Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch | Hacker News Reader

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

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86 pointsmkmk148 comments

Patrick destroyed a successful company, and will be receiving millions of dollars on exit. His current replacement was an executive at the failed Quibi service.

Nothing in tech will improve until there are actual consequences for people like this. Serial failures just hop from job to job. ruining products and lives along the way.

Tom Conrad didn’t have anything to do with Quibi’s failure. The app was actually pretty cool. That was a bad business model which a good product couldn’t fix.

He’s a product guy going back to being CTO at Pandora. He seems like a pretty good interim choice all things considered.

Apparently he has a tattoo of Sonos headphones on his left forearm.

It had an unusually high minimum version number, which I calculated at the time meant that 10% of US phones and tablets in use at the time couldn't run it. When you've already limited your maximum possible user base to only that market, 10% makes big difference.

I replied the same thing in another thread, but Patrick was at Sonos for 12 years, and 14 years at RIM before that, so he doesn't really fit the MO of a "bouncer."

I think his point is that he can likely find a job elsewhere even after this.

That he receive a golden parachute is cringe worthy.

We don't really structure business law to allow for the appropriate amount of risk. The whole point of incorporation is to limit liability and shift what remains off of individuals at the company.

If you try to change this, you'll hear screeching about how there's just too much risk and the "job creators" will just take their capital and ideas to more business-friendly legal climes.

Eh, even keeping the mechanism of limited-liability-corporations around, some would say boards aren't representing shareholders' interests effectively.

It's one thing for shareholders to say if under the CEO's leadership, the company's value rises by 100 million dollars, they'll give him a $10 million bonus. I can see how a board could approve that - it's a lot of money, but it's linked to performance.

But should they also say that if the company's value falls by 100 million dollars, and they decide to fire the CEO, they'll give him a $2 million bonus? How is it in shareholders' interests to reward bad performance?

One reason that CEOs get good severance packages is to entice them to leave other successful companies. If they are doing well at those other companies, are well liked by the board, and can reasonably expect to make a lot of money, why should they leave that safe, lucrative situation to come to your company, where there's a higher risk of failure or of falling out with the board? Enter the severance package. It guarantees the incoming execs a minimum payout that's large enough to entice them to give up what they'd expect to safely earn by staying where they are.

That's a great explanation for signing bonuses.

Doesn't do much to explain severance packages though?

Unless the board wants to give a signing bonus, but the amount is so egregious the shareholders would riot, so they need to do it by stealth.

Severance packages are usually negotiated from a position of power. You want me? Great, I'd like a 2M golden parachute.

If everyone they interview agrees to play the same game (and they do), it becomes a "necessity to attract top talent".

Yes, if you're an executive being lured away from your current position, both signing bonuses and severance packages will serve as insurance against your new position not working out. But, if you're on the board that's trying to lure an executive away, you should prefer severance packages to offer this insurance because you don't have to pay out until the relationship falls apart, and if you've chosen your new executive well, the relationship won't fall apart.

Boards will sometimes write a severance package into a CEO's contract with an eye towards a possible future sale. When the company is acquired, the CEO will most likely lose their job. The Board thus wants to ensure that the CEO doesn't have a financial incentive to block a sale. A good severance package can increase shareholder value. (This is just a comment about severance packages in general, I have no idea what happened at Sonos.)

What is the "appropriate amount of risk"? Please be specific. How do you quantify that? Should politicians decide that rather than shareholders, Board members, and management?

If I could answer that question to everyone's satisfaction, I'm not some rando on the internet.

But the justification for a lot of the incentives we give capital is "they shoulder all of the risk", and when your risk is walking away with a severance package that is often many multiples of the median lifetime earnings of the American male, you aren't really dealing with any real risk.

Tom who is stepping in is an awesome executive. He was OG Pandora and Snap before Quibi and was on the Sonos board. He's a true product person. I'm sure he was enjoying semi-retirement and see him dropping in as CEO is a huge upgrade. :-)

It's not just the people at the top. It's totally normal and acceptable to release software that doesn't work. I can count the number of times that I couldn't complete a transaction in a physical store on one hand, but I regularly can't accomplish what I want on a web page or mobile interface because the software straight-up doesn't work.

This relevant XKCD is right on point: https://xkcd.com/2030/

The problem may have come from the top down, but now it's endemic to the entire industry, and in any large company no one, at any level, can make anything stable and reliable without completely failing at whatever metrics the company is using.

I think a large part of that is management-centric software design philosophies that push constant output and metrics over good software.

For example, Agile's four values could be read in a way that supports good software development, but in practice they are effectively asking for: prioritizing appearance and metrics, releases that are undocumented proofs of concept, sales-department directed capabilities, and feature creep.

It's so counter to the development of working software that the only explanation is that one of the signatories of the Agile Manifesto had stated: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer."

You blame Agile?

Agile is just an example. Management strategies in general are based on gaming metrics that benefit management and sales departments, at the cost of customers and developers.

Even more problematic are the invisible hordes of risk averse middle managers.

My system has only been usable thanks to the efforts of a random German that wrote Sonophone; one guy outperforming a whole company. And Sonophone is very much "OK" in the sense it works, but it's got the strangest UI.

This CEO, and his associated product management organisation, has completely destroyed all the goodwill that used to exist around Sonos, especially with respect to their ability to function almost entirely without external network access. It is an indictment of our society that such people get to bounce from company to company making millions while those attempting to do things the right way are repeatedly trampled on.

Patrick was at Sonos for 12 years, and 14 years at RIM before that, so he doesn't really fit the MO of a "bouncer.

Well, with that resume he should get a new gig in no time!

Not if they do a quick internet search and find this thread.

Or literally any other news about RIM or Sonos.

This was always Sonos' destiny, from my perspective the current state of affairs is not an accident, it was always the whole business model of the integrated "home audio system" brand they are building.

There is also Soro on iPhone that works better than native app.

As background, the trouble started when they abandoned their native app for a Flutter rewrite. Flutter is not wholly to blame of course, but it's the reason the app feels weird and unreliable, and that in turn makes the hardware — and the company — feel weird and unreliable.

The first order of business should be to return to native app development, or at least adopt a platform (like React Native) that uses native controls.

I think your downvoter is harsh - Flutter is not suited to an app where so many of the interactions, especially around Wifi/Bluetooth and persistent media playback notifications and handling, necessitate native integrations anyway, to the point it's not clear how much Flutter is saving you.

That said, their major problem appears to be the attempted change in network architecture to force cloud dependency. Had they done everything else but left this alone, so things like volume controls actually remain responsive and NAS media servers work properly, I suspect this would have gone almost smoothly, but it is true that the UI just feels off. It seems a common problem on mobile these days that people introduce portable abstractions in the wrong parts of their applications. (While then complaining about how hard good UX is in Flutter or RN).

I was one of the loud people on reddit to try and get them to re-release the old app, and I stand by that. They should just roll it back, but the amount of gaslighting and abuse this idea received early on was simply unbelievable. It took a good 3 months of nonsense before most of the community accepted they were being screwed.

I’m not an audiophile, but after hearing Sonos at a friend’s house and being impressed, I decided to purchase a speaker for my kitchen, where I often listen to music while cooking. I opted for the Sonos Five, assuming that Bluetooth connectivity would be a standard feature on a standalone speaker, especially at this price point. To my surprise, a speaker costing nearly $600 doesn’t support Bluetooth—it only works via Wi-Fi streaming!

If you’re an Android user, the limitations are even more frustrating. Playing music directly from YouTube isn’t possible without jumping through hoops, such as linking the Sonos app to YouTube or relying on third-party solutions. Ultimately, I returned the Sonos Five and chose a portable JBL speaker instead. It connects seamlessly via Bluetooth and gets the job done without any unnecessary complications.

> If you’re an Android user, the limitations are even more frustrating. Playing music directly from YouTube isn’t possible without jumping through hoops

Unfortunately that's due to Google's bullshit. There's a lack of appropri APIs, that's why you'll notice that any "smart" audio device (by smart I mean, integrates directly with music streaming services/locally stored music) doesn't support YouTube nor YouTube Music.

Music Assistant (sister project to Home Assistant) supports it via hacks such as pretending to be a TV or copy pasting auth cookies.

It's frankly an embarrassment from Google not to have APIs for this, they only lose potential users.

Google Assistant also stopped working abruptly on many devices, Sonos included for months. This guy did exactly what some Google exec wanted, which was to exact revenge on Sonos over a patent loss.

The patent on changing volume for more than one speaker at a time? That was such bullshit. The software changes forced by the ITC ruling forced Google to basically break speaker groups.

Not a surprise that might have resulted in some frayed business relationships.

Soooo maybe Sonos could just put bluetooth on their speakers then?

I get that google is shitty, but that doesn't make sonos a saint.

They could, but syncing between speakers when one of them gets a Bluetooth input will probably be flakey. And like 2/3 of Sonos' value prop is sync.

Their newer speakers (Era 100, Era 300, Arc Ultra are the ones I know of) are Bluetooth enabled.

As someone that an Android user, and has been a user (and formerly, major fan) of Sonos for about ten years now, it honestly seems worse than that. For a while, Sonos speakers appeared as Google Cast targets, which was a phenomenal (if slightly overcomplicated) way to use them without opening up the Sonos app. Then, the cast functionality became really unreliable. Then, it just went away one day. Then, the Sonos app itself became basically unusable.

So, a decade or so ago, I spent $1k+ on speakers. Over time, due to software changes, they've become more or less unusable for me. My recourse on this is.. pretty much nothing.

I'm not saying what they did was ok, but would it be possible to solder on a raspberry pi or something? Compared to other types of board rework, audio connections and DC power is relatively easy.

I'd suspect that there is. That kind of ruins the point of Sonos, though - their appeal was their ability to do a lot of different things, automatically, with just a wifi connection. Having to set up some sort of alternate source of audio means that I really should have just bought a cheaper speaker back when I bought my Sonos products.

Is there a good technical article for why casting has become unreliable over time? Is there like an issue with standardization across Manufacturer's APIs or is it more of an issue with Client SDKs being spotty in implementation?

The former. AirPlay and Google Cast (and Spotify Connect for that matter) are not actually standards at all. They're proprietary protocols subject to change in ways and for reasons not publicly known nor disclosed. But it can typically be safely assumed that any/all changes are made in order to maximize profits.

as an Android user I can tell you that Sonos better fix this quickly because casting is going to work reliably any day now. And then they'll be in trouble!

This seems like a strange gripe for this thread. That is something you could have looked up before purchasing the speaker.

I also might be in the minority but I much prefer Wi-Fi streaming to Bluetooth in my house.

Wifi streaming is great if it's easy, but for me, Sonos makes it hard.

My spouse uses the speakers pretty often, but even the old app wasn't great, and I gave up on it. Why can't I just cast the music from my Youtube music app? Why do I have to connect Sonos to Youtube, then wait for a separate app to pop up?

I just end up playing music in my headphones, or on my phone speaker. The quality is worse, but the experience is better.

>Why can't I just cast the music from my Youtube music app?

Because the YouTube app developers haven't implemented it? Casting via spotify works flawlessly in my experience, whether using airplay or letting spotify discover the speakers. No app hopping required.

> spotify

TBF that's because clicking on a Sonos device in Spotify uses their own special-sauce Spotify Connect, not AirPlay/Cast. So you're basically using the Spotify app as a remote for the selected Sonos device vs AirPlay/Cast which are transmitting (potentially a reference to) the underlying audio stream.

I do acknowledge that I did not read that the speaker does not support BLE. I assumed that a $600 speaker will come with basic features.

I agree with your last statement, because despite 20 years of development, they still haven't figured out how to get Bluetooth to work reliably. I don't think there's been a single other technology that has caused me more grief than it.

Using the opportunity to mention AIAIAI Unit-4

First, why it is so hard to find out it exists when searching for wireless speakers?

Second, it eats most things twice it's price on sound and features, methinks. except power bricks, those are brütal

i got several "nice" sonos speaker for free, tried to stream to them via bluetooth, learned i couldn't, then promptly gave them away. what a garbage experience

They violated the "Things You Should Never Do, Part I" rule:

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...

It's such a TEMPTING rule to violate...

The amazing part was how BAD it went, supposedly engineers were raising every red flag possible that it wasn't ready and still they did it.

Considering how bad it was I can't imagine having any faith in anyone up the chain of command having the power, or intelligence to do the right thing at this point it was such a bizarre failure.

Basecamp violates that rule often and they are doing ok. If I remember right they even make it a strategy to re-write their whole application every few years.

There's no hard rules in software engineering, and all best practices should be put into context. You don't know what monsters lurked in the old code base. So yes in some cases (but not often) re-write is a good / only choice.

I don't know much about them. It would be interesting to see how the manage all the usual pitfalls.

basically every billion or trillion dollar company the started as a startup has rewritten their entire platform

The rewrite couldn't have caused this, because there was a single German developer who wrote a usable app, see this comment elsewhere [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683999

I think the article actually goes into detail why a rewrite does cause these things. The reasons matter.

To me this reads more like a mismanagement issue than an issue caused by a rewrite.

In a perfect world maybe, but we don't code there.

Well, I've seen a rewrite that worked. The CEO used the software, including the signup processes. I've also seen a sequence of gradual changes that broke badly. Nobody in management used any part of the product.

I don't think being a rewrite is the important difference there, if you see what I mean.

I've been a part of a few successful rewrites, one definitely larger than what Sonos did.

We should let go of some of the JoS dogma. Failed rewrites are the result of mismanagement, not because rewrites are inherently bad.

This kind of implies that a rewrite requires better management than just sticking with the existing codebase. It's still a pretty strong reason not to do a rewrite unless you're 1000% sure the organization can handle it.

I am sure there are rewrites that were necessary or beneficial. But I think it’s fair to say that usually they are a mistake.

And a lot of “bad code” comes from starting to write clean code and then coming across a variety of assumptions that prove incorrect, and real-world considerations that add complexity.

Given the number of poor product managers and product owners I've encountered in my career - those who don't seem to care at all about end users or people in general - I'm surprised incidents like this don't happen more frequently.

I think for some (not all) folks writing code there is a sort of built in "this should actually work" mentality and that keeps A LOT of things running.

Granted not all, I've worked with some widget makers who would rather just take tasks, do EXACTLY what it says, and move on regardless if it works or not. They love the certainty of process and want to just do that.

Steve Jobs ran into that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Cz49MLh4o

Granted as Steve mentioned, people worried about the end result are more work to deal with.

Actually building things keeps you humble in a way that’s hard to articulate. You’re constantly contending with reality, not models/processes whose purpose is to smooth over things to present a facade of order.

> Granted not all, I've worked with some widget makers who would rather just take tasks, do EXACTLY what it says, and move on regardless if it works or not. They love the certainty of process and want to just do that.

I've been this guy, as a software engineer.

It turns out that making widgets feeds my family, whereas pushing back on executives from my position on the totem pole runs a very real risk of being unable to do so.

I think it certainly depends on the organization. Some companies seem to only allow coders to be widget makers.

On the other hand, I worked with widget makers at companies where you had more freedom and sometimes it seemed like they were more interested in malicious compliance… it can really shaft coworkers too.

Sonos hardware is the stuff I see at thrift stores for ~$8 and won't even bother with. When you're as user hostile as they are you end up in landfills.

Wish somebody would figure out how to unlock them and convert them into general purpose music streaming systems.

It is probably easier to use RaspberryPi.

I built a sonos "clone" using a raspberry, the HiFiBerry board, shairplay, and an expensive amp/speakers that allowed digital connections (because doing anything with a raspberry and audio is pretty noisy when analog). Overall it cost about as much as a pair of Sonos 5's. In the end, the thing is now unused, and I went and bought a Sonos5 and couldn't be happier. Tiny things I just never got working in the Linux world are "just works" with Sonos. Sure, it has some annoyances but trivial things like "playback never starts with a loud pop" was almost impossible to get right. Tinkering with audio in Linux is rarely fun. Not to mention that i only built one system so never even had to deal with time syncing multiple systems (Though I'm sure someone has built some sort of linux solution to handle that too by now).

So having done both of these two systems each for several years, I can strongly recommend Sonos.

Sonos 5's (gen2) still sell for $4-500 used where I am. Which is astonishing for a product that is many years old by now and is $6-750 new. I wouldn't exactly say that's landfill. The Ikea bookshelf thing is also great and costs very little. Sound isn't comparable to the Five though. If you see a Sonos speaker for $8 in a thrift store, it's either broken or you should buy it and sell it on ebay.

Someone finally did for at least the Sonos One. After selling it in stores they quickly abandoned it. The CEO promised air play 2 update while it was being sold and then back peddled after discontinuing it. At first they said they would retire it entirely and effectively kill it. They eventually back peddled on that too after massive backlash. This was when I decided never to buy their locked in garbage again. Meanwhile, someone released a small app that advertised the device for airplay 2. It quietly runs on my garage server.

Huh? Sonos has done lots wrong lately, but the Sonos One does natively support Airplay 2, was in stores for over 7 years, and still works with the current Sonos software as well as, uh, anything does these days. Perhaps you're thinking of something else?

What? AFAIK the only speaker that’s fully useless is the Gen 1 Play:5. A few of the Connect / ZonePlayer home audio devices are also incompatible with S2. But everything else will still work, albeit with slightly higher friction setup processes on some?

I don't want to touch my phone to stream music in my home. I don't want a app involved, apart from maybe setup. I don't want 'cloud' involved _at all_.

I want to point my music 'streaming' device at a NFS or SMB directory and play music. Would be better if it supported some OSS streaming protocol so I could just stream off my LAN (think mpd/dlna but I have no idea what protocols are "best" here).

I'd love to open up foobar2000 or whatever, and point it at what speakers I want and let loose.

Ya, some rpi solution is "probably best here". I know they're(Sonos) going for 'this works for people who dont know what a rpi is", but stereo gear works for a long time. I don't want to be on some 'upgrade cycle' because they've decided I need to upgrade hardware so they can harvest more dollars from my wallet.

Maybe the problem is that ["I have a stereo", "mp3's", "CD's"] and they are targeting people who want to play Spotify from some 'i-device' to a speaker and don't have a stereo. Either way, the hardware is 100% avoid for me. Its a gamble on 'will it work' and 'will they support it?'.

I had 4 SONOS connect devices (S1 app only) doing exactly this. I recently (last month) replaced them all with BlueSound node nano devices. They do exactly what you require - point it at the SMB server and away they go.

Bonus is they do it over SMB2 allowing me to switch off SMB1 which I'd previously had to keep running for the SONOS devices.

The SONOS connects are going to goodwill.

I see a lot of negative comments in this thread about Sonos in general, which is interesting to me because I'm currently thinking about buying Sonos speakers. What exactly don't you like about it? Is there a good alternative to Sonos that ticks all the following boxes?

  - Connect two or more speakers wirelessly to get stereo sound (I hate cables)
  - Good support for different audio sources (bluetooth, Spotify, AirPlay, aux, etc..)
  - Ability to connect speakers of different models (which means you can upgrade your setup later as you see fit, for example add a subwoofer)

I've had a Sonos system going back 10 years now. I started with 6 or 7 speakers and now it is at 15 [9 zones] Sonos speakers and 12 HomePods [6 pairs]. There have been hiccups along the way:

- Migration from S1 to S2 having to replace early, older models such as Amp and Port. But have received some discounts on new speakers

- Unifi network & Sonosnet issues with STP. Mostly solved by disabling Sonosnet

- Sonos Roam speakers failing

While having occasional issues with the new app design, it hasn't impacted much on a day to day basis. I didn't use much of the features that were lost initially, though I can see how it would be damaging to those who do.

For playing whole home audio, I generally use Airplay integration and just group the speakers through AppleTV or iPad. I occasionally use the app to do so.

The value I receive from each: - Sonos supports surround sound, whereas the HomePods do not.

- Sonos is tied into home automation and some custom TTS announcements

- Sonos Amp works with outdoor speakers and can update the speakers

- The HomePod minis are small and less intrusive in certain areas of the home

- HomePods have access to Siri and home control

At one point I had several Echo devices, but it was annoying to constantly update that system for home automation integration. HomePods replaced all of those except for an Echo Show in the Kitchen.

I never use bluetooth, nor felt it is a missing feature of my Sonos system or HomePods.

The app update was fucking terrible, but it's not the absolute mess it was originally (it's still sluggish at times, but I haven't had it outright fail me in a couple of months). Ultimately, I still find Sonos to be better for me than alternatives because the sound truly is good, and the ease of setting up a home theater wirelessly that I can also use to play my records is unmatched by any alternatives. As bad as Sonos's new app launch was, they still don't have a good competitor doing quite what they do.

The speakers support AirPlay and the newer model of speakers support Bluetooth. I don't think any of them support Aux.

The newer era speakers, and the five have audio in.

Ah, through USB-C? That didn't occur to me.

Through an audio jack.

Mine do not have an audio jack.

What model do you have?

The five and era 100 both say they have a line in on the website.

I have two Era 100s purchased in December 2024. I have looked the entire thing over - if there is line-in, it must be through USB-C, there is no aux port.

Interesting, it looks like you are right, it is usbc:

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/sonos-line-in-adapter

I entered the Sonos ecosystem in 2005.

There were many solutions that would allow you to play your music collection from SMB/Samba but the Sonos was unique in that it didn't require a piece of server-side "helper" software.

You see, in 2005 decoding mp3 took some horsepower and these stripped down streamer devices didn't have enough. This meant you had to run some transcoder "server" on your fileserver just to send it over to the speaker. Of course those software pieces were Windows based, etc.

So the Sonos was special: it had enough horsepower to handle mp3 compression and you could just point them at SMB and it would just work.

The first sign of trouble was a circa 2008 UI redesign they did to the desktop client ... all OS primitives and OS UI elements were removed and some "expert" clearly attempted to reimplement every normal UI element in their own "modern" way.

Now fast-forward to the present where, although you can use the desktop client you cannot set up the speakers or even name them without using a phone app.

I say this in all seriousness:

I hate what Sonos did to their product so much that I have considered buying and donating their equipment to engineers and paying them to reverse engineer and publish everything that can be learned about their entire tech stack.

To directly answer your question - when I was trying to setup whole home audio and decided I didn't want to go the rpi route of doing it myself, the alternatives to sonos that I found were "Audio Pro" and "Bluesound". I ended up going with Audio Pro, so can't speak to bluesound, but it should tick all of your boxes.

I have 3 Audio Pro speakers, 2 different models, and they all sync up perfectly. I can select 2 to be stereo if I want. I can play from spotify, airplay, bluetooth, or google cast. The models I have do support 3.5mm input, but I've never used it so not sure if you can plug into one and have it also play in the others. As a bonus, it's all compatible with the wiim streamer devices. After buying a couple wiim minis, my klipsch TV speakers + computer speakers are able to join the whole home system with the Audio Pro speakers.

If I had to do it all again, I might just buy powered speakers of any brand of my choosing and get wiim minis for each of them. That's another viable alternative you could look into. But the Audio Pro speakers are pretty nice imo.

Gonna say it's more than just a single bad app launch. The company's stock price is down 70% from its peak a few years ago. Their revenues have been falling quarter after quarter. Products are getting worse and yet the prices just keep going up. If any company needs an intervention it's this one.

This story reminds me of the new platform and related apps that were launched for the public broadcaster in The Netherlands, NPO. Pre-launch there were rousing interviews explaining how they rebuilt the system from scratch in a way that would allow them to release often, innovate quickly and generally work in an agile fashion.

Meanwhile it has been over a year and basic stuff like "continue to watch next episode" and "child profiles" are still either broken or missing.

And, of course, the old (functioning) apps don't work anymore.

i swear, this company just rolls from one PR disaster to the next.

previously: https://old.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/egi9np/sonos_permane...

i remember helping an older relative get his sonos speaker working again due to some misconfig in their shitty software and it was a total pain in the ass. the whole time i'm thinking, why doesnt this wireless speaker simply support bluetooth instead of the locked down proprietary music library / cloud pairing junk.

I am not really surprised. I had the bad luck to buy a Sonos soundbar right when the new app was launched. I'd never seen the old app but all I knew was the thing was unusable. I had to return the soundbar.

What issue(s) did you have with it?

I don't recall details but connection issues, the app freezing. I just gave up and returned it. The thing was the app was so hard to use and didn't work right that I just figured Sonos products were crap (this was the first I'd ever used) and gave up.

I'm fascinated by the dichotomous view on them. I love my setup, haven't had more than the usual connecting-headless-device-to-wifi problems, use them every day as an alarm clock, am listening to them right now...

I guess I use the macOS app more than iOS, which might contribute?

I was unlucky enough to start exploring using Sonos (as opposed to old Squeezebox) just as this new app thing hit.

One weird thing about Sonos is that it seems to be "a home speaker system for homes that dont have any children in them". Like there doesnt seem to be a way to allow kids to play music on the things without giving them access to _everything_

I also started investing in Sonos recently and damn the software is terrible. While I wish I could get 100% of my money back, I'm not sure there any turnkey alternative that is better. Every time I research I come back with "Sonos sucks but it's still the best".

What functionality did Sonos provide that you are after?

I use chromecast audio to play music throughout the house and it works great

A project that isn't discontinued, among other things.

I don't want to fiddle or think about hw/sw interface or compatibility. Just buy high quality speakers and invest by adding pieces to my system over time.

It's still early days in my use, but I've been quite happy with AudioPro (yeah, shitty name). Their devices look nice, sound really good, support a variety of protocols and integrate with a ton of steaming services directly (but you don't have to because you can just Bluetooth/Cast/Airplay/AUX to them). Their app is a tad ugly but it does everything I need it to.

You really wouldn't think that the tech in this segment would be so hard to get right.

IDK, have you ever seen Smart TVs?

Seems to me electronics hardware manufacturers and subscription internet streaming media services go together like oil and water.

If I started out now, I would look into Yamaha Musiccast (https://usa.yamaha.com/products/contents/audio_visual/musicc...), since they have more form factors and bridges to add other music systems. Or BluOs (https://bluos.io/), but that all looks like its aimed at the "use golden cables for better audio, bro" bros.

I’m using Sonos entirely through AirPlay and Spotify Connect. What’s the use case for the app, and why is it bad at it?

The app operates independently of your phone. Start music, turn off your phone, then control it from your iPad. Reduces battery drain.

That said, the app is so terrible now that I avoid it and use Airplay. Will never buy Sonos again and glad my newest Sonos is now several years old. Bought a JBL Authentic and it works well with Airplay and is cheaper than a comparable Sonos.

IIRC Sonos emerged as a tool to allow you to access all of your music, from different speakers throughout your house.

I might be glossing over some details but isn't this problem largely solved by other products almost everyone has now? Any cloud music service, a smart phone, and some bluetooth speakers?

In my entire social network, I know of one person who has all of his music stored locally and who cares about the quality of bluetooth vs wifi transmission, which seem to be the key reasons someone would want a Sonos solution.

> I might be glossing over some details but isn't this problem largely solved by other products almost everyone has now? Any cloud music service, a smart phone, and some bluetooth speakers?

How do I configure several bluetooth speakers to play music across my whole house with a single phone?

https://www.whathifi.com/advice/what-is-auracast-and-when-is...

Interesting. My Pixel 8, on Android 15, does not seem to allow broadcasting to multiple bluetooth devices, but I'll play around with it.

> isn't this problem largely solved by other products

No? I don’t want to use my speakers as output for all the audio from any given device, only the stream I want. So, the audio system needs to be capable of managing the stream itself, independent of the device I use to select/start/stop the stream. I don’t know of anything other than Sonos that manages that well.

(Never mind the sibling comments point about syncing multiple wireless speakers to play the same audio without perceptible lag)

WiiM?

No. There are certain scenarios that Sonos still handles well, despite the app issues of the past year.

If I drop the needle on my Technics 1200 turntable, my Sonos Fives spring into action. I don't need to load the app, I don't need to touch anything. It just happens.

If I turn on my TV, those same Sonos Fives revert into surround speakers into a 5.1 system with the Sonos Beam - again, without touching the Sonos app or any device.

If I want to create a playlist that crosses between my personal music library on a local server, and also songs via Apple Music and Youtube Music, no problem.

If I want to set things up for things to play on one speaker, specific speakers, or my whole house, it's got it, and allows me to easily adjust volumes between the various areas.

We got burned by the Sonos app updates this year. They really screwed things up. Most things, at this point, are largely fixed, although it feels like the foundation is shaky.

If there's another product that provides this level of flexibility... let me know.

> Most things, at this point, are largely fixed,

Loading the app and getting a state where you can play back something on Android still steals me way too many seconds multiple times a day.

Remember when you could just plug in anything with an "aux" cord or line-level RCA connectors to your stereo and everything worked. We have gone so far backwards.

But there was an endless amount of people, even on this site throwing arguments as "BT is the future" or "you're just too poor to use BT because you don't want to buy a new headphone" yada yada yada

Yes, losing the wired connection is going backwards

We traded one convenience for others. I can play the same music in sync across every room in the house and the backyard, and I didn't have to run speaker wires to 23 locations to do that. I can play any of millions of songs without having a room full of physical copies of the music. I can plug in an aux cord into the system if I need to do so.

I do not like the new app, its so sluggish. And I really hate that they killed support for the previous app after the shitty launch. I have about 8 sonos devices here and was in the progress of upgrading my oldest ones. That stopped and i will not buy new products until they fix their shitty app or revert back. Its not much, but nothing else I can do (except send support requests whenever something does not work to drive up their metrics).

I see a number of suggestions here for alternatives to Sonos but I'm not sure they meet the requirements or expectations of what I have for Sonos.

I basically want anyone who is on my network to be able to use the music services that I have configured on my Sonos and queue music or set regions or whatever. Ideally this would be mostly unsecured but some light security would be fine -- I basically don't want it to be complicated.

The wifi streaming (as opposed to AirPlay or Casting or Bluetooth) is so that once I start the music playing I no longer have to deal with any continuity of the system I used to trigger the music.

The app changes have unfortunately transformed my Sonos setup into a mostly useless collection; I can still get it to work but it's so cumbersome and the search and playback functions are so broken that half the time it doesn't do what I want.

Are there any real alternatives? Homepods and wiim don't appear to meet these criteria -- is there anything out there that is actually a good Sonos replacement?

What’s so bad about the new app? I have half a dozen Sonos devices (Amp, One SLs, … ) I use in various groupings, and haven’t had any huge issues? I guess the new app is a bit less intuitive, and maybe a bit slower (although that’s improved since launch)? I just haven’t seen behavior even approaching the “unusable” complaints I’ve seen online.

#1 thing that drives me bonkers with the Sonos app is that when you search for an artist, you have to scan through dozens of singles and EPs to find their actual full length studio albums. For bigger bands there can be 40+ albums to find the one you want. Apple Music and Spotify group these and it is such a simple UI improvement.

>Most recently, Conrad served as chief product officer for the ill-fated Quibi streaming service.

Failing a product launch and replacing the CEO with the Chief Product Officer of a failed product launch sounds like it'll be just as disastrous.

So what are people using instead of Sonos AMP for home sound control?

Wiim for one option.

Apple airplay works flawlessly. Or you can buy an old Amazon fire and connect them to your own hardware.

Both of these solutions allow you to use any speaker/amp setup you choose. And if you truly care about sound quality, this is the only path.

AirPlay and multiroom is still a struggle though

Agreed but it has better sync tech than most others that I have tried. Yamaha's is buggy, Denon's buggy, but Apple TVs sync well in my multi level, multi system set up.

What’s a good way to Airplay to your own speakers?

Buy an older Apple TV, or an Amazon Fire. Connect them to your receiver and you're good to go. Or buy a newer Yamaha or Denon receiver and they'll be ready to go out of the box.

AirPlay is as about as good as it gets I think. It’s been thoroughly reverse engineered so there’s lots of open source tools for it and it’s cheap to add speakers since used AirPort Expresses are still supported AirPlay targets.

Do you need an Apple product to use AirPlay?

That makes it easier, but no. Many implementations of both servers and clients (both closed and FOSS) exist, for example AirMusic adds AirPlay casting support to Android and I’ve heard of people using rPi’s as receivers. The protocol is entirely local, there’s no remote server component at all.

Sonos Amp / Port act as airplay receiver to analog out (with amplifier in the case of Amp). They're meant to act as an input for existing ‘dumb’ speakers/amplifiers/home audio systems, and is extraordinarily fit for that purpose.

How do else could one Airplay to a ‘dumb’ stereo without something to act as an airplay receiver?

In my experience AirPlay 2 isn’t flawless, pretty much every time I try to use it there are stutters.

This is using an iPhone 16 Pro to AirPlay to a stereo pair of Sonos Five’s that are connected using Ethernet.

AirPlay isn’t a great choice if you are concerned about audio quality anyways - if you’re using AirPlay 2 you’re using 256kbps AAC, so it should sound the same as Bluetooth (or worse if you are comparing something like LDAC).

See here for more information.

https://darko.audio/2023/10/apple-airplay-isnt-always-lossle...

I'd wager it's the Sonos that is the problem. I have 0 issues with my Yamaha receivers and AirPlay, or my various branded soundbars.

Sonos never wanted to work with Apple, so I can understand why they'd never make it work.

Chromecasts + HDMI stereos + Speaker Groups: https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/7174267?hl=en

Works from Apple and Google mobile devices with Spotify

Good. Although I feel has improved greatly in the last 2 months, destroying a networked ecosystem to launch headphones is simply inexcusable.

Unfortunately, a release that bad is the norm for most companies. The reason it hurt Sonos so hard is that they only have the one product.

Mostly happy with my Sonos products and the app has been functioning fine through daily multi user, multi Spotify account use

And what's gonna happen to the board who backed/demanded all these things I wonder

We have a Sonos speaker in the Kitchen and I'm so done with it.

We're going to renovate our kitchen in a few months and I plan to install a pair of speakers in the roof and hook them up to a Raspberry Pi with a Hifiberry amp and the HifiberryOS.

I'm sure there will be issues but at least I'll be free of Sonos.

Check out Wiim. A few amp options that are half the price of Sonos.

Why not just put your sound system on a shelf like everyone else so you don't need to renovate your kitchen next time you want to upgrade it.

They're just regular speakers you can connect to regular amps. If the raspberry pi doesn't work out I can simply switch that out.

>Despite this seismic shift at the top, Sonos’ future product pipeline remains “full steam ahead,” Pategas told me. The company’s next major new product is rumored to be a streaming video player, which would pit it against the likes of Apple, Roku, Amazon, and Google in the living room.

Dumb move, you're weaker than ever. You need to slow down. Trying to signal it this way gives no confidence.

I'll take my $7500 and $1,875,000 severance please.

Yeah that is a terrible strategy. Sonos needs to retrench and improve their current system before walking into other very saturated markets which they will be a non-player except the few die hards.

I'm worried in the long run my sonos players won't be supported because (a) the company burned all their money pursuing bad spend (b) company goes belly up (c) they decide it isn't worth maintaining the older speakers since they don't drive revenue but have to pay for maintenance.

As an aside, a woman I was dating about three years ago wanted me to take a look at her Sonos to see if I could get it working.

We never quite got to that stage before the relationship ended. Sounds like I dodged a tech support bullet.

Sonos has been terrible vendor lock in for a long time. So user hostile

I mean, they were FOUNDED as a fairly turnkey solution -- lock in was baked in from the jump what, 20 years ago?

At that time they had a great product, and were doing something genuinely novel and cool. Then they sat on their hands for too long.

This is the company that had a "recycling mode" that did nothing but brick the hardware, then leave a message with the user to dump it onto an unsuspecting recycling center to deal with the now useless lump of plastic.

Fuck 'em.

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