The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

Keith N

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come. For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.


Many of you have shared valuable feedback on both the improvements that have made your experience better, as well as the areas where we fell short. We are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks, we will reintroduce the below features, while fixing bugs and performance issues. Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to building upon this first step to create a listening experience that meets everyone’s needs.
 

 

Available now

To access these changes, check for updates in the iOS / Android app store to download the latest version of the Sonos app. Make sure your Sonos products are also up to date.

Last updated: Jun 17, 2024. See release notes.

  • Added numerical values to volume and group-volume sliders
  • Updated the volume icon to reflect the volume level on iOS
  • Introduced mute button on Android
  • Added stereo or mono configuration for Amp/Port output on iOS
  • Improved TalkBack screen reader support for volume sliders on Android
  • Added support for SonosNet channel selection on iOS
  • Expanded support for service reauthorization on Android


 

Coming soon

  • Continued improvements to navigation for visually-impaired customers: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June
  • Improved playback settings including Play Now: July
  • Create and edit local music library: July
  • Improved Autoplay settings: July
  • Improved Sub audio settings with Amp: July
  • Snooze alarms: TBD

 

Our latest update resolves some of the most critical known issues, but know we have more to do. We hear your feedback and are working hard to deliver the experience you expect and deserve.

1498 replies

R
Userlevel 4

What about the local network access bug - as to where it’s requiring local network access, we’ve given it - and it’s still not allowing me to join my existing system on the phones wife…

C
Userlevel 7
Badge

How about roll back to the old version.  Fix all the stuff, and then release it after June!  Make a dang headphone only S3 version if you must.  Try to win back some good will by doing it right!

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

Sonos widget?

J

What about making physical volume buttons finally work as literally every other app supports? Or a Lock Screen widget?

N
Userlevel 5
Badge

I think it’s a great improvement that you are giving dates for these.  I would suggest they are _much_ more widely distributed.

 

I was pretty disappointed with the update but when I saw that people who have active alarms and only phones now cannot shut off or modify them (without a complete system reset) I realized this was a much bigger f-up than even I realized.

Airgetlam

@jedmunds2017 , That would require an underlying change to Sonos, so that the ‘player’ resides on your controller, rather than on the speakers themselves. 

Bruce
Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +22

What about making physical volume buttons finally work as literally every other app supports? Or a Lock Screen widget?

There has been a lot of discussion of this around here and it isn’t a App v80 issue.

J

@jedmunds2017 , That would require an underlying change to Sonos, so that the ‘player’ resides on your controller, rather than on the speakers themselves. 


I’m still confused by this as it worked years ago prior to 15.6. And while that was a “hack” basically, I believe and the Sonos response for removing it was:

“The way these features were architected do not meet Apple’s experience guidelines for developers and no longer offer a reliable control experience.”


 

 

L
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

Keith, I appreciate you and the team trying to stem the bleeding.  I don’t envy your position of having to clean up self-inflicted consequences from management decisions.

That said, these timelines strike me as tripling down on the tone deaf and self-congratulatory  “courageous” marketing messages being sent out.

You are telling me, the market leader Sonos speakers won’t be able to add a song to the listening queue for a month.  This capability was available last week, but no longer due to an unannounced impact of the “upgrade.”  

If I tried to suggest surprising users by taking away core functionality and promising to bring it back in a month, I’d be laughed out of a job.

The most obvious way to get back to current state parity is to provide access to the v16.1 app.  No need to rush development and testing on the v80.x.  Let those for whom the new app works continue.  Let those for whom the new app does not work migrate when core feature parity is achieved.  The last thing you want is to make the above promises and introduce new bugs.  

Yet, for unspoken reasons, this option is never mentioned.

I’m all for change and creating a new platform for the business.  I would like to see Sonos succeed.  However, I haven’t seen evidence of Sonos having the judgment to know how and when to course correct.

Best of luck.

J
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

How about those bugs:

 

  • trueplay doesn’t work - I have in ceiling speakers and all it does is make the test chime from the amp but never continues 
  • can’t add a new Sonos device to a room with current devices 
  • can’t turn off WiFi on Ethernet connected devices. By default newly added devices using Ethernet only use sonosnet
  • when airplaying music, you can’t stop playback and then play music on those speakers using the Sonos app. I actually haven’t been able to get any Apple Music to play on the Sonos app in any of my amps. 
J

What about making physical volume buttons finally work as literally every other app supports? Or a Lock Screen widget?

There has been a lot of discussion of this around here and it isn’t anApp v80 issue.


You’re correct - it is not a v80 specific issue.

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Keith, thanks for the update. Keep the communication coming!

For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.

I am not shooting the messenger (you) here, so please don’t shoot me. Rather, please listen to what your users are saying. The new app is a fail as it stands and for the foreseeable future.

  • Reliability? The new app is tremendously buggy and extremely unreliable, as a cursory scan through the forums attests.
  • Performance? The new app is far more sluggish, especially anything with a local library.
  • Faster access to music? Many of us are unable to use “Sonos Favorites” with the icons grayed out. That forces us to navigate many many clicks to locate the desired music.

I’m pleased to see the list of missing functionality with ETAs! That said, there is a vastly longer list of things that are also missing (or completely broken) that will take months to address. You must be realistic.

So how can you bridge the gap in missing/broken functionality? Rename the new app ‘S3’ and re-release v16.1 as ‘S2’. Sonos have voiced great confidence in the new (S3) app, and if you confidence is deserved users will gravitate there. In the meantime, users with issues can continue to use S2 and have a good experience. As S3 adds more and more working functionality, users will switch from S2 to S3.

Now is not the time to double-down on the disastrous “it takes courage, take it or leave it” strategy. Listen to your users and give them want they want and need.

S
Userlevel 2

I’d love to request fixing the connection for Plex users, have an Apple Watch controller and make the new app faster. Gestures are so slow. For example swiping down to move the current tab is like I'm on a really old iPhone and not a 14 Pro.

D
Userlevel 7
Badge +2

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come. For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.


Many of you have shared valuable feedback on both the improvements that have made your experience better, as well as the areas where we fell short. We are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks, we will reintroduce the below features, while fixing bugs and performance issues. Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to building upon this first step to create a listening experience that meets everyone’s needs.
 

  • Screen reader for visually impaired customers: May 21
  • Adding and editing alarms: May 21
  • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
  • Sleep timer: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June 
  • Update Wi-Fi settings: mid-June

Sonos hates their customers 

S
Userlevel 3

Thank you for the updates and committing to dates when things will be available. I am pretty ambivalent about the changes - it seems like you will be returning the features I need eventually and let’s not forget the last version of the app wasn’t great either. However, for your info, because of these changes I can’t use the new app until things like the sleep timer are reintroduced.

 

However, it does seem odd that you have gone to all this trouble and it has made the new app harder to use. For instance, the EQ settings are buried away for each speaker instead of being near the playback controls. And there is much confusion to be had when those slide up panels pop up and slide down to return to the Home Screen, but in some of them the user can slide from the left to go backwards - but not when returning to the Home Screen. It leaves you feeling very confused about how to navigate through the app with no obvious suggestion of sliding left or right to return back to home.
 

Thanks again for the information and dates on the changes, looking forward to them.

I
Userlevel 6
Badge

Hi Keith. I’m sorry you are having a rough day. 
 

I would like to share that this response makes me feel even angrier, because you have continued to justify your actions and clarify when the things you broke will be fixed. What you did not say is “I am sorry”.

I wrote previously that In order for you to begin to recover from what you have done, if it is even possible, you should start by imagining a similar situation with other daily appliances. Your appliance company calls you and says “we have a small routine update we need to make to your home appliances, we can apply the fix remotely. We’ll come by tonight”. 

You come home and the the dishwasher looks the same, but doesn’t actually wash dishes correctly anymore, it is missing the cycles you use every day, and no longer has a timer function so it can run at night. Your family don’t know how to operate it and it is messing up your home routines and schedules.  The oven only now cooks with some of the modes, and has completely removed the timer feature you use every day to cook meals with your family. The refrigerator / freezer temperatures are wrong, you can’t change them, and you are spoiling food and the freezer is thawing and no longer makes ice. When you call to find out what is going on, you are told how great the new experience is. That this was deliberate. There is no way to go back, but that these features will probably come back in the coming months. Until then, there is nothing you can do about it - although feel free to post on our support forums.

Now ask yourself “How would I personally feel if someone did this to me, in my own home, with my own things, without my consent, and then refuses to immediately fix it?” 

If you are like most people, you will probably find yourself saying “I would be very angry. I would want the people that did that to be very sorry, to really mean it, for them to fix it and make amends if they could. Even still, I’d want for there to be consequences.” 

To be clear, this is far far worse than the S1/S2 debacle. People had time to react, and so you were able to recover - but it made your long time customers doubt you. Unfortunately, Patrick already promised that you wouldn’t do anything like it again. He said “If we run into something core to the experience that can’t be addressed, we’ll work to offer an alternative solution and let you know about any changes you’ll see in your experience.” You broke your promise. 

I am going to hope that this is not a mortal self-inflicted wound to your company. It may be, depending on each of your ability to accept responsibility what you did, for how you behaved after the harm was evident, and what you do now.

 

B
Userlevel 5
Badge +2

I’m trying to understand how you can roll out software and remove Subwoofer control features on the very Amp you designed with the ability to control a Subwoofer?

V
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

My god this app update just awful.  I have a dozen products that are barely functional, and we use the alarm feature every day.

 

Heck, I can’t even get to my kid’s “good night” playlist now without pulling my hair out because it’s NOT EVEN LISTED alphabetically anymore.  It’s like a jumbled mess of tiles that some idiotic AI organized for me?  You guys… how did this happen?

AMPx2, One SLx6, Play5x2, SUBx2, Play1x2, Move, Roam (Yuck), ARC, PlayBar, Beam, SYMFONISKx2, Awful New App.
N
Userlevel 5
Badge +1

Why release the product when it was so obviously half baked?  Just please roll things back to a usable version and release the current thing as a public beta. It is useless. Please don’t steal months of time from people that have spent thousands of dollars on Sonos simply because of some mistake. 

Thousands of dollars spent. Future dollars likely to spend - currently zero. 

J
Userlevel 1

I understand being annoyed at a botched release but this is ridiculous. Sack up people. It’s software and hardware and human beings making things. Something got screwed up and they’ll fix it. Go touch some grass, jfc. Your sound system should not be the center of your life. IT WILL ALL BE OK I PROMISE. 

K

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come.

@Keith N  I know it is Sonos policy to keep the future a secret, but in extraordinary circumstances like just now when the first part quoted seems to have caused turmoil in many S2 user set ups, can you give some insight into one true innovation to the music listening experience that you will deliver in this future you refer to above? Give us just one aspect of this brave new world of music listening that Sonos is touting today. 

Let’s face it - what Sonos did when it came to the market about twenty years ago was truly innovative and very little since then has been; the innovation you promise in the future has to at least come close to that first innovative leap, although I cannot imagine what that can be without a significant reinvention of hardware to deliver some outcomes I can’t even imagine just now.

Failing that, this just looks like the same churning of what is basically a remote is being done, as was done for S2 to make it look better than S1 in the days following the forking off S1 to S1 and S2. With a lot of kit in perfect working condition left behind that could not cope with S2. And some of the kit on the margins that could handle S2 then, has now been broken by you via recent S2 upgrades - I refer to the issues being faced by Connect Amp and Play 3 users in the last six months, with play 1 units probably next in line to get broken by Sonos upgrades to S2.

M
Userlevel 4
Badge

I have never understood how the communication flow between hardware and software departments work at Sonos, but the courageous new app update seems to suggest that there is not much talk across the aisle at all.

For me it has always felt like the app was made by a different company altogether. One that doesn’t understand how much time people like me spent saving money to buy a decent speaker system and how much music means in everyday life.

Please sync your hardware and software efforts, Sonos.

K
Userlevel 2
Badge

I appreciate yall letting us know when we can expect to edit our alarms, but a heads up that I’d be stuck with 645 for weeks would have been nice

on the other hand, it IS peak comedy that an overnight update meant I’d be stuck with a dentist appointment alarm for weeks 

V
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Why don’t you bozos run two apps in tandem while you fix your collective poo?

AMPx2, One SLx6, Play5x2, SUBx2, Play1x2, Move, Roam (Yuck), ARC, PlayBar, Beam, SYMFONISKx2, Awful New App.
V
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come. For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.


Many of you have shared valuable feedback on both the improvements that have made your experience better, as well as the areas where we fell short. We are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks, we will reintroduce the below features, while fixing bugs and performance issues. Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to building upon this first step to create a listening experience that meets everyone’s needs.
 

  • Screen reader for visually impaired customers: May 21
  • Adding and editing alarms: May 21
  • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
  • Sleep timer: mid-June
  • Local music library search and playback: mid-June 
  • Update Wi-Fi settings: mid-June

Sonos hates their customers 

Yes this approach they’re taking makes ZERO sense and is only damaging their brand.  Terribly.

AMPx2, One SLx6, Play5x2, SUBx2, Play1x2, Move, Roam (Yuck), ARC, PlayBar, Beam, SYMFONISKx2, Awful New App.

Reply


Terms & ConditionsCookie settings