Sonos S2 - what has it actually delivered so far?

I don’t recall any such claims, but perhaps I have forgotten - please provide references.

What Sonos said was that the limitations of the old devices that were deemed ‘legacy’ were preventing Sonos from developing the system and products in ways that they wanted.  The nature of Sonos is a considerable amount of interconnectedness, so what new products can do can be constrained by old products.  So S2 is a platform for development, an enabler, not an end destination.  Nothing was said about timescales.  This is about the next 5 years, at least, IMO.

The Arc, Roam and Sub gen 3 are new products that are compatible with S2 only,  Some hires support is available and likely to expand.  Named room groups are possible  Various unspecified ‘performance enhancements’ have been made in updates.

Therefore many users will be able to stay on S1 without missing out on anything they really want.  But anyone who wants an Arc (for example) has to be on S2.  It’s entirely your call.

Btw if you thought there was the remotest chance of 'on this iPhone' returning then you never understood the reasons for its being withdrawn. But I'm not going to get into another debate about that dead and ancient topic.

For my information - these other brands play from iPhone how? Via bluetooth? Or Airplay?

Bluesound removed the ability to play from an iPhone at same time that function started to deteriorate on Sonos.  Sonos at least spent a year trying to fix it, Bluesoundsimply yanked it and (rightfully) blamed Apple.

By yours truly… Quote Patrick Spence:

“We are working on a way to split your system so that modern products work together and get the latest features, while legacy products work together and remain in their current state. “

I agree with the OP, what are the “Latest Features” of the S2 app that is better than S1 and what else is coming?

Even this post only states some High res audio, and then a lot still go on to say its disappointing.

“But what have the Romans ever done for us?”

I remember that post very well - where did it promise ‘sweeping changes and cutting edge concepts’, and where did it imply these would be evident immediately? But you are welcome to persist in your misinterpretation of the purpose and nature of S2.

The OP never said Immediately. He is asking a year later! You can twist the words anyway you like, but S2 was supposed to deliver the “Latest Features” as what Patrick said, and there doesn’t seem to be many great or Latest features which is what the OP is trying to find out. 

Rather than belittle his comment and twist the words, would be best to help answer his question.

I just found another thing other than the High Def. That is I think the S2 does the “sound swap”. Nothing major, but I guess a feature over S1. 

Any others features that S2 has over S1?

In addition to what has been mentioned already, in S2 the entire setup process of adding speakers has been completely over-hauled to make it very easy, and start automatically.

Also, with S2, you no longer need an ethernet cable to connect a multi-unit Sonos system to a new WiFi network.

Finally, new products will now only come with S2 compatibility, therefore new features - like Sound Swap or Bluetooth line-in, and other things stillto come - will only ever be available on S2.

Thanks Corry, certainly interesting to understand that. But good to know right now overall, its not an earth shattering difference yet. I guess in another year we will hear even more. 

The thing i’m worried about though in the S1 app is loss of certain streaming services like YouTube Music or Spotify. I think there was talk previously about that was another reason why upgrades were done. 

Why worry till it comes about? I for one don’t think it is very likely that more than a handful of service will be affected, if at all. But, time will tell. In that time a lot of other things could happen.

Hi @annascott 

No need to worry about that - it’s very unlikely. We initially were going to stop working on the S1 app, but now we still address bugs and if any service were to change things to the extent that Sonos couldn’t connect anymore, it would be fixed in both apps.

In time, it’s possible that a music service may demand something that S1 cannot comply with, but this would happen to one service at a time, and will likely take a long while yet.

That is probably the most reassuring thing that I have heard in a long time from anyone in Sonos.

My pleasure!

Back to the “what has S2 ever done for us,” Monty Python plagery, I think it’s fair to list 24bit playback, Atmos support and dual Sub support in there too.

I think that what @Corry P has said goes further than Sonos has promised before, and further than I was expecting.  I am a tad surprised…...

I feel I should add that this is assuming that Spotify, for example, doesn’t up and change everything next week - they might, and they have no obligation to tell us beforehand (though I think they and a few others would - most services not so much). The point is, it’s ultimately out of our control but we don’t see it on the horizon for any services yet.

What I have said above has been our view since shortly after S2 was released and it was decided to continue limited support on S1.

Within the context of that sentence, I don’t think you could conclude that any features are coming soon or at any particular time.  All it states that whenever a new feature is ready to be provided to customers (ie, the latest feature), that feature will go to all the S2/modern speakers, but not on the S1 speakers.  As John mentioned, not all features are specific to individual speakers but require the entire system to have the hardware/software capabilities, such as HiRes audio.

It’s also worth noting I think that we have no idea what impact the pandemic has had on Sonos development.  I do thinks it’s fair to say that Sonos has been releasing new products and features at the same or greater pace then previously, but we do not know if they had planned for even more.

Thanks everyone for their replies to this topic, some interesting discussion which people have taken time out to share - much appreciated. 

Would like to clarify that in no way did I feel anyone’s responses belittled or denigrated my original question. John B’s initial reply was very informative - and the overall message I get from that is that S2 is a marathon, not a sprint.

On the topic of playback directly from devices, Bose still has this functionality, as does the excellent Nuvo player. My broad understanding was that Apple changed  the functionality in a manner which Sonos felt they were unable to guarantee being able to support to the minimum standards they wanted to maintain. I will confess to not having read all the specifics of it though. 

Have a good weekend all, enjoy your sound systems.

In my humble opinion, the one feature I'd like to see changed in S2 is the removal of the awful colour-coordinated backgrounds where the predominant colour of the stream artwork is reflected in a.sickly kaleidoscope of pastel colours.  Just let the user choose a background colour from a palette.  Please.