I was overly enthusiastic about Sonos :: My mistake

by Volker Weber

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Last week I was overly enthusiastic about the prospect of bringing new life into my special relationship with Sonos. I should not have posted that. It's a different company now.

In other news: a Playbar that only displays a solid white light when turned on. Does not respond to factory reset, does not appear in the controller. Who has seen that?

Update: Sonos resolved the Playbar issue like a champ. Maybe they can also fix my other issue.

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Comments

I had something similar at the end of last year except that I had no light. The Playbar just dissappeared from the system and was completely dead. A RMA was agreed with Sonos but as the Playbar was out of the orginal warranty I had to pay a (reduced) sum for the replacement .

David Eyre, 2017-05-29

I had this twice - once with the playbar, once with a PLAY:1. it seemed they were stuck in the boot process.
Re-starting (powercycle) worked for me.

Michael Oehme, 2017-05-29

David, can you remember how much you paid?

Michael, power cycle is always the first thing to try. But it goes straight to white light.

Volker Weber, 2017-05-29

I can't quickly find the exact amount but it was around 30% of the new price. The other irritation was that the RMA waas supposed to go via DHL Express rather than via normal DHL which would have required a visit to a distant depot. I used normal DHL which delayed the return.

David Eyre, 2017-05-29

Sounds good. Thank you, David.

Volker Weber, 2017-05-29

FWIW, I paid 139 € in January 2016 for the replacement of a PLAY:3 which showed very similar symptoms.

Henning Störk, 2017-05-29

I had something like that when using beta builds and updating from my smartphone. My Connect:Amp did the same: Turned on an only showed the white light. Not showing in the controller anymore.
I can't remember what I did exactly, but I think I had to connect an ethernet cable and then somehow a factory reset worked. I think I also did something with the HTML-Interface (http://[Sonos-IP]:1400/...), perhaps only for some infos. (But I remember, I spent 2 evenings on this).

Daniel Naumann, 2017-05-29

I had exactly the same problem with a Playbar, but within the warranty. Support stated "hardware defect" and I got a free replacement.

Volker Berding, 2017-05-29

Sorry to hear about the "new" Sonos.

They need to walk a fine line here. I consider myself a tech geek, and I am very reluctant to buy into closed systems.
These days, I am almost all in on Sonos, but it was't until I was convinced by another geek (i.e., vowe) that I started buying Sonos (Playbar, Sub, 3 x Play:1, Connect:AMP).

Trust is important for closed systems. Hope they reconsider their policy.

Christian Andres, 2017-05-29

I had the same issue a couple of months ago with 2 of my devices, a play:1 and a playbar. The factory reset solved the white light issue. Had to repeat it a couple of times before it worked though. Since then the issue didn't happen anymore.

Frank van Rijt, 2017-05-29

Sad to hear they realigned themselves in such way.

Without our good mother, I would not have bought into Sonos (which we today have in almost every room).

Tobias Hauser, 2017-05-29

Since 2009, I had two issues with Sonos (I own 5 devices):
- 1 Play:5, died similar to yours. Replaced by a refurbished one for 140€ from Sonos (warranty period was over).
- CR200 Controller: with vowes help this one was replaced without any costs. Battery died soon after replacement, it is not being used anymore.

All in all, I am not enthusiastic about Sonos' quality (compared to other HiFi component builders like Denon, Pioneer etc I own), but I won't complain about their support.

Axel Koerv, 2017-05-29

Schade das sich die Firma so verändert hat. Ich mochte es sehr hier deine Einschätzungen zu lesen.

Ich hoffe das es trotzdem bald einen Erfahrungsbericht zur Playbase auf vowe geben wird. (Wenn ich das Foto vom letzten Beitrag bedenke...)

Und ich nehme ja mal stark an das du dich durch deinen "Ambassador"-Status in der Vergangenheit nicht hast einlullen lassen.

Allerdings ist es schon auffällig das genau unter diesem Artikel mit Sonos-Bezug reihenweise Kommentare aufschlagen mit Hardware-Problemen. Ich hoffe meine Geräte halten noch lange durch. (Bzw. der Support bleibt weiterhin so gut wie hier beschrieben.)

Matthias Welling, 2017-05-30

Sonos is still a great company with fantastic people an excellent products. But they have grown and there are new managers who have not experienced what we did. I have to respect them.

Volker Weber, 2017-05-30

vowe, was hat die Größe eines Unternehmens mit der Qualität der Kontakte zu loyalen, offenen und konstruktiv kritischen Ambassadors zu tun? Glauben dies neuen Manager wirklich, dass sie auf solche Menschen wie Dich verzichten können? Wenn sie keinen Erfolg haben, ziehen sie weiter, aber das Zerstörte lässt sich nur sehr schwer wieder aufbauen. Nur auf die Empfehlung der good mother habe ich mich mit Sonos beschäftigt und wurde dann überzeugt, auch durch die Qualität der Services. Aber der wird ganz sicher bald nachlassen, wenn neue Manager nicht an den guten Ruf der Vorgänger aufbauen und diesen ausbauen.
Hoffentlich sehen sie das bald ein und änderen ihre Ansichten und deren negativen Auswirkungen.

Wolfram Votteler, 2017-05-30

I have to chip in here. For me, personally, and hundreds of highly educated (and well earning) people in the industry, Volkers advise in regards of Sonos, always gave it a special status between all of the multiroom audio systems. And yes, there are plenty, also good ones. Cheaper ones. A lot. But I remember somebody saying "Wer reich ist, kann auch zweimal kaufen.". Guess who.

Anybody, who knows Volker a tiny bit, also knows, that he is not into bullsh*tting. He is always giving his best, honest opinion, like it or not. I maybe do not agree with all of it, and maybe I even get called 'stubborn'. What I know is, however, that Volker helped people decide into buying many hundreds of Sonos units. People who, like me, also influenced their circles into buying them. Go, figure.

If I had a company in a field of somebody else's deep knowledge, I would be glad to get good and solid advise and views for free, from somebody absolutely trustworthy, who is playing another kind of game, moneywise, usually. Of course, everybody is free to do, whatever they see fit.

Hubert Stettner, 2017-05-30

Woah woah woah. Ball Flach halten bitte.

Hubert, Du liegst zwei Größenordnungen zu tief. :-)

Wolfram, wir hatten uns ja mal über Ideen von "Unterscheffes" ausgetauscht.

Mein Fehler war, dass ich mich letzte Woche (missverständlich) über PR geäußert habe. Das sind supernette Leute. Sie können mir aber nicht das liefern, was ich brauche. Ich diskutiere auf Augenhöhe mit den besten Supportleuten. Du erinnerst Dich vielleicht an Badre, den ich hier mal sehr gelobt hatte. Badre hat das gar nicht verstanden, weil er eigentlich nur mir zugeschaut hat, wie ich den Fehler eigekreist habe. Ich habe gespielt, er war der Coach.

Ich bin eigentlich zuversichtlich, dass sich das alles regelt. Ich war einfach zu enthusiastisch. Einen Ambassador-Status gibt es nicht. Das habt Ihr Euch ausgedacht. Keine schlechte Idee. :-)

Volker Weber, 2017-05-30

Mein Ball ist total flach 😇 Mir ist wichtig, nicht nur zuzusehen, sondern auch einzustehen. Auch ich mag Dinge klar sagen. Du kannst das eleganter 🙃

Hubert Stettner, 2017-05-30

For clarification with my Playbar, it suffered a sudden death syndrome (as indeed electronic devices sometimes do). The basic fault finding was followed (good clear instructions provided on the Sonos website) then followed up by online support who were always responsive and personable before the RMA was agreed. For an out of warranty replacement the price was very reasonable (other companies e.g. Apple have dumped me with big repair bills in similar situations). I have subsequently used the Sonos online support to resolve a streaming problem a couple of times. In all cases the support was excellent and I was left with the feeling that I was a valued customer. I hope that this continues.

David Eyre, 2017-05-30

Sonos Support is stellar.

Volker Weber, 2017-05-30

Next week, we will celebrate 7 months of looking for the cause of unreproducible mesh breakdowns in our six zone Sonos setup (after several years of use without a problem).

Sonos support may be stellar, but has been unable to resolve the problem so far.

The family is highly annoyed and we're about to give up. We literally had kids crying in frustration here when they were once again unable to listen to their favourite music because the Sonos mesh was mysteriously​ offline.

Hanno Zulla, 2017-05-31

Yes, your case is very special.

Volker Weber, 2017-05-31

Hanno,

I am sure you have thought a out this yourself already, but as you are at this so long and I can empathize - having been in your shoes - did you replace the Ethernet cables?

I had intermittent network break downs until I replaced all (two) cables.

Mariano Kamp, 2017-05-31

That is an interesting fresh thought. Hanno is mostly on wireless Sonosnet but there is also a powerline segment.

Volker Weber, 2017-05-31

Powerline is a good thing but has its own devil's in the details 👻 I also love wireless lan and am using the Sonos of wifi solutions, unifi. But one thing I have learned some time ago:
There is nothing better, than a solid cable. Good physics to work with, always win. Always the way to go, if possible.

Hubert Stettner, 2017-05-31

I have also witnessed intermittent problems in one SONOS setup. Sometimes devices would choose the „wrong“ meshing partner based on perceived (but apparently not actual) signal quality. Permanently disabling the WiFi on some units directly connected through ethernet or powerline helped to vastly improve the situation as only a few chosen WiFi „beacons“ in optimum locations remain active.

Nonetheless, the Fritz!Powerline adapters that are in use will reproducibly cease to communicate after a few weeks of operation – LED status shows OK, but no traffic is coming through. Powercycling the devices helps, so I assume it is a firmware (yes, it is current) / memory management issue as I have observed the exact same issue with another powerline set of the same type.

Jörg Weske, 2017-05-31

I know You do not like to speculate, but nonetheless: might this "radio-silence" from Sonos' side be part of of rumours around Apple presenting a speaker? (Apple could debut the speaker as soon as its annual developer conference in June, read more on bloomberg www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-31/apple-said-to-ready-siri-speaker-in-bid-to-rival-google-amazon

Chris Frei, 2017-06-01

Absolutey not.

Volker Weber, 2017-06-01

Good to hear, I quite like my SONOS stuff to be independent from my Apple Stuff.

Chris Frei, 2017-06-01

Sonos likes to sell to Android customers as well.

Volker Weber, 2017-06-01

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