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Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

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Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#11

Post by dr_kiszonka »

ryndbfsrw wrote: post #2

I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason. I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should…

Imagine living in a big house and having the music follow you from room to room, from one floor to another, playing from high def wireless speakers that you can place anywhere you want. I think that is a pretty neat idea.

I don't have a house or Sonos speakers, but I can see how some people would want that experience.

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#13

Post by mafro »

nfriedly wrote: post #3

I recently set up shairport-sync[0] on a pair of Raspberry Pi's w/ USB DACs and nice speakers to get multi-room audio from Apple music. It's pretty nice! It definitely was a bit of a process to set up, but well documented and much less painful than what this sounds like. I also put headless plexamp on one, which lets me play my music from Plex, although I haven't gotten around to putting it on the other one yet for m…

I tried shairport some time ago, but settled on https://github.com/badaix/snapcast and have a really great and reliable open-source multi-room setup

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#14

Post by portn0y »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #11
ryndbfsrw wrote: post #2

I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason. I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should…

Imagine living in a big house and having the music follow you from room to room, from one floor to another, playing from high def wireless speakers that you can place anywhere you want. I think that is a pretty neat idea. I don't have a house or Sonos speakers, but I can see how some people would want that experience.

I have that experience. Like every other experience the novelty wears off and I find myself keeping the vibe to a room because it’s distracting; lizard brain stays connected to music and I forget why I went across the house.

In the end I use it so sparingly (social gatherings) owners of detached homes without shared walls, could save the money and time and just turn up the volume.

That said, as always, YMMV

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#15

Post by udjdjdvehrh »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #11
ryndbfsrw wrote: post #2

I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason. I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should…

Imagine living in a big house and having the music follow you from room to room, from one floor to another, playing from high def wireless speakers that you can place anywhere you want. I think that is a pretty neat idea. I don't have a house or Sonos speakers, but I can see how some people would want that experience.

Its called headphones

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#16

Post by udjdjdvehrh »

udjdjdvehrh wrote: post #15
dr_kiszonka wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine living in a big house and having the music follow you from room to room, from one floor to another, playing from high def wireless speakers that you can place anywhere you want. I think that is a pretty neat idea. I don't have a house or Sonos speakers, but I can see how some people would want that experience.

Its called headphones

Also the killer feature is that you don't annoy everyone else in your household

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#17

Post by [deleted] »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #11
ryndbfsrw wrote: post #2

I feel certain products just dont need apps or 'tech'. Speakers should not be 'smart' anymore than a powertool needs an app. It just turns products that should otherwise be long-lasting become disposable waste once software support evaporates for any reason. I dont think it was a good product even back when it did 'work'. We received a pair as a house-warming gift and I remember not understanding how or why I should…

Imagine living in a big house and having the music follow you from room to room, from one floor to another, playing from high def wireless speakers that you can place anywhere you want. I think that is a pretty neat idea. I don't have a house or Sonos speakers, but I can see how some people would want that experience.

[deleted]

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#18

Post by udjdjdvehrh »

udjdjdvehrh wrote: post #16
udjdjdvehrh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its called headphones

Also the killer feature is that you don't annoy everyone else in your household

Also apologies if my response was too blunt...

It could be a cool feature, it is just a lot if work to get setup and it would only work if you are the only one in the house

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#19

Post by hedora »

I’m happily still using S1. Given that upper management agrees the new S2 is a company ending level screwup, I wonder why they don’t just publish an S2 classic app, spin up old backends from their disaster recovery / business continuity plan, and move on with things.

Re: Heartbroken by the Sonos App Disaster and What's Happened to the Company

#20

Post by _heimdall »

hedora wrote: post #19

I’m happily still using S1. Given that upper management agrees the new S2 is a company ending level screwup, I wonder why they don’t just publish an S2 classic app, spin up old backends from their disaster recovery / business continuity plan, and move on with things.

I had heard that Sonos claimed updates made to both their servers and customers' hardware following the app update can't reasonably be rolled back and wouldn't work with the previous S2 app. Basically, they dragged their feet denying the new app issues long enough to make rolling back infeasible.
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