Sonos Execs Launched Ill-Received App Despite Employee Protests

[MacRumors]

Back in May, Sonos launched a new version of its mobile app, and it's been wildly unpopular with Sonos customers because of ongoing bugs and the removal of several features. Today, Bloomberg delved into what went wrong at Sonos ahead of when the app launched, and why it came out anyway.

Sonos had to come out with a new app when it launched the Sonos Ace headphones because of "technical debt." The company basically spent time working on new features instead of updating outdated code written in obsolete languages, leading to infrastructure issues. Sonos put off addressing the underlying technical debt, but introducing the headphones required the Sonos app and the cloud setup behind it to be overhauled.

At the time the app was in development, Sonos laid off some of its employees to cut costs and also did some internal restructuring that was "causing chaos" by separating people who had worked together for years. As the app's launch approached, employees protested "forcefully," even resorting to yelling and screaming, because it was clear the app wasn't ready to launch.

Former Sonos employees told Bloomberg that Sonos was prioritizing promises to investors and attracting new customers rather than ensuring equipment owned by longtime Sonos customers continued to work. One employee said they were afraid to push back further on the app's launch because it could lead to them losing their job.

Sonos' lead counsel Eddie Lazarus did an internal investigation into the app's development and told Bloomberg that the app was delayed, from early 2024 to May 2024, and that there had been no "yelling" or "screaming" in meetings. Sonos apparently had a list of what it considered "essential" bugs that needed to be fixed pre-launch, but it decided that less critical bugs could wait until the app was released. "Our list of essential bugs, obviously, was not comprehensive enough," Lazarus told Bloomberg.

Sonos expects to miss its annual revenue target by $200 million after the app debacle. In August, it laid off some employees, and it told others that yearly bonuses and merit-based pay raises have been canceled.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence apologized to Sonos customers in July and committed to regular updates to address bugs and add missing features. The company considered bringing back the old app as it worked on the new version, but it turned out that wasn't possible because of the updates made to the cloud servers.

Sonos also decided to delay two upcoming product launches in 2024 to instead focus on improving the Sonos app, and the company has "pulled together the very best and most experienced engineers" that it has to work on the app until it is fixed.

Article Link: Sonos Execs Launched Ill-Received App Despite Employee Protests

 

[SierraVista]

At the time the app was in development, Sonos laid off some of its employees to cut costs and also did some internal restructuring that was "causing chaos" by separating people who had worked together for years. As the app's launch approached, employees protested "forcefully," even resorting to yelling and screaming, because it was clear the app wasn't ready to launch.

The PHBs who orchestrated these “organizational synergies” should be made to walk the plank yet somehow I feel like those protesting engineers are the ones who took the blame for this clown show.

 

[Infinitewisdom]

Why is this news? I’m sure companies go through these debates all the time.

 

[8707908]

Because at Sonos, our most important asset is our stock pri…i mean our employees.

we care deeply about our sharehol…I mean customers.

 

[carniesandrubes]

I was a beta tester. We had dozens of major issues that were still outstanding and one day they just said "thanks, we're done here". Embarrassing.

 

[phenste]

legit do not think a headline has ever made me jump the way this one did, lmfao…how is it that I have zero Sonos devices in my home and even I know what a trainwreck this situation has been? such a shame, genuinely hope this app gets un-f**ked for all Sonos customers ASAP

 

[matthewcc]

I see the Sonos leadership went to the Boeing School of Ignoring Engineers to Please Short Term Stock Gamblers.

 

[toobravetosave]

i hope society learns from the past several decades and stuffs every last MBA into the trash

 

[antiprotest]

Sonos was prioritizing promises to investors and attracting new customers rather than ensuring equipment owned by longtime Sonos customers continued to work.

They should have taken a page from Apple's playbook and worked another angle -- add features that could run on devices 2-7 years old but make them exclusive to the newest model. By exploiting their customers like Apple, they will get some backlash, but at least the older devices will continue to work. Apple usually knows how to screw their customers just right to benefit themselves. Many customers will even relish in the punishment and turn around to help Apple rebuke dissenters. Sonos screwed their customers the wrong way and ended up screwing themselves.

 

[carswell]

Ignoring advice, warnings and pleas from long-time employees and brushing aside their legitimate concerns that a wildly defective app would besmirch Sonos's reputation and alienate its mostly devoted user base must be the courage that Spence said it took to roll out the mess.

And now the stock price is taking, the company is forced to downsize, sales targets aren't being met, the overhyped Ace headphones have hardly made a splash, other new products are delayed probably beyond the holidays, the brand is no longer recco'd by The Wirecutter among others and the new app is still buggy and not fully functional.

Remind me again why Spence remains CEO?

 

[chrono1081]

Project management not listening to developers and getting a ruined app because of it? Tale as old as time. Get MBA holders out of engineering please, they're worthless.

 

[magicschoolbus]

So who’s the head of product? Obviously not doing their job.

 

[TechnoMonk]

I have seen technical debt sink companies. It’s not about moving bodies or throwing more or cutting, major overhauls with technical debt pulling down is a disaster waiting to happen. Apple manages technical debt with fine line of incremental updates at much larger scale. Board should have fired Sonos starting from CEO.

 

[caliguy]

I just moved apartments and tried setting up my Arc, two Play Ones, and Sub in my new place. The Trueplay feature kept giving me an error after 2 seconds, saying 'Try Again'.

So, today, I reached out to them via the chat on their website and described my issue and the steps I've taken. The bot said it couldn't help me and that it had to transfer me to a human. Then, the thing made me type out my issue AGAIN (it inconveniently made my previous comms disappear). Then, the human couldn't help after 20 minutes and asked me to call a number. I then spent AN HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES on the phone with the most incompetent person in India, literally asking me such basic questions like "what kind of phone are you using" an hour into the call. They made me delete the app, submit diagnostics at least three times, and do steps that I had already completed with the chat agent. Ultimately, they had no resolution and said they were creating a level 2 ticket, and made me give my name, email, and number again (as if providing it at the beginning of the call wasn't enough?) and told me to expect a call sometime in the future.

This was the worst customer care experience I've ever seen, for the most basic of issues. Unreal.

 

[xraydoc]

Why is this news? I’m sure companies go through these debates all the time.

This was a mess. Many (numbering in the thousands) had expensive Sonos systems rendered unusable. Issues have diminished but lots of people still having problems. And at first, the company refused to take responsibility and told people that it must be their wifi networks causing issues. For three months, they doubled-down on denying any responsibility. Finally they relented and took the blame, promised fixes, and claimed to delay new products until their app and server architecture was fixed.

My system (two full home theater systems plus three additional stereo sets) had many problems, including refusal to play anything at times. It’s not the fault of my wifi network. My system works better now over the last 6 weeks or so, but there’s still some issues when streaming to >2 rooms at a time which never happened prior to the infrastructure upgrade.

Meanwhile, my HomePods are still going strong. And if Apple had true home theater systems, I would have not gone Sonos. Two HomePods is not the same as an Arc, Era rears, and a subwoofer.

 

[goobot]

This is something we’ve been seeing more and more lately, companies pinching Pennies to leave dollars on the table. Laying off employees to save a little money and releasing a disastrous product thinking they can fix it two years later and customers won’t care

 

[matthewcc]

They should have taken a page from Apple's playbook and worked another angle -- add features that could run on devices 2-7 years old but make them exclusive to the newest model. By exploiting their customers like Apple, they will get some backlash, but at least the older devices will continue to work. Apple usually knows how to screw their customers just right to benefit themselves. Many customers will even relish in the punishment and turn around to help Apple rebuke dissenters. Sonos screwed their customers the wrong way and ended up screwing themselves.

Thats the stupid part of this. Its JUST the app! You buy a new Sonos product that has an unsupported feature, you just need a new FREE app!

They should have released a very streamlined Sonos 2.0 app that was just for the new product and slowly migrated features until it reached parity with Sonos 1.0 and then deprecate it.

Just incomprehensibly stupid management.

 

[deadspider187]

"In August, it laid off some employees, and it told others that yearly bonuses and merit-based pay raises have been canceled."


Ah, yes. Totally the right steps to be taking to correct the issue. 🤦‍♂️

 

[xraydoc]

I just moved apartments and tried setting up my Arc, two Play Ones, and Sub in my new place. The Trueplay feature kept giving me an error after 2 seconds, saying 'Try Again'.

So, today, I reached out to them via the chat on their website and described my issue and the steps I've taken. The bot said it couldn't help me and that it had to transfer me to a human. Then, the thing made me type out my issue AGAIN (it inconveniently made my previous comms disappear). Then, the human couldn't help after 20 minutes and asked me to call a number. I then spent AN HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTES on the phone with the most incompetent person in India, literally asking me such basic questions like "what kind of phone are you using" an hour into the call. They made me delete the app, submit diagnostics at least three times, and do steps that I had already completed with the chat agent. Ultimately, they had no resolution and said they were creating a level 2 ticket, and made me give my name, email, and number again (as if providing it at the beginning of the call wasn't enough?) and told me to expect a call sometime in the future.

This was the worst customer care experience I've ever seen, for the most basic of issues. Unreal.

You should go through the Sonos forum on Reddit. Lots of good information there. Might find something that helps. I’ve not tried Trueplay tuning yet (again) since the new app architecture. But lots of reports that it’s failing.

 

[GrantNeufeld]

When short-term profit becomes the central metric by which a business makes its decisions, it ceases to be a business and instead becomes something that is no longer focused on producing anything of value. It becomes focused on “extraction of value”—from workers, from customers, from society at large, from the environment—no matter the cost.

To the folks here blaming MBAs for all this: Please remember—it’s just 99% of MBAs who make the rest look bad. 😉

 

[xraydoc]

Thats the stupid part of this. Its JUST the app! You buy a new Sonos product that has an unsupported feature, you just need a new FREE app!

They should have released a very streamlined Sonos 2.0 app that was just for the new product and slowly migrated features until it reached parity with Sonos 1.0 and then deprecate it.

Just incomprehensibly stupid management.

Except it’s not just the app. It’s partly the app. But it’s their whole backend architecture that’s screwed things up, too.

 

[lfaa]

I prefer my classic stereo gear. A remote to control everything. Relying on an app to run speakers well I’m not sure it’s something reliable on the long term (meaning if you think to keep your bt mp3 stuff for say more than 3 years. Example: Sonos.

 

[yayarod]

SONOS doesn't have a solid or big enough software team and also doesn't have the resources.
A proof of this is that the macOS app is still Intel only after more than three years since the introduction of M Macs.
For SONOS there will be only one way to sustain software development: subscription
It's impossible for a company to sell a 300-500 dollars product and maintain it for 8 to 10 years for free.
And the incomes from the higher priced products are also not enough in this equation.
It's always necessary to take in account that SONOS is a relatively small company with a small number of niche products offering.
SONOS is not Pioneer or SONY.

 

[coffeemilktea]

Sonos had to come out with a new app when it launched the Sonos Ace headphones because of "technical debt." The company basically spent time working on new features instead of updating outdated code written in obsolete languages, leading to infrastructure issues. Sonos put off addressing the underlying technical debt

What's crazy is that this isn't even the first time I've seen a company decide to make their product vastly inferior as a way to cope with "technical debt." Is it that difficult to hire mildly competent people to keep infrastructure up to date and working smoothly, or does spending money on that sort of thing eat into the executives' compensation too much? 🤪

 

[brofkand]

See to me I figured the S1/S2 debacle of a few years ago was Sonos' chance to deal with technical debt. They caused a lot of ill will then. This debacle is just pouring more fuel on the fire. It's really sad because they make great audio products - reliable, good sound, the whole package. But they're killing their customers' trust with these boneheaded decisions.

SONOS doesn't have a solid or big enough software team and also doesn't have the resources.
A proof of this is that the macOS app is still Intel only after more than three years since the introduction of M Macs.
For SONOS there will be only one way to sustain software development: subscription
It's impossible for a company to sell a 300-500 dollars product and maintain it for 8 to 10 years for free.
And the incomes from the higher priced products are also not enough in this equation.
It's always necessary to take in account that SONOS is a relatively small company with a small number of niche products offering.
SONOS is not Pioneer or SONY.

This might have been a bigger deal before the recent app debacle at Sonos, but look at the reviews for the Sonos app vs. Sony or Denon or any other audio company's app. It's night and day - Sonos has far and away the best software. It's not even really close.