5 reasons not to buy Sonos devices in 2025

If you are looking to buy any Sonos product, now is not the right time, I’ll explain why.

I’ve been using SOnos products for over 4 years and spent over £2000 personally on my Sonos products, spending even more as gifts to family members and recommending their products to friends. But I am no longer doing any of that! here are 5 reasons why

As someone one who spent over £2,000 on upgrading my Sonos wireless sound system and recommending convinced family and friends into

Sonos owner spent over £2k on their products
Convinced family members and friends to buy into the sonos ecosystem despite alternatives being available
Constantly persisted with some of the quirks and limitations
Everything I admired Sonos for has changed this year and I've decided it's time I vote with my money and stop buying or upgrading any more Sonos products till the foreseeable future.

State of the App
The Sonos app is so crucial in order to set up their devices. From setting up devices to managing the set up and taking advantage of the wireless set up, you need this app to work.
Sonos’s decision to update the app in June 2024 inline with the release of their new headphone, Sonos Ace, is something the company and its user base including me has been regretting
The app issues have all come from Sonos’ decision to move to a cloud based infrastructure and in return ruined almost all of its features

Users couldn't sign in
Lost access to their devices
Set up of new devices would take over 2 hours
Every input seem to go to their cloud and come back created lag
Lost simple features like setting up alarm
There are so many to go through here but you get the issue
frustrating part is that some of these issues still exist today and each app update feels like a game of lottery
This has forced SONOS to release their roadmap of what they are working on to the public via their Trello job board but the cynic in my thinks, this is just smoke screen - there might be a lot more to this board than what we are shown here -

Buggy Launches & Quality control
This leads me on to my 2nd point!
The bugs are not just with the app but the products they release are full of bugs too
Sonos released two major devices this year in Ace headphones and the Arc Ultra. The Ace has already flopped badly with Sonos selling only 250 pairs a day as opposed to an expected 2,500 devices a day -

Sonos focusing away from Audio to TV

If you think this is crazy, sonos is looking to focus away from Audio to video.

If the ACE was seen as Sonos moving away from its comfort zone into a new niche (even though it's still inside Audio)
Now Sonos is rumoured to create a new device aimed at the video streaming market and go head to head with the links of Apple TV and Amazon fire TV devices.
With the recent history of Sono’s struggle when it comes to releasing new hardware or software, this might take the focus away from fixing existing problems or even add to the list of issues that they are trying to fix
It did not do well and the production line is is making fewer devices and the device is also on sale pretty much straight away

Better alternatives available

Let's be real, there are better alternatives out there currently. If you want a 5.1 system to enjoy cinematic surround sounds, just do your research and go with the likes of Sony A9 or Samsung Q990D who would probably give you a system that offers you 5.1 cinematic sound for around the cost of Arc ultra and a Sub.
Sonos’s niche continue to be wireless audio that can be grouped together, this is probably the reason majority of the customer are still invested in the system but I will not be growing my set up into a true wireless anymore as the reliance on an ecosystem can fail massively.

Now the rumours are sonos entering streaming services and go head to head with likes of Apple

Finance and Layoffs
Financially Sonos’s profits have been declining YOY
Their share prices have been tumbling
They have announced layoff of 100 employees across their marketing, products, engineering, platforms and infrastructure and software quality teams.
When the expectations would be to hire in area to fix issues like software quality, they have been getting rid of people, yes may have helped the share price but this is sure to add even more strain on resources needing to fix the issues

[Fish]

Maybe it’s time for Apple to buy them out and integrate them into their ecosystem

[marcvanheugten]

You should have asked me 4 years ago hahaha

[gongtien]

I have 20+ speakers at home and works flawless, it’s time to upgrade your modem and router

[Winstonmalone]

Ive had my Sonos system for 6 years and the app has drastically made my experience worse over the past year or so. Even though I have enjoyed the system, I will never buy a sonos product after this one.

[x-ray]

I had no issue with the app with the Sonos beam gen 2 so idk maybe it was a you problem. Sucks for you

[justbecause]

Sounds like you no longer own any Sonos products, therefore you aren't really qualified to comment on the user experience with them. I just got into Sonos over the past 6 months and my experience with them has been mostly positive, sure the app could be better, however i've still had at least the core user experience available to me over that time.

[martinhansen]

Did you just say Sonos only sold 250 units of the Ace? And thats a pure excuse for not buying Sonos. One bad product - in your opinion - does not mean other products are cra. The new is eg. a really, really good Soundbar. One of the most stupid videos i have seen recently and thats says alot.