11 December, 2024

Bang and Olufsen's App ruins the products

 Again! I am frustrated with the Bang and Olufsen app. The user experience is a nightmare. Especially after more or less random "updates" of the software. After every update something does not work ... again. 

Bang and Olufsen's products turns useless after a software "update" in the app. This happens once a month or so after updates. Today Bang and Olufsen's Multiroom does not work.

My devices begin to malfunction after three years:

  • The buttons for favorite choices on Beosound 2 do not work any more.
  • The microphone on Beosound Level does not work.
Yes the sound is fantastic.
But your App tuns the products into a useless thing.
Yes the design is wonderfull.
But your App tuns the products into a useless thing.

I really like the ideas behind the B&O products and the general aesthetics, but in the end the most important thing for speakers and televisins is this: it must work! The user experience should not be destroyed by software pollution and constant update hickups. 

My intuition tells me that the malfunctions of the microphone is not a hardware issue. The microphone turns off after updates in the software. So I will not waste time and remove the battery again, since the software will turn the thing off after the next update. This is of course insane - and it's a very well known problem that should have been solved years ago. 

I guess that the hardware and software departments in B&O are not in sync. 

You don't have to be a beta tester by B&O. Unfortunately most of the app is in az constant beta mode, where some vital function does not work for now. I wish that B&O could learn something from Linux here. Please invent stable software, and please stop the developers when they "fix" something that worked fine before a software engineer tampered with the code.

In all fairness I should add: suddenly the Multiroom works again. Yeah! But it's still like being a beta-tester (and I did not join the B&O beta tester community).


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