The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

If anyone decides to start a class action please contact me as I’d be happy to contribute to that. Unbelievable how a $1.9B dollar company can screw their customers so bad. I’ll be setting up to short the stock as well, watching it plummet will no doubt be a bit of a light on this otherwise poor excuse of a company you’ve demonstrated you can be. 

I’m surely not going to do the legwork and I did see other posts about class action talks but I’m merely throwing my 2 cents in and offer if someone does eventually do something. This isn’t just about the bugs in a newly released app but more about their efforts to sunset products after such a short period for what has traditionally been a sector that values quality and long term usability. They clearly have a disregard for their existing customers; some of their responses on the AMA on Reddit along with interviews I read make that clear. Future is all they care about but it will hurt them in the end if they don’t keep their base happy.

I’m paying for a Sonos Radio subscription but the app has me stuck in a reauthorize loop. When will you fix that? Will I get a refund for the service I’m paying for that I can’t use?

Just switch to Deezer. It's what Sonos Radio uses in the background anyway. The Deezer app works fine. You can even create and edit playlists there.

Deezer might work fine for you, but that's not a universal experience. Haven't been able to get Deezer to load and I've tried everything, including downgrading from a Family subscription in case Sonos was having trouble with multiple accounts.

Have a ticket open with Sonos, but now I'm supposed to call back so they can access my system. Except, I have to do it when (a) their support lines are open (I work, and they run on Eastern time) and (b) I have the time to wait on hold.

So, in the interim, I'm limited to using Deezer in the car and at work (after buying desktop speakers and ditching my Sonos - but I've got too many at home to just start over). That said, Sonos inspired me to pick up a pair of Focals for the plane, which I can also use around the house, although I've been finding it's easier to steam Deezer over my Pixel phone at breakfast, etc.

This has been a heads-up for me on the risk of going all-in on a product that is wholly-dependent on the seller for ongoing support.

 

* Edited to (a) add a pic and (b) my gym as another place where I'm streaming Flac files to my Pixel.

I meant the Deezer app. That works fine.

Obviously Deezer within the Sonos app has flaws. But that is due to Sonos.

If you have a Deezer subscription, why on earth would you get a Sonos Radio subscription too? With the money wasted on Sonos Radio, you could also plant some trees in Africa.

This app does not match the old app in any way. This app feels like a pre-alpha in usability and takes away (meaningful access ) to features that have been enjoyed by the community for years. There is no workable alternative for users who have been with Sonos for years. Do you really expect these users to sit and wait next to their useless system while you set out a flexible roadmap?

I really don't want to spend time writing this message but a few days ago the Sonos App had suddenly updated without me wanting it to, nor do I have time to try to understand how it works, which I anyway had to do because I want to use my expensively purchased Sonos speakers. Don't you, in the IT industry, understand that users are tired of constantly having to spend time to understand how a new app or program works, because Sonos is not alone. It seems to me that you are just making changes for the sake of changing, to have something to do. The function rarely gets better, you just move "buttons" around and make it messier. I have never perceived that it got better after an update, you can be happy if it hasn't gotten worse. Do you not have any pedagogues employed? Tech geeks seem to enjoy "clicking" a lot and seeing "windows" pop up.

LIST OF WEAKNESSES:

• After the update, most of the things in "Your Services" were gone, so I had to put in things like Deezer and TuneIn again. The only thing that was there was "Sonos Radio", which I never use.
• Before, you could see the playlist and the song being played in the same window, now you have to jump between two windows and see one thing at a time.
• I used to be able to play a playlist and pause it and listen "live" to a radio channel. The playlist remained so I could continue listening after the radio program ended. Now the playlist is gone and I have to get it again from the "library".
• In the window where you see all the alarms, you used to be able to see all the information, now I have to click twice on each alarm to see what kind of music or radio station is inside.
• I can’t set the time for how long the music shall play anymore. After much searching on the Sonos website, I found information that it would return after a future update. When will it come back? I have been using it every day. Why not complete the entire app before releasing it?

This is what I have found so far. Can I have the old app back PLEASE!

I find it very interesting that there appear to be some specific groups of issues with this app update. 

• Those (like me) who have been lucky and experienced no issues at all with the app (other than temporarily finding it hard to connect one of my Symfonisk lamp surrounds)
• Those whose wifi networks cannot find any speakers.
• Those who have lost access to only certain speakers. 
• Those who have lost access to all or some music services.
• Those who cannot access their music library while others can

There are more groups than this of course. The point is that the issues caused by the roll-out are vastly inconsistent, but that it’s likely the issues each specific ‘group’ is facing will be down to them having the same type of network set-up, or device, or speaker combination as others in that group. As a result, it feels to me that there might not be as many issues with the app (user interface aside) as we’re anticipating. Fix one specific thing, and that ‘group’ will be fixed. Fix another, and that’s another group who can use their system again. 

The problem is, because people are posting only about general issues or complaints, they are not posting any details of their set-up/device/speakers, so other forum users are unable to see any patterns that might match their own problems. 

It’s unlikely to happen, but I wonder whether including details of wifi, device and speakers might reveal patterns? 

I’ll start:

• Issues:  NO ISSUES (besides existing app omissions like queue management, etc)
• Main device:  iOS, fully updated, with updated Sonos app.
• Speakers:  7 x One SLs, Home theatre (Arc, 2 x Symfonisk lamp speaker surrounds, Sub gen2). All firmware updated.
• Network:  Gigabit wifi, with three TP-Link Deco wifi mesh disks. No speakers connected by Ethernet.
• Services:  Apple Music, Spotify, BBC Sounds.
• Remote music Library:  None.
• Location:  UK

So I wonder whether others without issues have anything similar to this? i.e. is there a pattern to who has issues and who doesn’t..?

Sonos Radio is baked into the app as a proprietary service, with incremental commercial value to Sonos from subscriptions. I doubt they would intend to allow user removal of the service.

I’m not saying it won’t ever be possible, I’m saying I doubt it would be their intention. Sonos exists to make money (like any company), so when you buy into Sonos, you either buy into whatever they have decided is right for their business (whether or not it is annoying) or you go elsewhere and buy into another audio provider.

This would never be an EU matter. 

Why on earth did I just update last night? Of course, you never suggested there’d be a problem in the Release Notes - this has been a forced global update via the back door 😕

This isn’t GA software, it’s not even a Beta - this feels like ALPHA territory.

I agree with others - S2 needs re-releasing and this mess rebadged as S3. Give your customers some respite, and give yourselves time to release a fully tested, fully functional product.

If I’d rolled out a mass FW update which crashed every customer’s network - which is what you’ve effectively done - I’d have been straight out the door and permanently unemployable.

Who on earth signed this off? I’m fuming, and can’t be any more critical. You’ve lost all customer confidence on this one. Please - REVERT. It’s really no use trying to patch this; your entire customer base needs an immediate return to stability & functionality.

My issues:

1. Discovery protocol changed from SSDP to mDNS means the system now can’t work on my network, where it always did perfectly. Please change so that if the controller can’t see a system using mDNS it falls back to SSDP, rather than crashing.
2. Multiple speaker update failures reporting Error Code 1000 which isn’t listed, I understand it’s a generic code, effectively meaning “no idea”; not very helpful, and demonstrates the instability and unreliability of the app and / or FW.
3. And the mother of all oversights: can’t create a music queue. Come on, that’s the ONLY job Sonos has to get right - being able to play music. I’m totally stunned by this. If someone wanted to sabotage a music streaming company, they couldn’t do better than limiting you to playing one song at a time! 🙄🧐😡

So yes, please reissue the S2 controller and associated speaker firmware, and treat your devs to some breathing space to develop a well thought out and fully tested replacement that already includes existing core functionality at release date. A few bugs are acceptable, but inoperable isn’t. 

The pattern is simply how users use their system.  If they are trying to use any of the numerous missing or broken features, which are well known and acknowledged by SONOS in this very topic, then they will have problems.

You say you have no problems, yet you have no queue management.  If you cared about that feature, then you’d have a problem.  If you don’t have any music that you play on a NAS, then you don’t have that problem either.  You may be the poster-child for Sonos’s new direction and those of us who built a system based on those missing features deemed secondary may be getting “notice” that our party is over.

For some issues there are workarounds and for some, apparently no workaround (based on what SONOS has posted).  

There is also a SONOS post about issues caused by partially updated systems where the speaker firmware is not up to date across all devices, or the controller (app) is not up to date.  Some people are probably having issues due to this.  However, updating the controller app as suggested will break many features, but it’s also necessary for other features.  A conundrum.

Additionally, some have unnecessarily mangled their systems thinking they needed to do a reset when they saw all the brokenness of the new app when all they really needed to do was remain calm and find a working version of the app (desktop, rollback, or 3rd party). I could see how a reset could be a disaster as so many features for setting things up are not working yet either.

There are your patterns.

I acknowledged “no issues (OTHER THAN the queue management, etc)”. Throughout my post I was clearly referring to the functionality of people’s systems overall, not software options. My stating I wasn’t having issues was in relation to showing my set-up in case others said “I’m set up that way, but I have issues” OR “That’s like me, and I too have minimal issues” to present a pattern. It’s just as useful to developers to know where issues are not occurring as where they are. 

Your reply is quite terse in response to a post intended to try to help find a route for people to work together to determine what might be at the root of collective issues. Apologies if my method of listening to music via streaming makes me fall into being ‘a poster child’ for Sonos’ new direction. But unfortunately, like it or not, hard drive storage of music is not the future.

Not easy anymore to switch from 1 speaker to another, ande certainly not if you switch from phone to IPad or other Smartphone. It is horrible!