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I saw this Sonos train wreck play out at the gym I was coaching at when they decided to switch to the new app. The gym had up until that point a reliable setup of 5 sonos Play:5 speakers that could blow the roof off of the place. It got to the point with the new Sonos app where we had to have strict rules about exactly how coaches could interact with the app and had to buy WiFi plugs that would reboot the speakers twice a day when the gym was empty. A situation that could have been avoided if the product team listened to the developers on the state of the code (there is NO WAY the Devs weren’t saying this was ready). I’ve seen that play out plenty of times over my career but not to this extent. At least this time there were consequences as the CEO and other C suite execs were let go for the mistake.
Sonos, the company that makes premium audio equipment, rolled out a redesigned app last year that was supposed to improve the user experience and accelerate the company’s pace of innovation. Like other Sonos products, the idea sounded great.
Until it led to one of the most disastrous software updates in the recent history of consumer technology.
By way of The Wall Street Journal