Please go back to the last app, the update sucks SO bad!

I have also been puzzled with the new direction Sonos has decided to walk. Must have to do with becoming mature as a company. More than one company lost the charm growing up.

I believe sonos will never be good again, at least not for a great customer experience. Customers are a means, not an end goal. All the proof is the decisions made (sonos account, data collection, white interface, criple navigation, voice control with Alexa), the responses from clients here and the lack of “solving” answers from sonos. It’s all left in the dark. And if I read back this was already started when the software was updated in the past.

My advice: stop complaining. If too frustrated take your loss and sell your sonos players. If you can’t live without multi room audio, buy a Bluesound setup. Still has the “charm” factor and decent customer experience. But don’t ever again invest too much in one “connected system” setup which relies on software you have no control on. It will derail rather sooner than later.

I took my loss but wish to use a multi room system and switched from sonos to a moderate Bluesound setup and my (and my family’s) frustration when listening to music is gone for now. Bluesound is not perfect but the user experience is good to excellent. Hope it will last some time.

Any questions or remarks welcome but please stop hating each other and sonos.

That’s right. It’s a free advert even. I’m not paid a penny :8

Never would have explored this path if our experience wouldn’t have been so bad over the past couple of months.

But look at the facts, if one is not happy with the current sonos one will never be happy again. Sonos has changed permanently. That’s why I posted. There is no need to stick to sonos and remain hateful.

Alexa may make sense to you but I live in an area where Alexa is not present (yet). And I can understand people wish for voice control, but choosing amazon as first partner is about the worst choice for privacy, sustainability and gouvernace reasons. I never thought sonos’ values would be sync-able to amazons. But again, proof Sonos has changed and will never change back. That’s not their nature, app wise and culture wise.

No need to spend a fortune on Bluesound, just use SonoPad or Sonophone if you are on Apple.
Calm restored for a couple of £s

Thanks for the sonopad suggestion. Could work for a lot.

And thanks Burt. I have migrated indeed but this kind of message does not yet serve any purpose in the Bluesound community. Maybe in a couple of years. I have raised my concerns there however on how long it will take for them to follow sonos in this run for economic growth.

And I have not entirely migrated. In my business we still use sonos in multiple areas. Not happily but not as flexible there to just change that to a different system.

But thanks for the smile. 🙂 back.

Mr Deezz I just entertained myself by visiting the Bluesound forum and funny enough below is the first post I landed on:

“Multi-platform search, Apple Music and others
I have recently moved from Sonos to Bluesound but am fast regretting this decision as at least 2 key features are missing.

1. Cross platform search - it's very clunky to have to search each source. I have Qobuz, Tidal, My own library and Apple Music. Sonos is so much more user friendly

2. Apple Music - once again Sonos has support for Apple Music whilst BS doesnt. So it's not a technical issue or a problem at Apple's end one would assume. I can see requests going back years for this and no good reason why it hasn't been added. Just how many Apple Music users are there in the world!

3. OSX version of BS doesnt list Qobuz playlists in search results. App does.

4. Bluesound support doesn't play at all well with Safari.”

ENJOY YOUR NEW SYSTEM. ???

Thanks for the smiles indeed. That’s correct. But not a problem when using only Deezer. Multi platform searching can slow down searching significantly as I have experienced using Deezer, Spotify, Apple Music and a local database at the same time and cannot be switched off. I prefer the search per service.

The iPad version of the controller is beautiful with all relevant info nicely presented.

As said Bluesound is not perfect. But for our family way more enjoyable that the recent sonos app experience. For us sonos is less perfect.

I truly wish sonos would be doing something about the end user experience since we depend on it in our business. But I don’t count on it anymore.

But we’re diverting from the point I wanted to make. Sonos has changed and will not change back. Deal with it, stop complaining or take your loss and spend your time and money elsewhere.

However I do like the conversations here and I certainly like the people working for sonos. I do believe the people in sonos have the best intentions and want to be proud in what they do. And you can’t please all.

SO SONOS, WHATCHA GONNA DO? GONNA GIVE THE OPTION FOR THE PREVIOUS APP VERSION OR SLOWLY DEGRADE YOUR PRODUCT LIKE APPLE DID? 🆒:D:?

Return of previous version never happening. Update to new version pending.

Supposedly Sonos looked at doing a portable outdoor speaker about 3 years ago and cancelled the project as they didn’t see it being viable from sales perspective.

What do you think would improve the new app the most?

Ok just a few thoughts.

1. The queue management needs to go back to ‘play now, play next, add to end of queue’. That was so right first time and it was an appalling decision to change it. Now, Get more than 3 people on a room with a controller and wait for the arguments to start. Terrible, terrible and Sonos needs to eat humble pie on this one.

2. Too many taps ....You currently have to select a room to make it the focus (turn it black) before you have play/pause buttons. Each room should have a play/pause button that works on first tap. The room buttons are so large that could have a volume slider too. Volume, play and pause should ALWAYS be available.

3. Similarly each room has a grouping button that only appears when the room has the focus. It should always be there and work with one tap.

4. If the above were done you could get rid of the lower bar that slides up. That screen appears anyway when you tap the room button that has the focus. In very general terms, unlabelled buttons and chevrons, and screens that slide in and out are really bad design elements. I know I’m in the minority here as it is very much the way interfaces are heading. I don’t really understand this. MS rightly got stick for their charm bar but it is all over the IOS.

Lastly a general comment. Software design and human interfaces are very much an art. Back in the day Microsoft spent a fortune on human engineering, watching each and every mouse move and click. I am not a software engineer or a design expert and no doubt that applies to most people here. Also some people are not very good at expressing what they don’t like or maybe even identifying what they don’t like — they just know they don’t like it. Many people would have opened their first Sonos product at Christmas, and some of them an older generation without some of the knowhow of others. I feel your frustration of seeing the forums flooding with newbies with their first negative posts. But Sonos can’t rely on long standing customers forever adding new rooms — they need new customers and they need them to spread the word like you and I did. So for that reason, I think it’s only fair to let them vent. As you say they will then move on, and then life, Sonos, the music and these forums will go on as they always have :D

Have yourself a good day.

Regards
Andrew

You had me at 1

Actually I don’t really want to go back to the old way (it was better but still had it’s flaws when multiple users). I think you can leave it as it is now but allow it to be put into party mode where only add to end of queue and and next in queue are the only options. (The pop up when clicked or hit the ... you get same options).

I agree the room menu (which the rooms are way too large in size so few per page) why have the group button only shows when in focus. I think Sonos really wanted all grouping done on red room menu so here it was just a duplicate afterthought (but the place we all have always grouped from)

There are other companies wireless outdoor speakers that can be hooked to Sonos Connect.

I don't want other companies wireless crap hooked up to my sonos....that play5 is amazing! I'm a sound engineer and I know good quality when I hear, see and feel it. I've built massive sound systems and this little compact speaker ratio to other larger speakers slaps them across the mouth

Well as far as we know they will not be releasing an outdoor speaker. I just have my comments on the fact that the project was scrapped. Again I am not giving you an opinion on my end if warranted or not. Unfortunately only opinion mattered was Sonos management who didn’t believe it would be profitable.

I would love to see a battery operated waterproof speaker. But I think they beleive they would be diving too much in Bluetooth market and not enough people wanting for back yrd.