Sonos CEO says the old app can't be rereleased

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall sentiment

  • Strongly negative overall. Many praise Sonos hardware performance and sound quality but describe the UX, app, setup, and networking as among the worst they’ve ever used.
  • Several long‑time customers say this release turned them from brand loyalists into people who will never buy Sonos again.

Hardware vs. software

  • Hardware is widely regarded as solid, good‑value, and capable of excellent sound.
  • Software and UX are called opaque, fragile, and arbitrary. Non‑technical family members often refuse to use the app, relying on AirPlay instead.
  • Some suspect Sonos is intentionally making systems complex/fragile, increasing sunk‑cost lock‑in once users finally get everything working.

New app and protocol stack

  • Linked technical analysis: the old, robust UPnP/SOAP stack was replaced by mDNS + HTTP + WebSockets with Sonos’s cloud in the loop for third‑party services.
  • Commenters say this rewrite is more fragile, heavier on older hardware, and far more dependent on cloud availability and latency, even for local actions.
  • Many concrete bug reports: disappearing speakers/systems, toggles that don’t work or revert silently, “unregistered” devices with dead “Fix it” buttons, NFC pairing paths that hang, setup flows that never complete.
  • Some invoke the classic advice against total rewrites and criticize shipping a forced upgrade without feature parity or a rollback path.

Networking and SonosNet problems

  • Detailed reports describe SonosNet forming STP loops, tunneling over Wi‑Fi and Ethernet, congesting networks, and even taking entire Unifi deployments down.
  • Best‑practice workarounds include wiring all speakers, isolating Sonos in its own VLAN/broadcast domain, and treating devices as “hostile guests.”
  • Existence of official Unifi “how to survive Sonos” docs is cited as evidence of systemic networking flaws.

Accounts, cloud reliance, and data

  • Many see mandatory accounts and cloud control as needless for speakers, comparing to Hue and other smart‑home gear that now require logins “for security.”
  • Others argue that advanced features and remote access legitimately require accounts and think criticism is overblown.
  • Broader frustration with post‑sale updates: seen as adding unwanted features, data collection, and bugs, not value.

Alternatives and coping strategies

  • Several users abandon Sonos or vow to only buy “dumb” speakers plus swappable streamers (Wiim, Chromecast Audio, Squeezebox/LMS, Music Assistant, DIY Raspberry Pi setups).
  • AirPlay 2 multi‑room, Bluetooth speakers + Spotify Connect dongles, and other open/home‑server solutions are favored to avoid lock‑in and future “enshittification.”