When setting up My Sonos home theater system was having a persistent problem. I was trying to add a Sonos wireless subwoofer to my network, but according to the Sonos mobile app, the subwoofer was nowhere to be found. The app would either throw up a “Failed to connect” message, or even weirder, show me that I was trying to connect a gray box labeled “product” and a serial number that had nothing to do with anything.
“I thought the smart home was meant to make your life easier. easier“my husband commented softly, as he watched me factory reset the Sub several times, turn my phone on and off again, toggle Bluetooth on and off, switch phones, and finally bang my head against a wall and cry before calling Sonos support.
As we all know, I’m not the only one having issues with the new Sonos app; the company released a radical redesign in May that broke a number of key features, such as the ability to change the volume on some of its speaker systems, angering countless long-time Sonos fans.
Today, more than two months after the controversial redesign, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence finally acknowledged widespread customer disappointment in a lengthy note posted on the company’s website. Instagram account“Since launch we have had a number of issues,” he wrote in a hilarious tone of wry British understatement. Spence apologized for the frustration the update caused and noted that fixing the broken app remains Sonos’ “number one priority.”
The publication refers customers to the detailed list of Sonos Software Updates that have already been published and sets a roadmap for future improvements to the troubled app. Here are some of the issues Sonos promises to fix in the coming months:
- Implementation of music library configuration, browsing, searching and playback (in July and August)
- Improved volume responsiveness (in August)
- Improved alarm consistency and reliability (in September)
- Restore edit mode for playlists (in September and October)
That’s a short list, and perhaps too short. The number of improvements the company needs to implement is — there’s no point beating around the bush — absurd. I’m hard-pressed to think of an app update fiasco big enough to compare to this one, because in my experience as a consumer technology journalist and editor, I can’t think of another software update that has taken away users’ ability to control the volume.
Other than that, I can’t think of another update that took away users’ ability to control volume and then… I didn’t fix it immediatelyFor months! I reached out to Sonos to ask why Spence’s deadline for fixes is so long. The company has yet to respond.
It’s worth mentioning here that Sonos hardware remains the gold standard in the world of premium consumer audio. My colleague Parker Hall refers to the Era 100 as the new standard for smart speakers; the Ace wireless headphones earned an 8/10 and a WIRED Recommends badge. When I finally got my Sonos home theater system up and running, I was blown away by the richness and depth of the jungle noises on the system. Land of evil. (Bomb, explosion!)
And yet, this feeling of frustration and disappointment feels eerily familiar. My family used to only have Sonos speakers, and there were Play speakers all over the house, even in my husband’s workshop. I stopped using the Play system in 2020 because I could no longer stand the company’s decision to split the control software into two separate Sonos apps, one for the new speakers and one for the old ones. Why do I have to do mental math to remember which app controls which speaker every time I want to change the music?
Yet here I am again, held hostage by hardware, stranded by software, unable to edit my Sonos playlists until September. Maybe I’m just another beautiful, silly dreamer. At least my Roku TV still works.