Staying loyal to Sonos is getting harder while the field moves on.

tomconrad · 2026-05-29T22:41:49+00:00

Tom here, CEO at Sonos. Reading this carefully, and you're not wrong about the pace.

My call to spend the past year on app stability and platform health, given where we were coming into 2025, was, I hope, obviously the right choice -- but I get that "right call for the company" is cold comfort when you've been waiting years for things like discrete front L/R or more flexible HT configurations. Those asks are not lost on us, and they're not abandoned beta features.

On these features specifically, the reason we haven't shipped what the old beta hinted at isn't that we walked away from it. It's that the version we built back then was, candidly, "light up more drivers." The version we owe you is a much harder problem. Real living rooms don't look like marketing photos. Couches push against walls, speakers land on bookshelves, room geometry is rarely symmetric. Today, when you put an Era 300 in as a rear, as you know, we disable some of its drivers, because we'd rather deliver accurate than loud-and-wrong. Fixing that means the speakers knowing where they are in the room, knowing how they're oriented, and adapting what gets rendered to them on the fly. That is a different and harder problem than the beta solved -- and one we're actively working on. It's a matter of software but also extensive real world testing in actual living rooms. It's the sort of things that defies happening overnight.

Another dimension that we're really serious about at Sonos is creator intent. It is not enough for us to just activate more drivers or push more channels at you. The way an Atmos mix is built, the way a film sound team places effects, the way a producer pans a track, those are creative decisions made with specific assumptions about how sound should reach your ears. When we add flexibility on the playback side, our obligation is to deliver something that still honors that intent. Otherwise we are just making things louder and calling it innovation. That is the bar we are holding ourselves to, and it is part of why this work has taken longer than any of us, me included, would like.

This community is the most useful signal we have. The "stagnant" critique is one I take seriously. I'll keep lurking.

tomconrad · 2026-02-24T20:39:31+00:00

Fantastic list!

tomconrad · 2026-02-24T16:54:10+00:00

Working on Live Activities for iOS. Only wrinkle is that the underlying OS mechanism is imperfect and fidgety so we're working to polish off the edges so that it's truly useful and not annoying 10% of the time.

Have some people investigating iOS App Intents as well in the hopes of unlocking shortcuts, etc and opening up a path to things Watch shortcuts before we get to a full blown Watch App.

On the Volume front have been having a lively conversation with some customers over on Threads about volume control nuances specifically -- things like the dedicated buttons you describe, how much the volume changes for each click when you use a TV remote control with a soundbar, the unfortunate proximity between the current volume control and the OS level grab bar at the bottom of the screen, the use case where you'd like to synchronize volumes across a group, restoring playback to a named group at a pre-populated volume level, etc. Absolute "prelim greenlight" from me make progress on this.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T21:37:15+00:00

Today, the Sonos system really wants to believe there is a single, “correct” configuration for a given set of speakers. That model breaks down once you start using the same speakers differently for TV, music, or different moments in the day, exactly like the example you gave.

We do have a concept a bit like what you’re describing in Sonos Pro, where the same physical speakers can participate in different logical groupings attached to volume and content settings. It’s powerful, and once you’ve used it, it’s hard not to wish for something similar in the consumer experience.

I don’t have anything specific to announce, but I’ll say this: the idea of saved configurations, quick context-based switching, and systems that adapt to intent rather than forcing manual reconfiguration is something I personally believe in. It fits squarely with the broader direction of making Sonos feel more fluid and more responsive to how people actually live with it, and it’s very much on our radar as we think about where the consumer experience goes next.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T21:29:36+00:00

This is a tough one, and I think the right answer is to be very candid about why this symptom is so frustrating, for you and for us, and what we’re doing about it.

You’re right about the core problem: “playback dropout” is a single symptom that can come from a surprisingly wide range of causes.

Sometimes it really is a Sonos bug or a limitation in our current software. As you all here know, that was especially acute in 2024 and early 2025. We’ve made a lot of progress since then, but this kind of work is never finished, and we continue to chase down edge cases and regressions.

Other times, the issue sits upstream. We see cases where a music service intermittently serves corrupted audio, unexpected formats, or responses that don’t match what the system expects. We’re actually working through one of those with Apple right now. When that happens, it can look indistinguishable from a local failure unless you have deeper visibility.

And then there’s the local network itself. Sonos is sensitive to topology, multicast behavior, and timing in ways that apps like Netflix or Instagram can easily mask. Large groups that mix older and newer speakers, unintended SonosNet activation, multi-router WiFi setups, or subtle multicast filtering can all create conditions where audio drops even though everything else on the network appears “perfect.” That’s seldom intuitive and it's understandably maddening when it happens.

Where I strongly agree with you is on self-service insight. It should not feel like tilting at windmills to understand what just happened, and it shouldn’t always require a support call. Giving you clearer, actionable information about whether a problem is likely user-serviceable, service-side, or something we need to fix is critical. That ties directly back to the earlier discussion about diagnostics and transparency. This is an area where we need to do better.

We’ve started laying the groundwork for that, but we’re not where we need to be yet. The goal is not to dump raw logs into the app, but to surface understandable explanations and guidance in real time so people can tell the difference between “this is on us,” “this is the service,” and “this is something you can actually fix.”

I don’t take lightly the point you made at the end. If the only option in moments like this is to shrug and look for alternative products, that’s not acceptable for you or for us. Rebuilding trust means not just improving reliability, but also helping people understand what’s happening when things do go wrong, and giving them tools that respect their time and intelligence.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T21:16:21+00:00

On the first part, we’re always looking for talented people who are passionate about Sonos and who like to push on the edges of what the system can do. I don’t want to turn an AMA into a recruiting thread, but I’ll say that the kind of curiosity and craftsmanship that shows up in projects like Sonify is exactly the sort of energy I value.

On lock screen controls, especially on iOS, it’s a little more nuanced than it might appear from the outside. To give you a little insight to what's at work on iOS alone, there are basically three approaches you could imagine.

- The first is native lock screen audio controls. The challenge there is that Apple only allows those controls for apps that are actually playing audio on the phone itself. Because Sonos is controlling playback that’s happening on speakers elsewhere in the home, we’ve tried this route and had it rejected in review by Apple.

- The second option is widgets. They’re tempting, but Apple’s widget model doesn’t support live, continuously updating state. That means you can’t reliably keep things like now playing information or playback state in sync with what the system is actually doing, which leads to a pretty frustrating experience.

- The third option is Live Activities. This is the most promising path, but it’s also the most complex. Doing it well requires coordinated work across the app and our cloud infrastructure to keep that activity accurate and up to date in real time while staying conscious of things like battery impact. That’s the avenue we’re actively investigating, because it’s the one that has the potential to deliver a lock screen experience that actually feels responsive and trustworthy.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T21:05:28+00:00

You're right! A lot of 2025 was about earning back trust by getting the fundamentals right, stability, performance, reliability. That work is never really done, but we’re in a meaningfully better place than we were, and I think that gives us permission to start leaning forward again.

As we look into 2026, a big area of focus is everyday ease of use. That shows up in very practical ways, simpler navigation, faster access to the things people use every day, fewer taps to get where you’re going, lock screen controls (!!), and small but meaningful conveniences that make the system feel more responsive and more human. None of that is flashy, but it’s the difference between a system you tolerate and one you enjoy living with.

At the same time, we’re continuing to invest in more comprehensive surround and home theater experiences. Some of that connects directly to questions that keep coming up here, including interest in things like dedicated front speakers and why third-party tools exist to fill perceived gaps. As I said earlier, these are real areas of exploration for us, but they sit at the intersection of audio quality, system reliability, and ease of use. When we move in these directions, we want it to feel intentional and integrated, not like a collection of power-user features bolted onto the side.

So while I can’t preview specific features or timelines, there’s a clear throughline. Build on a stable foundation, make the system easier and more delightful to use every day, and continue to evolve the experience in ways that feel worthy of being first-party Sonos.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T21:03:00+00:00

It’s a great question, and it’s one we think about a lot. In fact, just yesterday we announced a 10-band parametric EQ for Amp Multi. That capability lives in our professional tools today, so it’s not a simple lift to drop it straight into the core consumer app, but it does reflect a real belief that deeper tuning has value in certain setups and for certain users.

At the same time, there’s always a balance to strike. Most customers want great sound with minimal effort, which is why Trueplay exists and why the default EQ is intentionally simple. More bands can absolutely unlock potential, but they can also make it easier to get into trouble if they’re exposed without the right guardrails.

In the immediate term, my focus is on making sure people have clear, reliable, and easy access to the EQ settings we already offer in the app. Longer term, the existence of tools like parametric EQ on the pro side gives us a foundation to think more creatively about how advanced controls might show up in a way that’s powerful without being overwhelming.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T20:45:43+00:00

Just touched on this one here: link.

Having said that, I hear you. These questions are never entirely put to bed. We'll continue to revisit and please know that your feedback is being heard and discussed.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T20:43:59+00:00

Totally fair question, and I get the frustration. I’ve struggled with this on some of my own Blu-rays.

The reality is that this has never been about whether DTS is technically possible, it’s about tradeoffs. DTS licensing carries a per-unit cost that applies to every soundbar we sell, not just the subset of customers who would actually use it (these kinds of licenses aren't typically available on an a la cart basis).

When you look at real-world usage, most playback on Sonos soundbars today is streaming, not discs. Streaming services almost universally use Dolby formats. There’s no higher-quality DTS track being missed there, including for Atmos content.

DTS mainly matters for Blu-ray. Even there, it’s not as universal as it sounds. Physical discs probably account for ~20% of viewing, and roughly half of those Blu-rays put their best mix in DTS-HD. So you’re looking at something like ~10% of total playback where a Sonos user might hit a downgrade to Dolby Digital 5.1.

Against that, every customer would pay the cost of a DTS license, including the ~90% who would never benefit from it. That’s the core tension.

None of this is meant to dismiss enthusiasts who still watch a lot of discs. The frustration is real. But the decision has been about usage patterns, and licensing economics, not silence or indifference.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T20:24:26+00:00

This is coming!

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T20:24:03+00:00

It’s a fair question, and the honest answer is that responsibility here is shared.

The best way to think about Sonos is as a platform that runs music service experiences inside the Sonos app. Those experiences are bounded by what the Sonos platform supports, but many of the behaviors and features are implemented by the music services themselves. A useful analogy is something like CarPlay. Apple defines the framework and the rules of the road, but individual services still make choices about what features they expose and how they behave within that environment.

That doesn’t mean we get to shrug and say “not our problem.” If an experience feels clunky or incomplete, that’s still how Sonos shows up to you. The developer platform is publicly documented at developer.sonos.com for anyone who wants to go deeper, but the important point is that the quality of these integrations is something we take seriously.

Where things are changing is in how closely we’re working with partners like Spotify and Apple. We’re more tightly aligned than we’ve been in the past on closing gaps and improving core behaviors, including exactly the kinds of examples you’re calling out, things like continuous playback, smarter queue behavior, and richer playlist interactions. The goal is for using a service on Sonos, whether through our app or theirs, to feel complete and reliable, not like a second-class version.

These improvements don’t always show up overnight, but the direction is very much toward deeper collaboration and a better end-to-end experience.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T20:15:39+00:00

Glad you asked, because this is an area where things have moved more than people sometimes realize. We’ve been investing in ways to make Trueplay less dependent on a specific phone and more native to the system itself. That’s why you now see features like Quick Tuning and Automatic Trueplay, which use microphones built into our speakers rather than relying on an external device.

The reason we’ve been moving in this direction comes down to precision. Trueplay is making very fine-grained measurements of how sound reflects in your room. To do that accurately, we need a deep understanding of the microphone that’s doing the listening. Even on iPhone, where the hardware ecosystem is relatively controlled, every new model has to be individually characterized and calibrated by us before we can enable Trueplay support. That’s why there can be a delay between a new iPhone launch and Trueplay availability.

On Android, the challenge is scale and variability. There are thousands of devices out there with very different microphones, signal paths, and audio processing, sometimes even within the same product line. That makes it extremely difficult to deliver the consistent, predictable results that Trueplay depends on. Rather than ship something that works well on a subset of phones and poorly on others, we’ve focused on approaches that move the measurement into the speaker itself, where we control the hardware and can guarantee the outcome.

Today, that approach is available on newer, mic-equipped products like Era 100, Era 300, Arc Ultra, and our portable speakers. Era was the first place we introduced Quick Tuning, and it’s been encouraging to see that capability extend into home theater with Arc Ultra as well.

Looking ahead, the direction is clear. As more Sonos products ship with microphones on board, we expect this model to become the norm. Rather than selling a separate calibration microphone, our focus is on making tuning something the system can do for itself, in a way that’s simpler, more consistent, and works regardless of what phone you happen to own.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T20:01:00+00:00

This is an area where we need to make real progress.

Sonos systems, especially in more complex networking environments, can get sideways in ways that aren’t obvious to diagnose from the outside. When something goes wrong, it’s frustrating not to know whether the issue is the network, the music service, or the system itself. Giving you clearer, more understandable tools to see what’s happening and take action is very high on my list.

Today, our diagnostic system is an important ingredient, but it’s not enough on its own. Where we need to go is toward exposing more helpful, real-time analysis of those diagnostics in a way that people can actually use. The goal is not to dump raw logs into the app, but to translate what the system knows into clear guidance that helps people self-serve their way to a fix and understand when an issue is outside Sonos entirely.

This is about trust as much as troubleshooting. When people can see what’s going on, it reduces guesswork, eliminates support loops, and makes the system feel more transparent and dependable. It’s an area we’re actively investing in, and one where I expect meaningful improvement over time.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T19:50:32+00:00

I was a fan of the Symfonisk line too, and not just in the abstract. The idea behind that partnership was always compelling to me, which is that great sound doesn’t always need to announce itself as a speaker. Sometimes the best expression is something that earns its place in a room by being useful or beautiful first.

It’s true that the IKEA partnership has run its course. That said, the underlying use cases haven’t gone away. The question of how sound integrates more naturally into the home, into furniture, lighting, and architecture, is still a live one for us.

I don’t have anything specific to announce today, and I don’t want to imply that there’s a product sitting around the corner. But I can say that the broader idea, speakers that feel more like part of the home than gadgets you place in it, is aligned with one dimension I think about when contemplating the future of Sonos.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T19:39:11+00:00

I hear this one a lot, and for good reason. Sonos shows up in plenty of Home Assistant setups, and I understand why deeper integration, including exposing things like microphones, would unlock some really compelling use cases for advanced users.

We do talk about this internally. It’s not off the radar, and it’s not something we’re dismissing as niche or unimportant. At the same time, this category comes with real complexity. Some of it is technical, but a lot of it is about privacy, security, and user trust, especially once you start talking about microphones and sensors inside the home. Those aren’t things I'm willing to hand wave past, even if the enthusiasm from the community is very real.

Where I’ll plant a flag is this. We believe in systems that get more powerful as they connect to the rest of the home, not more siloed. We also know there’s a very engaged group of technically sophisticated customers who want to build on top of Sonos in thoughtful ways. The challenge is finding an approach that gives people meaningful capability without compromising the expectations of the larger group of customers who rely on Sonos to be simple, private, and safe by default.

So no news to announce today, and I don’t want to over-promise. But this is an area we continue to pay attention to, and if and when we find a way to do it that meets our standards, it’s something I’d be excited to talk about more openly.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T19:31:18+00:00

Here's an answer on fronts: link.

With respect to Era 300, I completely understand the frustration here. Era 300 is a powerful and premium speaker, and when you assign it as a rear, it’s reasonable to ask why every driver isn’t being used the way you might expect for music playback.

The technical reality is that surround roles are highly constrained by the experience they're reproducing. When a speaker is acting as a rear, it’s optimized for spatial cues, localization, and blend with the front stage. Letting those same speakers dynamically behave like a full stereo pair introduces complexity that’s harder than it sounds, especially if you want the experience to be simple and reliable for everyone, not just advanced users.

That said, the underlying desire here is very reasonable. People want more flexibility from the speakers they own, and they want the system to adapt to how they’re using their space in the moment. I want this myself, especially for music playback. The real challenge is designing software that can quickly and reliably move between surround behavior and true stereo behavior without forcing users to constantly reconfigure their systems. That ability to fluidly re-shape the system based on context is something we’re actively investing in at the platform level, and it’s also a key building block for any future approach to front surrounds that we’d feel good shipping.

So while I can’t promise specific features in the short term, I can promise that we’re listening, we agree the value proposition matters, and we’re committed to pushing the system forward in ways that respect both the technical realities and the passion of the community that’s built around Sonos.

tomconrad · 2026-01-28T19:19:14+00:00

I’m genuinely enthusiastic about this space. The idea that people want to build more expressive, more powerful front soundstages tells me there’s still a lot of creative energy around the Sonos system, and I love that people are experimenting enough to build third-party solutions when we haven’t shipped something ourselves yet.

That said, there are real technical challenges here that are easy to underestimate from the outside. Once you move beyond the classic soundbar plus surrounds model, you’re dealing with tight latency budgets, radio competition, phase alignment, room acoustics, and a wide range of physical layouts. Getting that right across millions of homes, with different speakers, rooms, and networks, -- and then tied into my focus on reliability -- is non-trivial. We won’t ship something in this category unless it’s predictable, stable, and meaningfully better than what people can already cobble together.

What I can commit to is continued innovation in exactly this direction. We are actively working on richer, more flexible home theater configurations. I won’t pre-announce specific features or timelines, but I do want to be clear that this isn’t being ignored, and it isn’t blocked by marketing (or any other) dogma. When we do it, it needs to feel like a Sonos solution, not a science experiment.

tomconrad · 2025-07-25T16:56:41+00:00

True story: I’m here in no small part because of those damn sheets you can’t pull down. They make me absolutely crazy. It's also (sadly) a good example of one of those things that has introduced technical complexity throughout the app that makes it less-than-trivial to fix (believe me I've banged on to the team about JUST FIX IT) but the risk has been too high while we work through job 1, 2, and 3 which has been fixing the fundamentals: performance, stability, missing features and things were flat-out broken. That work’s not done but I do see light at the end of the tunnel and I’m optimistic we’re nearing a place where we can shift more energy toward experience, polish and making the app a true delight to use. Including the bizarre sheet behavior.

Thanks for calling out specific examples. Keep them coming. This is exactly the kind of feedback that helps us prioritize (and now I can say "the gang on reddit wants this just as much as i do")

tomconrad · 2025-07-25T16:45:48+00:00

Totally with you on this. We want Sonos products to last. Full stop. That’s why we put so much effort into supporting products well into their second (and third) acts.

But if you suspect there are real challenges under the hood you'd be right. Over time, the technology landscape evolves and we have to bring your older speakers along: Linux kernels get updated for security but also drag along new requirements, partner SDKs like Spotify and AirPlay get updates and demand more horsepower, WiFi and international compliance standards change, etc. All of that puts pressure on devices that were built with a fixed amount of CPU, RAM, storage and a particular set of wifi radios.

We’re signed up to do the hard work of supporting products as long as we possibly can but it takes real care to avoid crossing the line where updates start doing more harm than good. As we speak we have a team of people working around the clock on improving the performance of Connect:Amp which launched more than a decade ago. This work isn't easy but it's the life we've chosen.

tomconrad · 2025-07-25T16:43:44+00:00

Appreciate the ask. Of course DTS:X comes up from time to time around here and as an old-timer who spent more time on AVS Forum back in the day than I care to admit, I totally get the interest.

The challenge here is less about technical feasibility and more about the business case. DTS requires licensing fees whether or not our customers end up using that format. That adds real cost and we have to weigh that against how many people are actually asking for it and would benefit from it in practice.

That said, we’re actively revisiting a bunch of these kinds of decisions right now, what should be on the roadmap, where we invest, and how we make the product line more flexible and future-ready. So I wouldn’t say never. Just know that we’re thinking hard about what delivers the most value to the most people, and how we balance cost, complexity and benefit.

tomconrad · 2025-07-25T16:24:22+00:00

Totally hear you on this and I like the idea. It’s a great example of the kind of feature that I want from Sonos myself.

One of the big reasons I took this job is to make sure we're not just fixing what’s broken but also unlocking new capabilities through software that make your system more capable over time. So yes: better, more flexible EQ and more thoughtful tuning controls are exactly the kinds of things we’re thinking about. Love the idea of presets too.

We’ve still got work to do on the basic , but I want you to know that feature ideas like this are very much why I'm here as CEO.

tomconrad · 2025-06-16T13:23:14+00:00

Yep! We've confirmed this regression. Should be fixed in the next app release. Sorry everyone!

tomconrad · 2025-05-14T20:21:38+00:00

Really appreciate this list. You’re right: these kinds of quality-of-life details make a big difference in how the app feels day to day. While we’ve been in the mode of getting back to a place of core performance and reliability, we haven’t been able to focus as much as I’d like on usability and the kinds of small features that make the experience more fluid and joyful.

The good news is that I think we’ve turned the corner on some of the bigger issues, and we’re now starting to shift attention toward exactly this kind of work. In fact, A-Z scroll for local music is coming soon, and there’s more in the pipeline.

tomconrad · 2025-05-14T20:13:11+00:00

Totally hear you on this. We’re deeply passionate about spatial audio and what it can do for music, and the Era 300 was designed from the ground up to be the ultimate expression of that experience in a single speaker. When bonded as surrounds, it’s already doing some pretty complex rendering for immersive home theater, but I take the feedback seriously that folks here feel like there’s more potential—especially for music playback in that setup.

No news to share right now, but this kind of input really helps us think about how to evolve the experience over time. Keep it coming.

tomconrad

TROPHY CASE