyperbole; however, I
| was on a walk with the family, and I saw a Sonos speaker in the
| trash. It looked like new and a fairly recent model. I lugged
| it home, and it was a $US500 Sonos Play:5 speaker system [1].
|
| Once home, I plugged it in, and it powered up.
|
| I tried to pair it with my iPhone using the new Sonos app, and
| it didn't work (the app never found the speaker).
|
| I then tried the same again using my development Android
| device, and it instantly worked!
|
| Once it was set up with the Android app, I could access it via
| the iPhone version of the app.
|
| I can only imagine some iPhone owner literally threw it in the
| trash because he couldn't get the iOS app to work. Bonkers...
|
| [1] https://files.littlebird.com.au/pb-BfEVPbWlDe-hkxfK0.png
| aksss wrote:
| EEVBlog had a video about mod'ing a dumpster-found Sonos Play
| 5 into a cloud-free working system.
|
| EDIT: Whoops, here's the link:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeIk-4ItQ70
|
| They (Sonos) basically willfully attempted to brick their
| consumer devices, and since many sonos customers were
| prosumer enthusiasts but not technical (hw or sw) it really
| did signal EOL for the products. Bananas. I still have a my
| Play1/3/5 infrastructure operating through Home Assistant and
| AirBridge that turns them into Airplay devices. It's not
| perfect but still gives them utility. Considering how much
| they f'n cost..
| schappim wrote:
| Perfect! It turns out this was a Sonos Play 5 too[1],
| although mine is seems to be a newer Model S100!
|
| Funnily enough, I own an electronics company and Dave is
| just down the road :-)
|
| [1] https://files.littlebird.com.au/pb-BfEVPbWlDe-
| hkxfK0.png
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Do you have details on that? How and why was that necessary?
| sorenjan wrote:
| > Sonos has a good reputation for building quality speakers,
| but its latest move has disappointed some buyers. Recently,
| the company offered a trade-up program, giving legacy
| customers 30 percent off the latest One, Beam or Port. In
| exchange, buyers just had to "recycle" their existing
| products. However, what Sonos meant by "recycle" was to
| activate a feature called "Recycle Mode" that permanently
| bricks the speaker. It then becomes impossible for recycling
| firms to resell it or do anything else but strip it for
| parts.
|
| > Sonos suggests that after bricking the device in Recycle
| Mode, users drop it off at a recycling facility or give it to
| Sonos to do the same.
|
| https://www.engadget.com/2019-12-31-sonos-recycle-mode-
| expla...
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| That truly lives up to the term "outrage."
| isatty wrote:
| At the risk of defending a megacorp: Apple has always been
| great about supporting their devices for a long time.
| mandibles wrote:
| Are there any projects working on open protocols for digital
| audio distribution? Any chance manufacturers opt into open
| protocols?
| ssl-3 wrote:
| 2 out of 3 of my Sonos devices were rendered useless by their
| policies. One day they were functional and working, and the
| next day they were not. One of these was a fancy, very
| expensive jog-wheel remote that I rather liked (every one of
| these in use all got absolutely bricked, deliberately, in a
| bullshit move), and the other was a Sonos Bridge (a wireless
| access point) that they didn't deem worthy of working with new
| software (even though that was also bullshit).
|
| The remaining device has mechanical issues (as old speakers
| sometimes do). This one is disappointing, but at least it isn't
| irrational.
| cibyr wrote:
| If the new app is such a disaster, why can't they just re-release
| the old one?
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| IIRC seem to recall they changed the infra and software on the
| devices and it just wasn't possible.... take that marketing
| messaging as you will.
| brycethornton wrote:
| Yeah, I believe the firmware on all compatible devices was
| auto-updated to the new architecture and apparently they
| can't go back to the old firmware for some reason. What a
| mess.
| runxel wrote:
| It's the story of good hardware but bad software all over again.
| I always wondered why except for Apple nobody gets this right. I
| know, it's somewhat totally different, but man, it surely can't
| be that hard (especially not effing 30 million bucks hard).
|
| Luckily I only use my Sonos IKEA lamp only with Air Play, but the
| few times I have to use their app? Bonkers. Absolutely trash.
| mandibles wrote:
| Most hardware shops don't understand that the software is also
| the product.
| duskwuff wrote:
| See also: automotive manufacturers. (They're slowly figuring
| it out, but it's taken a long time.)
| niek_pas wrote:
| Can someone explain to me what kind of bugfixes cost between $20
| and $30 million to fix?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Bugs for systems with piss poor documentation, testing, and
| build infrastructure. If you've done even a halfway decent job
| in those three categories, then it's very hard to have such
| expensive system maintenance/sustainment activities unless it's
| a very large system.
| hbarka wrote:
| My Sonos app experience is probably the worst of any smart
| devices I've owned. Dropped connections, unable to connect or
| stream, just all-around inconsistencies. Great speaker when it's
| hardwired but the "smart" app is bad. Why did it take years for
| the chickens to come home to roost?
| yurishimo wrote:
| Well, it didn't used to be bad. OG Sonos was awesome. If the
| ceo kept leading investors on with "just one more quarter/we
| are almost ready to launch the big fixes/etc" then I can
| understand why it took so long. AFAIK this is the first ceo
| that Sonos has ever ousted so I think it's a pretty big deal.
|
| Hoping the new one will have more foresight to not screw over
| existing customers in the face of the new shiny.
|
| In other news, I hear Framework is looking to get into other
| hardware niches... if they ever made a networked speaker, I'd
| buy it.
| ryanianian wrote:
| FWIW there are several third-party mobile applications that
| work just fine to operate Sonos equipment.
|
| The speakers expose a few SOAP-based APIs to any clients on the
| LAN. Those allow for track control, grouping, etc. They don't
| allow adding new music services, but they can do the vast
| majority of daily interaction. These APIs continue to work
| nearly flawlessly even for my Play:1 devices that are 10 years
| old.
|
| Streaming via AirPlay is indeed hit-or-miss, but it hasn't
| gotten worse in the past couple years.
|
| I control my Sonos from a jQuery-based web application I wrote
| nearly 10 years ago that runs on a raspberry pi in my closet. I
| have not had to change anything in several years, and I use my
| 15+device Sonos system all the time.
|
| The new app is indeed a dumpster fire. Somehow the company
| managed to make their first-party application worse than any of
| the third-party applications.
| mandibles wrote:
| Any links to good third-party apps?
| fidotron wrote:
| I've been using Sonophone on iOS since all this kicked off.
| Not great, but it works. (For me Sonos breaking NAS media
| server support was killer, and Sonophone can handle it).
|
| Had this not happened sledgehammers would have been going
| through speakers.
|
| I would still prefer they rolled back to the old app, or
| made it as an optional re-release.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is Sonos sucking vs bluetooth just
| being an absolutely terrible connection protocol. it's always a
| raindance prayer that bluetooth will work, even harder to have
| it pair. bluetooth makes printers seem like NASA level quality
| software.
| Darkskiez wrote:
| Only the newest sonos speakers have bluetooth, the problems
| with Sonos are nothing to do with it.
| https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-happened-sonos-app-
| techn... has a good write up.
| feyman_r wrote:
| Most of my Sonos speakers and soundbars worked before the app
| update and right after, all that became unreliable, across
| devices.
|
| I'd say that leads me to believe it's an app issue versus
| just Bluetooth. Agree that BT by itself has a reputation to
| match, but in this case Sonos is to blame. The other apps
| recommended in the post work well.
| notatoad wrote:
| >Why did it take years for the chickens to come home to roost?
|
| because the problem with sonos is that they're actually really
| really good. dollar for dollar, it's some of the best sound
| quality you can find for home audio, and it doesn't require a
| month of product research to figure it out. it's easily
| available in most big-box stores, and unlike some other brands
| they don't have a shit-tier line of products that look
| indistinguishable from their good stuff so you have to be
| cautious as a consumer to buy only the good stuff. if you go to
| best buy and spend $500 on sonos products, you're going to get
| your moneys worth.
|
| it's too bad their app sucks, because their hardware doesn't.
| newprint wrote:
| Ah, the app to connect to your Sonos speakers, but wants all the
| permissions from your phone, incl. your geo-location, otherwise
| it will not work.
| wmf wrote:
| Every app that uses Bluetooth needs location permission AFAIK.
| It's unfortunate.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683753
| jamesy0ung wrote:
| I hate these stupid 'smart' devices. Personally, I just have some
| decent quality speakers hooked up to an good quality old school
| amp with an AirPort Express feeding into the line in.
| cheeze wrote:
| I do this with WiiM. For me, the biggest thing is that I have
| speakers that are >20 years old that still work perfectly. Why
| replace what already works well?
|
| I looked at the Sonos ecosystem for this, but their non-speaker
| devices are absurdly priced. The network audio streamer is 449
| and the amp is 699. WiiM amps are either 299 or 379 and their
| network streamer ranges from 149 to 329. I have a few of the
| network streamers which were 149. They connect into my
| receiver, into an old amp I have, etc. and work perfectly.
| flyingzucchini wrote:
| Spence apparently was ex BlackBerry. Hmmm.
| Ringz wrote:
| I, like an idiot, sold my Onkyo Integra amplifier, radio tuner,
| tape deck, Canton and KEF speakers for next to nothing and
| switched to Sonos. I deeply regret it. In my kitchen, there's an
| old Grundig radio and a Sonos speaker. Guess which one gets
| turned on in the morning and evening during meals?
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| now if only I could find someone making a similarly bad
| decision. I've been looking to upgrade to a midrange KEF stereo
| pair. :)
| mitjam wrote:
| Canton speakers are legendary, I wish I had the money back
| then. A good friend of mine still has his and won't give them
| away for any new smart speaker.
| yalogin wrote:
| TIL. I am actually considering moving to Sonos and this got me
| rethinking. Sonos is what came up as the reliable option for
| wireless speaker systems. I am not an audiophile and so don't
| care too much about fidelity. Ease of use is the main
| functionality for me, and Sonos came up as the best option. I
| will wait for a bit to see how things pan out before deciding.
| eawgewag wrote:
| I've owned Sonos for 10+ years, and I would not consider their
| products easy to use. They cater to a very specific use case
| (homeowners with distinct closed door spaces, 100% investment
| in their ecosystem, low interop outside of the ecosystem
| including with other Music streaming systems) and if you fit
| that narrow mold, you will have a great time. But if you don't,
| you will find yourself with a lot of overpriced equipment for
| what it is.
|
| In the 10 years I've owned them, I've used the app less than 10
| total times. I much rather prefer just using them as an over
| priced surround system and use my Playstation to play music
| through the TV/sonos.
| silisili wrote:
| I've never owned Sonos, but I have owned and researched a lot
| of wireless routers and generally active on their forums.
| Across them all, it seems like tons of topics of people
| constantly complaining about Sonos connectivity and blaming the
| routers.
|
| I don't know what makes them different, or if they are just
| that popular that I'm seeing the noise, but it's something that
| I'd personally dig into more before investing.
| fnordlord wrote:
| I wouldn't recommend either. I bought into the ecosystem around
| 10 years ago because I had just gotten my first real job and
| wanted to treat myself to some nice stuff. I got the Play:5 and
| then the sound bar and subwoofer soon after. Then, like two
| years later, everything I bought became 2nd class citizens. I
| have use Legacy apps that are just barely working. It sucks.
|
| It was super cool when it all worked but if it took them this
| long to get rid of that CEO, then I don't seem them turning
| around at any point soon.
| cheeze wrote:
| I'm a big fan of WiiM for a more affordable alternative (for
| some). I'm not an audiophile, but have a handful of passive
| speakers around the house and I hook up a wiim amp or a wiim
| 'streamer' (forget the name) to my existing amp/receiver setup.
| Works great for me. WHA works well, although I never use it.
|
| For me, the major thing that matters is that I can see a device
| in spotifys device list and can play to that device. Similarly,
| it needs to be zero setup for anyone else on my wifi network
| (wife, kids, friends). WiiM covers that perfectly.
|
| Granted, there is some work there if you don't already have
| speakers. I personally think Spotify is a great product. I just
| don't want my speakers running an operating system. I have
| speakers as old as 25 years that work perfectly with the WiiM.
| No point in adding additional tech in a speaker that works
| perfectly as-is. My biggest worry (which Spotify has been
| pretty good about) is that the speakers work over WiFi and at
| some point, will be sunsetted. Maybe not within the next few
| years, but I don't have much faith that a Sonos system will
| work well in 10-15 years.
| champdebloom wrote:
| I've been using Kef LSX II and their KC62 Sub for the past year
| and I love the sound and convenience. Sonos came up as a
| frequent alternative, but I preferred the look and sound of the
| Kefs.
|
| I only have them in one room, so I can't comment on multi-room
| audio.
| nycticorax wrote:
| I have a Sonos system at home, have for years. (I currently
| have to use the "Sonos S1" app because I have one older device
| that is not supported by the new app.) It sounds good (to me)
| when everything is working, but honestly the reliability has
| never been that great. After first buying it, I eventually
| learned that you _really_ want to buy one of their 'hubs' (the
| one I have is the Sonos Boost) and have that plugged into your
| wired ethernet network. Otherwise, at least in my hands, things
| just don't work very reliably. (You can also, I am told, plug a
| single speaker into your wired network and achieve much the
| same effect, but for reasons it was easier for me to buy the
| Boost.) But even now when you select a new song/album/playlist,
| it seems to take a weirdly long time for it to start playing
| and have the album art show up on the phone, and sometimes it
| just fails and you have to try again (the 2nd time almost
| always works, FWIW). But it is really nice to have decent-
| sounding on-demand music throughout your home at the touch of a
| (few) button(s). I hear that bluOS and HEOS are decent
| alternatives, but they don't seem to be as popular as Sonos,
| and I've never seen a convincing demonstration that they would
| work better for me. And of cource there's the lock-in factor:
| Replacing all my Sonos equipment would be pricey at this point.
| I used to get really mad about lack of cross-manufacturer
| interop when I was younger and poorer, but nowadays I'm willing
| to stomach it if it means that stuff just works. But it's
| continually irksome that equipment at these prices isn't 100%
| glitch-free.
| eitally wrote:
| For a use like you describe, I'm currently accomplishing that
| with a mix of various Google/Nest speakers & screens
| throughout the house, arranged into a few different groups.
| What would make Sonos a better option?
| javier2 wrote:
| I got a bluOS device just as a networked amped for my 25 year
| old speakers. But honestly its too much of a hassle to switch
| inputs. The price wasnt too bad, but I basically use it as a
| dumb amp with digital audio input from the tv. At least the
| amp fits under my tv.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I've got the Arc soundbar and subwoofer one year ago to save
| space by replacing my more typical 3.1 setup with receiver,
| sub, and bookshelf speakers.
|
| I'm happy with the form factor, audio quality, and overall TV
| experience, and I honestly haven't used the app enough to even
| notice if there was a big update.
|
| That said, I haven't used any Sonos multi-room functionality.
| But I have noticed weird gaps in functionality with the Arc's
| Amazon Alexa integration. The Arc doesn't support moving audio
| to it from other Alexa speakers, or vice versa. I have to
| imagine they deliberately disabled this, as if I'm going to
| replace all my Alexa devices just to get Sonos multi-room audio
| working!
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Why even bother? Just get a $100 bookshelf system anywhere that
| you need music.
| quirkot wrote:
| That app update screwed me up for weeks. Feeling that sweet sweet
| vindication right now
| limitedfrom wrote:
| Glad to be using the Sonos speakers as just AirPlay 2 speakers.
| No issues, no app to deal with (never even opened them past
| setup), perfectly synchronized with non-Sonos AirPlay speakers as
| well.
| rconti wrote:
| "Perfectly synchronized?" I airplay to 6 sonos speakers using
| airplay2 (not grouping in the app) multiple times a day, and I
| can practically predict what will happen if I try to add
| speakers too quickly, or too slowly. You'll add 2, then a 3rd,
| then you'll notice one isn't actually playing, and when you add
| the 4th, all the rest drop out, and you get to re-add them
| again. It's such a chore to keep a multi-speaker airplay setup
| working right.
|
| A lot of this could be solved if Apple put some basic
| engineering effort into the airplay UI, such as adding aliased
| groups. Every time I want to play to my effing speakers it's a
| 60 second ordeal.
|
| Sometimes the little banner pops up from the top of the screen
| helpfully letting me to play to all of the speakers like I was
| before. Other times it not-so-helpfully suggests just playing
| to ONE speaker for some incomprehensible reason.
|
| Still other times, the banner covers what I'm trying to see,
| and swiping it away seems to activate airplay even when I don't
| want to.
| limitedfrom wrote:
| Unfortunate that's your experience. Personally, at least with
| my 3-4 speaker setup (multiple Sonos and 2nd gen AirPort
| Express feeding non-Sonos speakers), I've never really had
| issues (maybe out of sync once or twice a year). Your mileage
| may vary I guess.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| The app is so bad that I'm about chuck three Sonos Ones in the
| trash (metaphorically) and replace them with HomePod Minis or
| whatever--and I would certainly never go back to Sonos products
| after that. Huge failure. The CEO should've been dumped months
| ago.
| eximius wrote:
| It has been bizarre watching this debacle from the sidelines. I
| must have bought just on the recent side of whatever demarcation
| of problems are being complained about.
|
| My app works fine. My speakers work fine. The worst problem we
| have is rarely the music pauses, we're unsure why, and we just
| hit play again.
|
| I'm wondering if there is some functionality I am not aware I'm
| missing or if it is limited to older models that I am simply not
| experiencing the problems with?
| cheeze wrote:
| Do you use the Sonos app itself? Most of my friends with Sonos
| just use Spotify/Apple music and skip the Sonos app altogether.
| It sounds like the app update was pretty horrible though - no
| ability to even _queue music_. But easily sidestepped by just
| using Spotify.
| supernovae wrote:
| I spent truckloads of money on home theater and audio systems
| and have been quite happy with my Sonos.
|
| I have the Sub, The original big play bar and some 1s and I
| have a record player that plays to sonos and then upstairs I
| have an Arc.
|
| I've probably got 10 years on this system now and couldn't be
| happier. I remember having to replace my receivers 2-3 times in
| a 10 year time frame from failed circuits to needing HDMI to
| needing a newer HDMI and all that jazz.
|
| My play bar has just been optical out from the TV and it's
| supported 5.1 audio realy well.
|
| I use the spotify play direct. I'm not a huge fan of the newer
| app and I wasn't impressed with them EOL'ing products.
|
| With that said, it's been wife and kid approved. Everyone in
| the house knows how to use it and its been problem free. No
| wires for my cat to chew on.
| hilti wrote:
| I'm extremely happy about my 50 year old WEGA speakers that sound
| way better than any Homepod or Sonos that I had before. And I
| paid $90 for the used LB3541.
| rmm wrote:
| I never really use the app other than when building system which
| was hit or miss. But pleas make it work accross vlans without
| having to run seperate services to handle it!
| gregwebs wrote:
| Sonos couples the digital music selection to the sound system,
| trapping you in an ecosystem that can then brick your devices.
| The Wiim Pro is a great digital receiver that you can hook up to
| any sound system. Use Spotify or whatever you want for digital
| music selection.
| dguido wrote:
| Please stop putting salespeople in charge of highly technical
| product companies like Sonos. I'm so glad that Tom Conrad is an
| engineer by training. I hope he can turn this mess around.
|
| The key technical change that broke Sonos was abandoning their
| reliable UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) system for device
| discovery in favor of mDNS, while also shifting from direct
| device communication to a cloud-based API approach. This new
| architecture made all network traffic encrypted and routed
| through Sonos cloud servers (even for local operations), adding
| significant overhead and latency, especially for older Sonos
| devices with limited processing power. They also switched from
| native platform-specific UX frameworks to a JavaScript-based
| interface while moving music service interactions through their
| cloud instead of direct SMAPI calls, resulting in slower
| performance and reduced functionality.
|
| For a more extended discussion, see this excellent LinkedIn post
| from Andy Pennell, a principal engineer at Microsoft with a deep
| technical understanding of Sonos systems. He created one of the
| most successful third-party Sonos apps for Windows Phone and
| worked directly with Sonos on their official Windows Phone 8 app.
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-happened-sonos-app-techn...
| stuff4ben wrote:
| It's not like the salesy-CEO was writing the code, there was
| still a bunch of engineers who said "hey this sounds like a
| great idea". Personally I want my CEOs to be on the sales side,
| make more money for the company. That being said you best have
| a good CTO/CIO that aren't sales-oriented.
| rachofsunshine wrote:
| One imagines a lot of the engineers going "yay!" are just
| people who want to have a job tomorrow.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Our company makes B2B for a rather technical niche.
|
| We got a sales-oriented CEO who knows when to listen to us
| developers. It has worked very well for our company.
|
| Being more sales-oriented he's found good business models and
| knows our customers well, and hence what our products are
| worth to our clients so we're not selling our products too
| cheap. This was the case before he took over from a more
| technical CEO.
|
| While a CEO with an engineer background can certainly do well
| too, I think it's probably easier to find a good sales-based
| CEO that simply knows when to listen to their technical team.
| At least in theory...
| harrall wrote:
| Bruh an engineer probably suggested those changes.
|
| You think a salesperson is suggesting mDNS and frameworks?
| Glawen wrote:
| Yep, it is definitely an engineer behind this, wanting to
| show off.
|
| My job now is to deal with the aftermath of failed design
| choices at my company. It only took a couple of guys to
| impose their deluded design, because noone stood up to call
| their bullshit.
| rootedbox wrote:
| The salesperson had no idea what mDNS or the frameworks was..
| and rubber stamped it.
| jedberg wrote:
| I don't think having a sales person in charge was the problem.
|
| The problem is the fundamental disconnect between what's good
| for users and what's good for the company. The company wants
| you to have to pay them money every month and control how you
| interact with the product, so that they can be a services
| company with recurring revenue.
|
| The consumer wants a device that they buy once and it just
| works.
| observationist wrote:
| Engineers are in a better position to understand what the
| customer wants and needs. Salespeople are there to sell their
| product, and fundamentally don't need to understand what the
| customer wants, or needs.
|
| Give a good salesperson a handwavy outline of something to
| sell, and they will sell it. They don't need technical
| accuracy for success. Yes, this is bad for customers, and
| makes life harder, and results in ridiculous,
| counterproductive, infuriating situations for IT staff,
| engineers, and other people who have to deal with the
| technical realities of every day business.
|
| A salesperson can just mash psychological buttons in
| manager's brains, and they'll make the sale. The consumer, in
| enterprise level markets, is hardly ever the team or
| individual in charge of operating the technology. The
| consumer is the manager, or managerial team, looking to check
| boxes and shuffle numbers and spend $X on Y department, for
| which they get rewarded for a wide array of arbitrary
| outcomes, almost none of which have anything to do with the
| practical impact of the product in question on the people who
| end up most affected by the purchase.
|
| If an engineer with a solid understanding of the product
| being sold is in charge, he's in the best place to rein in
| the sales and marketing teams, and to direct development
| based on customer reality. This probably results in lower
| profits, overall, but a better product, and a better
| reputation in the long run.
| redserk wrote:
| Not sure if I agree with an engineer inherently being
| better here.
|
| The ideal case is having leadership who uses the product,
| or at least is willing to walk in the shoes of an end-user.
| Plenty of engineers do not do this either.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > abandoning their reliable UPnP (Universal Plug and Play)
| system for device discovery in favor of mDNS
|
| I don't know about that part. UPnP is exactly the HTTP-abusing
| XML-laden layer-spanning horrorshow you expect from 2000s
| Microsoft where it was mainly supported, mDNS is a fairly
| compact and neat set of independent extensions to preexisting
| Internet protocols born during Apple's short period of flirting
| with open standards. In a greenfield project, you'd need to
| show me some really impressive tooling to make me choose UPnP,
| because five minutes with the specs are enough to tell
| implementing or debugging the thing is going to be a nightmare.
|
| (No experience with Sonos or their implementation of either.)
| stephen_g wrote:
| I had the same reaction, all the other parts of the parent
| comment sound bad but switching to mDNS seems like the one
| that should have been an improvement or at least neutral...
| swatcoder wrote:
| Their original technical challenges were not only solved, but
| increasingly on track to become a commodity that customers
| could more or less find in everything from cheap white label
| imports to high-end products from much larger and more moneyed
| companies.
|
| For better or worse (worse), their only path forward was
| through business innovation (new revenue streams, well-
| negotiated parterships, etc)
|
| The problem wasn't that they had a sales type driving that
| effort, but that they just completely fumbled the engineering
| work meant to support it, and then _also_ completely fumbled
| the release of that work, and then _also_ fumbled the brand
| repair afterwards.
|
| You can easily have a sales-track CEO oversee a technology
| company that avoids those fumbles. Apparently just not this
| one.
| knowitnone wrote:
| he still got paid millions just for the title CEO
| jmyeet wrote:
| I used to be a fan of Sonos and bought one of their speakers. The
| state of speakers to play music is actually pretty sad now:
| you're basically relegated to Sonos or a smart speaker (which I
| do not want).
|
| I believe my (rather old) Sonos is now not supported and there's
| really no reason for that. It's such a Google move (eg earlier
| Nests aren't Matter-compatible for really no reason).
|
| Even when I was using it, there were basic issues that plague
| most network-connected devices: they're usually really bad with
| dealing with transient network issues. Like if my Internet
| hiccups, I don't want the Internet radio station I'm playing to
| stop and have to be manually restarted.
|
| Also, Sonos insists (or it did when I last looked into it) of
| creating it's own 2.4GHz mesh network. There was really no way of
| forcing it to use your existing network. You could kind of turn
| off the internal mesh network and force it to use Ethernet but
| not entirely.
|
| As a user, I want to play my Spotify or Apple Music and have that
| synced across multiple speakers. That's the real value
| proposition of something like Sonos. It shouldn't be that hard.
| Particularly with music, you get fetch the whole song. There's
| really no reason for a network interruption at all.
|
| I don't necessarily want to use a dedicated app either. I want to
| treat my Sonos as just another output choice on Spotify like
| headphones or a Bluetooth speaker.
|
| Fault tolerance and ease of setup is what something like Sonos
| should be about. And that's hard because you have to deal with a
| long-tail of issues like packet loss, token expiry with third-
| party providers and so on.
|
| I have no idea what Sonos have been doing isntead.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| Outside of initially setting up my Sonos speakers, I never
| venture into their app. I happily stream via Airplay2 from my
| iPhone or iPad. Everything has been working just great on my
| stereo-paired Sonos Ones in my den, a separate Sonos One in the
| kitchen, and a Sonos Era 300 paired to a Sonos Sub mini in my
| living room. No complaints here and if anyone is thinking about
| throwing theirs away, I'll gladly take them off your hands for
| free.
| aljgz wrote:
| I got a sonos device as my welcome gift to my previous company.
| It's good that I can just simply stream spotify to it, but:
|
| 1- I don't like the sound processing. I mean, I understand that
| for most folks it's great, but they don't even come close to my
| Genelec setup. So I mostly use it to listen to podcasts, but for
| serious music/movies, I only use proper high fidelity sound setup
|
| 2- I don't like the all or nothing approach: if I don't like my
| current audio streaming setup, I can keep the speakers and the
| subwoofer, and just get new electronics. But with Sonos, I have
| to throw everything out.
|
| A hardware company should not be able to brick products that can
| "in principle" work for a ling time.
| petepete wrote:
| Fingers crossed we get RSTP support soon. It's only been out 25
| years.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| The combination of must use an app, the app mostly doesn't work,
| the speaker needs factory reset frequently makes it a paperweight
| on the way towards electronics recycling.
|
| Firing the CEO seems good but insufficient. Liquidate the
| company, use the assets to try to offset the environmental damage
| done by the mass manufacture of e-waste. Or I suppose fix the
| software stack to bring the speakers back to usefulness, perhaps
| by throwing away everything done for the last few years in reset
| --hard fashion.
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