Sonos Botched Update May 2024

Seems to be a lot of noise over the most recent Sonos update. Sample here:

I have just a single unit and won’t update. I also use Roon to steam to the device anyway.

This got me thinking though. We streamers are totally vulnerable to the same problem. That is, a botched update or poor app re-work brings our entire music ecosystem down.

I feel badly for the thousands of affected Sonos customers and feel fortunate that Roon has continued with feature and performance updates at a fairly rapid pace since their acquisition by Harman. Still, the Sonos situation gives me pause. They have to be far and away the biggest player in the space. They’ve created a lot of ill will that can only cost them customers. How could they even come close to letting this happen?

A decent article in the Washington Post summarizing all the problems if you’re willing to give them an email.

Todd Anderson said:

Wow. That's really unfortunate. You'd think that a company with a consumer base as large as Sonos would have done a better job beta testing.

Click to expand...

I would have thought so, too. You’d think breaking trust with your loyal fan base would be priority one if for no other reason than their own self interest.

Maybe we‘re all looked at as a bunch of unpaid beta testers these days? Or possibly things have become too complicated for us poor humans to execute without oversights and errors?