Sonos is considering relaunching its old app

Sonos has explored the possibility of re-releasing its existing mobile app for Android and iOS – a clear sign of what an ordeal the hasty redesign was for the company. The edge can report that there have been discussions at the highest levels at Sonos about bringing back the previous version of the app, known as S2, while the company continues to work on improving performance and fixing bugs in the redesigned version that was introduced in May and drew a flood of negative feedback. (The new Sonos app currently has a 1.3-star rating average on Google Play.)

If customers can revert to the older software, it could ease their frustration and at least reduce the pressure on Sonos to fix every problem with the new app. For now, at least, only the redesigned version is available, making it impossible for some customers to avoid the flaws. With recent updates, the situation has improved significantly, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

CEO Patrick Spence insisted that redesigning the Sonos app from the ground up was the right decision and will allow the company to innovate more frequently and expand into new product categories.

But he also readily admitted that Sonos has seriously disappointed many customers. “Although the redesign of the app was and remains the right decision, our implementation – my implementation – has not lived up to expectations,” he said during the conference call last week. He continued:

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

One of these two delayed products is the successor to the Sonos Arc soundbar – codename Lasso – and sources report The edge that Sonos still hopes to launch that product sometime in October. (Sonos’ fiscal year ends at the end of September, so the company would start its 2025 fiscal year in October, consistent with Spence’s statement.)

Last week, Spence estimated that righting the ship will likely cost between $20 million and $30 million in the near future as Sonos works to keep current customers happy and keep them from abandoning the company’s home audio platform. The new app will be updated with improvements every two weeks, and Spence has said that cadence will continue through the fall. The possible return of S2 would not change that. Restoring the old app could prove to be a technical problem, as Sonos’ new software moves many core functions to the cloud.

This is undoubtedly one of the most turbulent times in Sonos’ history. In a matter of months, the company has gone from being a respected consumer technology brand to a painful example of what can happen when company leadership pushes new projects too aggressively. Spence himself admitted that the app controversy completely overshadowed the release of Sonos’ very first headphones, the Sonos Ace. Just today, Sonos laid off around 100 employees as the fallout from the rushed app overhaul still lingers.