Sonos Considers Relaunching Its Old App

Sonos considered re-releasing its previous mobile app for Android and iOS — a clear sign of how challenging the company’s hasty redesign has become. Edge I can report that Sonos is in discussions about bringing back the previous version of the app, known as S2, as the company continues to work hard to improve performance and iron out bugs in a redesign that was introduced in May and met with a wave of negative feedback. (The new Sonos app currently has an average rating of 1.3 stars on Google Play.)

Allowing customers to revert to the older software could ease their frustrations and reduce at least some of the pressure on Sonos to fix every issue with the new app. For now, at least, only a redesigned version is available, leaving some customers unable to avoid its flaws. The situation has improved significantly with recent updates, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

CEO Patrick Spence has consistently emphasized that rebuilding the Sonos app from the ground up was the right decision and that it will allow the company to innovate more often and expand into new product categories.

But he also acknowledged that Sonos had seriously let down many customers. “While redesigning the app was and remains the right thing to do, our execution — my execution — did not meet expectations,” he said on last week’s earnings call. He added:

The app situation has become a headwind for existing product sales, and we believe we need to focus on the app before anything else. This means delaying two major new product releases that we had planned for Q4 until our app experience reaches the level of quality that we, our customers, and our partners expect from Sonos.

One of the two delayed products is the successor to the Sonos Arc soundbar — codenamed Lasso — and sources say that Edge that Sonos still hopes to release the product in October. (Sonos’ fiscal year ends at the end of September, so October would mark the start of fiscal 2025, which would align with Spence’s statement.)

Last week, Spence estimated that righting the ship would likely cost between $20 million and $30 million in the near future as Sonos tries to appease existing customers and keep them from abandoning the company’s whole-home audio platform. The new app is updated every two weeks with improvements, and Spence said that rhythm will continue through the fall. The potential return of the S2 won’t change that. Bringing back the old app could prove to be a technical headache, as Sonos’ new software moves many core functions to the cloud.

It’s undoubtedly one of the most tumultuous periods in Sonos’ history. In just a few months, the company went from a cherished consumer tech brand to a painful example of what can happen when management pushes too aggressively for new projects. Spence himself has admitted that the app controversy completely overshadowed the release of Sonos’ first headphones, the Sonos Ace. Today, Sonos has laid off about 100 employees as the fallout from the app’s hasty makeover continues to linger.