Sonos delays new products until broken app gets fixed — what we know

Coming into the final quarter of its fiscal year, Sonos probably thought the company would be in good standing. 

Unfortunately, the bungled redesign of the Sonos app left customers furious and has had the audio company scrambling ever since, with the CEO Patrick Spence officially apologizing for the app debacle in late July. 

The fallout from that misstep continues to affect the company as Spence divulged in the the Sonos Q3 earnings press release. 

The problems that arose from the app redesign caused Sonos to reduce its 2024 fiscal guidance. Simply put, the company's original goals and expected earnings for the financial year had to be altered because of the software update. And this happened despite the debut of the Ace headphones that "exceeded our expectations," Spence said.

Beyond just revenue though, the Sonos app has basically caused the company to halt in place, including delaying future products.

The Ace headphones were "overshadowed by the problems that our customers and partners experienced as a result of the rollout of our new app," Spence said. "We have a clear action plan to address the issues caused by our app as quickly as possible."

The focus for the company currently is fixing the app with the report outlining Sonos' next steps including the "ability to introduce software updates to fix bugs, improve the customer experience and add back certain features to our new app on a timely basis and otherwise deliver on our action plan to address issues caused by our new app; our ability to maintain, enhance and protect our brand image."

Apparently, Sonos has two new products that were supposed to ship in the coming months but the app setback has delayed that process. It's unclear what those products are, as Sonos didn't specify which ones were impacted.

However, in early July it was reported that Sonos is working on an Arc soundbar successor codenamed 'Lasso'. Allegedly, the new soundbar will have new technology, more powerful bass and improved Bluetooth audio. If the rumored speaker is as good as the Arc, it'll immediately become one of the best soundbars available.

Bloomberg reported in November 2023 that Sonos was working on a TV set-top box meant to compete with Apple TV and Roku. The device was set to cost between $150 and $200 and run apps from streaming services. Not much more is known beyond that.

It's a good thing that Sonos is pushing back product launches to focus on the app. The redesign was universally loathed by Sonos customers with a raft of social media and Reddit backlash. Posts and comments complaining about the app redesign inundated the Sonos help forums and blogs. 

Spence says in its Q3 earnings report that the redesign efforts to fix the app issues will cost the company between $20 and $30 million. Spence seems confident Sonos will get back to normal describing the incident as one "regrettable" chapter.

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