Will we get our Android widget back?

God I hope so. Horrible user experience without it. Not that Sonos cares....

I can not say how much I want a widget, flipping between units on the app, and lack of functionality without the app is just frustrating. 

I would have thought that a widget is pretty fundamental to the user experience. 

I will no doubt live my Sonos life in perpetual disappointment waiting in vain.

Both Google and Apple nolonger allow 3rd party players such as SONOS to use the home screen in this manor. For a while SONOS used a clever hack to do this, but Google and Apple claim that this hack creates security issues. The choice given to SONOS was elimate the hack or be dropped from the App Stores.

I use a widget app called sono+ on my iPhone however I am using the old app and firmware 

unsure if it is available on android or if it works on the latest version but I have been using it plus the WiiM app for over a month and not opened the Sonos App 

Is this a joke? How many apps on the app store have widgets?

Is Sonos were allowed to have a widget, then they wouldn't need a hack.

Nonsense, player widgets are allowed. 

I think @Buzz may have misspoke a bit by referring to the Sonos app as a player.  It’s not a player, it’s a controller..  When using app app like Spotify or other streaming audio service, the audio is playing on the device itself, and the device allows for device volume controls. Even if it’s bluetooth or airplay to another device, the audio is still originating from the device.  Sonos volume controls are  for controlling volume on other Sonos speakers where the audio originates on the other device.  It’s a signficant difference.

I know that Google an Apple don’t allow use of the hard button volume controls for controlling the volume of other devices.  I am not 100% sure about widget volume controls, but wouldn’t be surprised if the same policy applies. I think Buzz pays attention to these things more than I do.

It's called Media Control: https://developer.android.com/media/implement/surfaces/mobile

Hard buttons still work on Android to control volume on Sonos.

Well I, for one, couldn't care less about controlling the volume using the hard buttons.

I do, however, want to see what's playing by simply waking up my device (like I've been doing for the past 10+ years).

Now we have to open the app and wait for it to catch up before seeing what's playing.

@Corry P, could you let us know if it's on the backlog, pls?

• Android Widget
• Android Media Control

It’s highly likely that Sonos was using some kind of backdoor or other ungodly hack to get the lock screen widget “working” because it was always accompanied by the annoying message “Stopping the service may interrupt playback notifications”. The widget was also poorly responsive to inputs. Basically, it was a mess.

Given that, I’m not surprised to see the widget go away with the new app and I would be very surprised to see it ever come back.

That’s correct, my wording was unfortunate.

If you are using the phone/pad App to play music on the SONOS system via Bluetooth or Airplay, the buttons are available to the App because the App is playing the music on the phone/pad.

A few Apps, such as SPOTIFY, in addition to playing on the phone/pad, can use the SONOS API (Application Program Interface) interact with the SONOS players. This keeps Apple and Google happy because the phone/pad controls are not directly interacting with the SONOS hardware.

I never had a problem with widget responsiveness.

I used to use it dozens of times a day, every day.
 

It's not a backdoor. It's a well documented Android function:

Media controls in Android are located near the Quick Settings. Sessions from multiple apps are arranged in a swipeable carousel. The carousel lists sessions in this order:

• Streams playing locally on the phone
• Remote streams, such as those detected on external devices or cast sessions
• Previous resumable sessions, in the order they were last played

I know that Apple has issues with that. But, Google / Android allows the physical buttons to interact with Sonos devices.

I think there are two different scenarios here.

A widget can have a media session on screen controls to change streams both locally and/or remote which is what your quote from the Android docs is referring to.

An active foreground app can use the hard buttons for control.

A background app, which it would be on a Lock Screen, cannot use the hardware buttons for control.

Not responding to the hardware buttons when the app is not active in the foreground is a requirement of Android introduced in one of the sdk versions. 12 maybe. This affects all device makers not just Sonos.

If an app isn’t in the foreground or the phone is locked and there are multiple apps which can respond to the hardware controls which one wins without confusing users? Sonos, Spotify, Tidal, the incoming call volume, Bluesound, etc… Should they all react? Should Sonos override everything including an incoming call ringing?

I believe you are right, @sigh 👍

Hi @furacaopr 

I don’t have that information, but you might find it here: https://trello.com/b/4T9rbg8t/sonos-app-improvement-bug-tracker

I hope this helps.

Yeah, I can't see them there. Could you submit as request, please?

Hi @furacaopr 

Apologies - I was now able to find that there is an issue tracker for not being able to add widgets on Android - as there is a tracker, this will not need to be a feature request. So, the plan seems to be to bring them back, though there is no date set for this as of yet.

I hope this helps.

I use the home assistant media player widget. If you already have home assistant setup it works well.

How come Spotify can have a widget?

Widgets are allowed, what isn’t allowed is widgets/background apps taking over the hardware buttons, such as volume.

So with regards to a widget...... You're saying there's a chance!!!