# Sonos speakers

14 Hacker News commenters recommended Sonos speakers and 37 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for multi-room synced audio that works well when it works. Critics say the app and software are unreliable and that older speakers lost support.

## Why people recommend it

- Multi-room synced audio with good UX (2 comments): "offering multi-room synced audio with a good UX since 2006" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47911133)) "BluOS / Sonos / Heos on the more expensive end all do a great job" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46871651))

## What people warn about

- Older speakers lost support or bricked (5 comments): "Sonos had an absolutely massive backlash recently in regards to deprecating software support for their older speakers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46545145)) "They had originally promised to add AirPlay support later said, "Just kidding. Why don't you brick it instead."" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46542123)) "Companies that lock or otherwise brick viable hardware as part of the business model are really terrible." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49366425))
- Unreliable, hard to get working (3 comments): "When it works, it is great, but when it doesn't - super frustrating." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46394464)) "Which degraded their hardware usability so much, that it's literally much worse than a decade ago." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48119238)) "I couldn't even get the damn thing to work reliably when it was new." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46542190))
- Poor software and app quality (2 comments): "the software is just staggeringly, aggressively, and proactively terrible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46160825)) "I can tell you lots of people stopped buying their products because of how bad their code quality became with the big app change debacle." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47591906))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Bose SoundTouch smart speakers](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bose-smart-speakers.md): 37 recommend
- [HomePod mini](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-homepod-mini.md): 15 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Sonos+speaker&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)
- [Official site](https://www.sonos.com/en-us/home)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Sonos speakers", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sonos/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).