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Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

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Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#121

Post by miah_ »

kristjansson wrote: post #91
miah_ wrote: post #4

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.

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?'.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#122

Post by sjm-lbm »

gosub100 wrote: post #111
sjm-lbm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#123

Post by fidotron »

CharlesW wrote: post #113
cityzen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 con…

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.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#124

Post by rsync »

Aaronmacaron wrote: post #48

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,…

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.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#125

Post by itissid »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #33
Bhilai wrote: post #22

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…

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…

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?

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#126

Post by wnolens »

applied_heat wrote: post #32
wnolens wrote: post #24

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.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#127

Post by fidotron »

mikeryan wrote: post #27
awnird wrote: post #11

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.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#129

Post by chinathrow »

iwanttocomment wrote: post #92
subpixel wrote: post #61

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…

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…

> 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.

Re: Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch

#130

Post by massysett »

jejfjfjfjsj wrote: post #17

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.

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