New SONOS App - Feedback

I'm a product manager by trade. 

I look at what has happened here and it terrifies me, that some of the decisions I (we) make on a day to day basis can have such a catastrophic effect on our users and ultimately, the business itself.

I kinda get how Sonos could end up in this pickle - kinda. But how it continues to compound that pickle is just incredible to me.

The poor souls having to unpick this mess through no fault of their own are the ones I feel the most sorry for. 

You are exceptionally wise for a root vegetable, @Parsnip62. Imagine being a high-end system integrator for the past two months: you wake up on 7 May 2024 with emails and TXTs from all of you customers that the Sonos system you installed is busted. Almost everything is out of your control and there is very little you can do about it. Just brutal.

Not just the third party installers, but the actual developers themselves, who are many rungs down the ladder but are being dumped on to work all hours to get a solution out.

It's a massive f*** up from the leadership and a s***show to boot. 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

Totally agree @Parsnip62. FWIW, I am convinced development of the new app was outsourced.

Doesn't really matter either way tbh. 

It just needs to be fixed ASAP. 

😄😄 CrowdStrike developers had a side hustle ??? 😉😉 IYKYK😂😂

about the latest update.... IT SUCKS. it is very very very bad. even the homepage in the app will doesn't load. Go back to the earlier version. The older app has always worked perfect. 

No worries, I am a newbie to the community and just venting because an app update has caused me to scrap a few amps and streamers. I preordered a Wiim ultra last week to check out their app and product. If it works as expected, I’ll just switch all my streamers out and move on.  Sonos move was as worse for customers than the CrowdStrike roll out because there is no fix. Brave new world when a bad software rollout decision can BK multi billion dollar companies. 

 Have 3 WiiM devices that behave well.  WiiM is continuously making improvements to the WiiM Home app.  They are also responsive to improvement suggestions.  The only improvement I wish they would implement is queue editing.  I’ll send a request on that subject.

 Two things I really like are:

1. Ability to act as a Squeezebox player ( WiiM Pro + ) and probably ( WiiM Ultra ).

2. Can be grouped with Amazon Echo devices if your into that.

The WiiM Home app doesn’t allow queue editing? WTF is with these tech companies? It should be extremely simple to implement and IMO is part of the minimal viable feature set any audio player should have.

Sonos software is so bad - in particular using local libraries - that they should be refunding peoples hardware purchases.  I ended up buying a NAS drive when the last ‘improvement’ removed the ability to stream my library from my phone.  I own a lot of music and wanted quality speakers - why is it the * wits at Sonos don’t get that this is a common situation? I badly regret investing in Sonos, now I cant afford to replace them all with speakers that have software that actually works.  What is the legal situation whereby these cowboy criminals sell you expensive hardware then through design or complete incompetence remove your ability to use them.  My Sonos speakers are not fit for purpose.  I should be entitled to a refund.  Why is there not a class action against Sonos for rendering their product useless?  All they are interested in is Ad banners to sell you more product and streaming services.  Best advice to everyone (particularly if you refuse to be bullied into buying streaming services) is get rid of this * product and never buy Sonos again.  Make sure you tell everyone on social media what this company is like and what they are doing.

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

I have an android phone, 2 android tablets, and 1 IOS tablet. Unfortunately when you switch between devices the app does not retain room and location settings. If I start music in one room and then switch devices you have to re-apply room settings which means you need to turn off everything and start again. Room and location settings should be updated across all devices so you do not have to reset your music each time you switch from phone to tablet etc.

Next, why is the search bar at the bottom of the app? Not only does it not make sense, it gets hidden behind the new swipe tabs (which are awful and confusing). I handed my ipad to my guests last weekend and 4 out of 4 people were unable to interface with my sonos speakers in the sonos app. The workaround was to use the spotify app. which defeats the purpose of buying into the sonos ecosystem. 4 people will not be purchasing sonos after that experience :( Hopefully an app overhaul is on the horizon.

In a rare defense of Sonos, here is a reason why each device may retain last used settings. We have two users and four devices (2 phones, two ipads). User1 primarily plays Sonos in living room on the same or last played station from their phone.  User2 mostly plays a different station in a bedroom from a different phone or ipad. User1 has new dysfunctional app. User2 has prior S2 app. Lucky them. We are not doing any updates until every basic function is reliable. I admit, navigation thru the strange icons is difficult to change rooms, add/subtract speakers, change music and sometimes does not work. I often wonder if I could leave a device out for guest use and how to explain it. Not easy. I so see your point. Opening another device should have an option of showing current/last played for each room or last device setting. The option would help your situation.

Please just allow us to download and reinstall the OLD Sonos App.  I have been begging Sonos Tech Support for this for months.   I was promised Upgrades that would fix the problems with the new app 6 weeks ago, and it is worse than ever now. 

Bring back the OLD Sonos App immediately.

Michael Utvich, Former Sonos Customer

Although at this point, my house is full of Sonos equipment. I don’t envision ever buying another Sonos product. how disgraceful it is to release an app that is so bad. whoever developed/released it should be fired!

I have owned Sonos since 2014 and have 9 devices.  This upgrade has taken my opinion of Sonos from WOW to awful.  As everyone has said, this is a half developed app.  It is extremely slow in response to input, even changes in sound volume.  That is extremely annoying.  It often does not find or recognize my system for a relatively long time - 15 seconds or so.  That may not seem like a long time but when you are sitting there wondering if your system has really lost its connection it seems like 15 minutes.

I hope that whoever initiated this change in the app has been fired or removed from their position.  It is truly hard to believe that this half finished amateurish app was released to the public by such a respected and innovative company.  It reminds me of sites put up by NYS government that put you in an endless loop of going nowhere.  They have somewhat of an excuse - they were developed 30 years ago.

I will not be adding a 10th device.  I still  love the sound, the quality of the devices and the concept but, the app that controls all of this is horrible and until it is fixed I am on the sidelines.

New version is out. 

Anyone daring to update? 

Works fine for me — local library search is back as is local library configuration. I know it’s not trendy to say it, but I am really liking how the new app is starting to shape up, but then I never liked the old app. 

Done. All good.

I have kept the prior S2 Android app from updating until now. Sonos seems to have been busy sabotaging the prior S2 app to force users to update to the dysfunctional new S2 app. I swear I had NAS music library access a few weeks ago. But now  a pop-up states, “Update the Sonos app to the latest version. You may have limited functionality until the update is complete.” That is an outright LIE. I had more functionality than another device that accidentally updated to new S2. I also checked TuneIn yesterday to play a station not accessed in awhile. Pop-up states “Your TuneIn (new) account needs to be reauthorized, but one or more of your SONOS products needs to be updated first, please update your system and reauthorize your account.” As usual, confusing terminology. system = app? or hardware? SONOS does a sneaky thing by forcing hardware updates, then requiring app update or your newly updated components (system) will not work. That is downright sleazy.

For OSX? Mine says no update available, and I don't see a way to add my local library on the iPhone app.

The new firmware will not work with the old app, so they are taking steps to stop people holding out with outdated firmware, like updating your firmware last week whether you wanted them to or not (hence the new pop-up messages).

If you don’t want to update the app to enable Sonos to continue to support you going forward, then you’d need to step away from the Sonos ecosystem. They are not going to maintain one system for those who update and those who don’t. 

Besides, today’s app update has received positive reports with regards music library functionality (give or take some thumbnail comments), so you might as well jump in...

There is no Mac controller update, and your firmware will have been updated last week, so the Mac will return no results for any updates. 

Darn! I was really hoping to be able to add my music library back (still errors out). So Mac users are just out of luck?

Sounds like you might have to buy a mobile phone.