Sonos, the US audio brand that has a knack of getting things wrong, is again defending itself – this time because of their bagging of Bluetooth audio.
Hours after the launch of their new Era 100 and Era 300,speakers that don’t have Google Assistant, which means you won’t be able to voice-automate your home using the Google Home platform, but now have Bluetooth, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence has stepped up to defend the Company’s previous slagging of Bluetooth technology.
This is the same CEO who had to defend the Company after another foot-in-mouth marketing decision when Sonos management tried to nobble current owners’ speakers in an effort to get them to buy a new speaker.
Back in 2020, Spence faced a social media firestorm after the business announced their new speaker strategy for foundation customers.
Customers went on Twitter using the trending hashtag #SonosBoycott and tagging the Company’s Chief Executive Officer Patrick Spence with their questions.
“@Patrick_Spence would you like to buy my 3 yr. old @Sonos equipment? I guess you know how to use it as a doorstop soon,” one Twitter user, @itnopred, asked the CEO.
Customers received an email from Sonos saying the Company would no longer support some models launched between 2006 and 2009.
Now Spence is at it again, after Sonos bagged out Bluetooth claiming wireless was a superior streaming method. The only problem is that most consumers stream over Bluetooth, which in the past was a reason why consumers bought other brands over Sonos speakers.
In the past, Sonos refused to support Bluetooth, which is embedded in every single smartphone on the planet.
They even openly mocked other companies’ Bluetooth speakers, most notably in a 2016 series of ads that featured the tagline “You’re better than this” – a reference to the ways in which Bluetooth speakers Sonos claimed could undermine a listening experience.
How things have changed. Now Sonos has four Bluetooth-capable speakers, including the newly launched Era 100 and Era 300, plus the existing Roam and Move portable speakers.
His reason for the sudden change is that “Bluetooth has gotten better”, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence claims.
Speaking at the Era launch event in New York City. “It’s gotten more ubiquitous, but it’s also much more reliable than it used to be.”
Maybe the brains who tried to nobble customers speakers to get a new speaker sale, l have worked out that the inclusion of Bluetooth technology actually appeals to consumers.
Some US media are describing the omission of Bluetooth as an “ideological flaw”.
“We got a little religious over Wi-Fi versus Bluetooth,” Spence admits.
Digital Trends claims an example of Sonos’ newfound humility, is the fact that the Era 100 and Era 300 now have a USB-C port that can be used with optional dongles to pipe in external sources of audio, like a turntable. This technology, despite being widely used in the past by competitors, has been emitted from previous Sonos speakers.
This willingness to reconsider the way Sonos products work extends into the Company’s current thinking around the new Era 300.
The speaker was designed primarily to offer an immersive music listening experience via its Dolby Atmos-compatible spatial audio architecture, claims Digital Trends.
It also works as a Dolby Atmos-enhancing surround speaker when used in conjunction with an Arc or a Beam Gen 2, but it doesn’t do TV-based Dolby Atmos on its own or in a stereo pair.
And this is where the new speakers, that also need Android device owners to do a manual tune of their room Vs Apple owners being offered an app and the use of their iPhones to Tune play a room, are not up to the same standard as products from the likes of Sound United or Yamaha.
Both Apple and Amazon’s Atmos-capable smart speakers (the Echo Studio and HomePod Gen 2) work as TV speakers (when paired with their respective streaming devices) and when Spence was asked if Sonos might change course, he said, “We haven’t seen a lot of people actually using [the HomePod] that way.
“Most people are still picking up a soundbar instead.” Still, like the move toward ubiquitous Bluetooth, he’s willing to let Sonos users be the judge. “If customers are showing us that this is the way they want to enjoy home theater, we’ll figure out how to support it,” he says.
The Company is also trying to work out how to remove the HDMI cable from their soundbars, “I’ve been pushing the team for a long time – I don’t want a wire to the soundbar at all. Let’s make it even easier.”
Technical hurdles still remain and, once again, he underlined the importance of reliability, but it’s quite clear Spence wants Sonos to be even better than it is now.