Sonos, which used to be well-regarded for its lineup of speakers and soundbars, has hit some rough waters lately. That apparently might continue for at least the near future.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, in his latest Power On weekly newsletter, reports that a long-rumored, but never officially announced, streaming TV set-top box from Sonus, has been delayed. Guman claims, "It will be postponed until next March from January."
Gurman first reported that Sonos was working on a streaming set-top box, with the internal code-name "Pinewood", way back in November 2023. The box is supposed to be comparable to the Roku Ultra, the Apple TV device, and more recently the Google TV Streamer. At the time, Gurman stated the device would be designed to also be a hub for other Sonos audio products.
That same report says Sonos was developing its own operating system for the "Pinewood" streaming TV box but that it would use Google's Android OS as its basis. It is supposed to support both Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision and it was partnering with other streaming services to develop apps for the device. The report also said Sonos was considering launching its own video streaming service for the device.
However, Sonos has been dealing with a lot of software problems lately. In May, the company released an updated design for its companion audio products app that lacked so many features from the previous version that Sonos' CEO Patrick Spence posted a personal apology for the app in July. He pledged that the company would make it a priority to fix the issues with the Sonos app.
Today, Gurman stated that the software issues at Sonos has caused the Pinewood set-top device release to be delayed. He also said another product launch has also been delayed to concentrate on the software issues, but he did not offer any details on this second hardware product.
Gurman also reports that sales of Sonos' first headphones, which launched earlier this year, have not met expectations. It originally planned to build 2,500 headphones a day, but Gurman reports that has been cut down 10 times to just 250 headphones a day.
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