Sonos

A new Bloomberg report includes details on some employee pushback to Sonos’ new app ahead of its disastrous launch:

Sonos employees, many of whom were fans before joining the company, started to directly and forcefully raise the alarm with Spence and other executives, according to three current and former employees. They described “yelling” and “screaming” in meetings.

As Sonos tries to win back trust following the rough rollout of its new app, you can now reach Sonos support on Saturday and Sunday.

Friend of The Verge Janko Roettgers reports that the partner is The Trade Desk, an advertising company. From today’s Lowpass newsletter:

Under the arrangement, The Trade Desk is supplying Sonos with the core smart TV OS, and facilitating deals with app publishers, while Sonos is designing its own hardware, and customizing the user interface.

“Incompetence has infected top management” at Sonos, according to a former engineer’s Reddit post.

This ex-employee — I’ve confirmed their credentials — also says the culture within Sonos took a sharp turn for the worse with the original Roam. That speaker became the first glaring example of a product rushed out the door despite internal warnings. It wouldn’t be the last.

Reminder: I’m reachable on Signal at chriswelch.01.

Sonos’ Patrick Spence said on Reddit this week that the company wouldn’t be able to bring back the old app, and today, he made a series of posts on Threads about the company’s efforts and what it has learned.

“In hindsight, one thing that is clear is that we shouldn’t have introduced such a big change so quickly,” he said.

Can’t think of the last time I opened an app to an apology for how buggy the app is!

In a live Q&A video, Sonos’ Adib Mehrabi and Cameron MacLeod offered a more specific timeframe for when the Ace’s signature feature will expand to the company’s other soundbars. Sonos is targeting late summer / early fall.

That’s also when Android users will be able to set up TV Audio Swap in the first place.

iFixit has completed its teardown of the Sonos Ace headphones, and it’s always interesting to see how a company’s first product in a new category differs from what’s come before.

The battery seems easy enough to swap for a new one. However, Sonos has warned there’s “a pretty important acoustic seal” that you risk damaging if you get it wrong.