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High Battery Drain on this week's iOS and Android apps

Many usersⵜ are reporting extremely high battery drain on this week’s version of both the iOS and Android apps (v80.05.04 and v80.05.06, respectively). Using the iOS/Android battery tracking dashboards, users are reporting 30-50% battery drain‡ from the Sonos app over a 24-hour period.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the battery drain occurs with the Sonos app in the background. Disabling background app refresh doesn’t improve things. Fully exiting the Sonos app is required.

Purely out of curiosity, I plan to monitor Wi-Fi traffic from the app to see if this version of the app is continuously polling the device firmware. Anyone who beats me to such measurements—yay! —by all means let us know what you find.

 

ⵜ Likely not all users, particulars TBD

‡ Figures reported for phones; tablets have dramatically larger batteries so drain is a smaller percentage

32 replies

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Android includes a neat (optional) feature called Battery Optimizer that alerts users to unusually battery hungry apps and offers to take ‘evasive’ action. Please chime in if you’ve enabled battery optimizer and let us know if it successfully mitigates the Sonos app battery drain.

T
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Have the same issue,

 

woke up this morning, percentage of Sonos use was 12%, 1,5 hours later, it was 21%, without use of the app.

 

I use an iphone 13 mini witch i could easily use without additional charging during a day, since a week or so the battery drains quick, and i need to recharge during they day.

S
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Forcing me to uninstall the app on both my iPhone and iPad (due to the battery drain) solves all the problems with the app in an instant.

 

Well done Sonos. Just when I think things can’t get any worse, you manage to outdo yourselves.

M
Userlevel 2

I have had to close the app since my battery has become depleted early evening, and usually lasts until midnight.

 

Sonos get it together! One thing after the other...

O
Badge

Exact same here. Woke up this morning with battery depleted way more than usual (iOS). Checked battery status and Sonos was running in the background for 10+ hours. Looked at Sonos App Preferences and made sure Auto-Update was toggled off. Noticed that “Allow Pop Up Messages” was toggled on; turned it off and waited, but still Sonos was running in the background. I also turned off Location Services and Notifications for Sonos. No difference.

Quit the app, and no problem.

So yes, this started with the latest update. Never occurred prior. Sonos, please fix ASAP.

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Experiment (!) for anyone on iOS willing to, umm, experiment …

  • Fully exit the Sonos app
  • Disable Bluetooth (completely, not just for the Sonos app)
  • Start Sonos app, tap ‘Close’ in pop-up about Bluetoooth
  • Check battery stats after 2-4 hours
  • Report back here

… working off a hunch here.

 

Tagging potential experimenters @Bumper @controlav @Rhonny @orbiter-savoy @SilverGrey @Talkien

P
Userlevel 2
Badge +2

Experiment (!) for anyone on iOS willing to, umm, experiment …

  • Fully exit the Sonos app
  • Disable Bluetooth (completely, not just for the Sonos app)
  • Start Sonos app, tap ‘Close’ in pop-up about Bluetoooth
  • Check battery stats after 2-4 hours
  • Report back here

… working off a hunch here.

 

Tagging potential experimenters @Bumper @controlav @Rhonny @orbiter-savoy @SilverGrey @Talkien

Just curious - what does Sonos use BT for? Edit: to be clear, I meant what would the Sonos app use BT for?

O
Badge

Okay, I took the challenge and turned off BT as described. Interestingly, the Sonos app didn’t seem to care when I fired it up (no warning dialogs to dismiss).

It’s been about 45 minutes, checked battery stats and zero background activity for Sonos.

I will keep it running and see how it goes. I’ll use the speakers, the Beam, etc to see if BT even matters.

 

skullc
Userlevel 7
Badge +13

No drain on 16.1 but thanks for the suggestion to turn off Bluetooth no idea why I would want that either 👍

Network= livewire cpe pro 3 +eero 6 pro wireless
press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

The app uses Bluetooth for the Ace headphones (to tweak eq and other settings) and when you add a new speaker. For the vast majority of people, the app doesn’t need Bluetooth 99.9% of the time … so it will be tremendously ironic if my hunch holds water.

On my iPhone, disabling Bluetooth results in a “puh-lease enable” pop-up every time I launch the app.

skullc
Userlevel 7
Badge +13

The app uses Bluetooth for the Ace headphones (to tweak eq and other settings) and when you add a new speaker. For the vast majority of people, the app doesn’t need Bluetooth 99.9% of the time … so it will be tremendously ironic if my hunch holds water.

On my iPhone, disabling Bluetooth results in a “puh-lease enable” pop-up every time I launch the app.

Not on mine just a notification to update every now and again 😊

but as I don’t use the app much anymore I don’t care

Network= livewire cpe pro 3 +eero 6 pro wireless
O
Badge

Hmm, if I turn off Bluetooth completely (Settings->Bluetooth), toggle off for everything, then I get the Sonos message asking to turn it on.

However if I leave Bluetooth on, but go to Settings->Sonos, I can toggle it off just for Sonos. In that case, I get no message from Sonos.

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hmm, if I turn off Bluetooth completely (Settings->Bluetooth), toggle off for everything, then I get the Sonos message asking to turn it on.

However if I leave Bluetooth on, but go to Settings->Sonos, I can toggle it off just for Sonos. In that case, I get no message from Sonos.

Hi @orbiter-savoy, same here. I think Apple may allow audio apps to ignore the app-specific toggles—specifically Bluetooth and Background App Refresh—which sounds odd but seems to be the case.

O
Badge

Hi @press250, looks like my findings are off and there is still background activity with the BT toggled off. Probably didn’t wait long enough for the stats to update. :(

C
Userlevel 6
Badge +12

My guess is Sonos is building in some diagnostic code to get them more telemetry on the App performance to help improve the App. It maybe a third-party eg Sentry.io that is using the battery in background.

O
Userlevel 1

Same here. Sonos causing almost half my battery usage over last 24 hours with no more than 5 minutes of active use. 
 

App is either fundamentally broken (again) or using massive amounts of energy to spy on my phone. Don’t know which one would be worse. 

M
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

For the last 10 days I have 15m on screen 27h 14m background usage for the Sonos app. I’m fairly certain those 27h are exactly the amount of time the app has just been open (ie not fully quit), as I use airplay and rarely stream using Sonos, if at all.

Draining users batteries just for opening an app occasionally is an extremely bad bug. I don’t understand why this hasn’t been patched with urgency.

S
Badge

@press250 I wonder if the battery drain is related to this volume bug. 
 

On iPhone if you have the Sonos app running, if you mute system volume it will un mute itself. Force close the app and the volume will work as expected. 
Video;

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/s/rUp6sQHORz

D
Userlevel 1
Badge

Same issue here on my iPhone 13 Pro: after my Sonos app updated I couldn’t make it a full day on a single charge. 18 minutes on screen and almost 4 hours running in the background. What is the app doing? And why is Sonos doing everything they can to anger and alienate their customers? Patrick Spence should be fired.

Now I open the app, do what I want to do, and force quit the app to preserve my iPhone’s battery life.

 

PloppyC
Userlevel 1
Badge +1

One more with excessive idle battery drain.

K

Have the same issues here - 61% battery drain over 24 hours on iPhone 15. Can’t remember the last time I opened the app!

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

So the latest possibility is that the Sonos app is using cellular data when you are away from home, which doesn’t exactly jibe with overnight battery drain when you are at home on Wi-Fi. Nevertheless …

Go to Settings > Cellular > [scroll down] Sonos and DISABLE

Tagging @Kcools @PloppyC @DeRochier @Sideshow_Bob @m-m-i 

R
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

So the latest possibility is that the Sonos app is using cellular data when you are away from home, which doesn’t exactly jibe with overnight battery drain when you are at home on Wi-Fi. Nevertheless …

Go to Settings > Cellular > [scroll down] Sonos and DISABLE

Tagging @Kcools @PloppyC @DeRochier @Sideshow_Bob @m-m-i 

Just to also mention, per your reply to me on this in the other thread, those are findings from like-for-like days, when I am mostly at home. So it feels like the app is seeking a mobile/cellular connection even when on WiFi.

(I have Background Refresh off in iOS/Settings/Sonos, as you know, but made little difference. Also Bluetooth off there too - inconclusive difference; and now Mobile/[Cellular] Data off which is the one that seems to have had the impact in reducing drain… Focus group of one!)

press250
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Just to also mention, per your reply to me on this in the other thread, those are findings from like-for-like days, when I am mostly at home. So it feels like the app is seeking a mobile/cellular connection even when on WiFi.

That would be fabulously wacky, @Rhonny! I didn’t think an app gets any say in ‘where’ data comes from, that is was entirely up to iOS ... and iOS would pick Wi-Fi over cellular.

That said, the past three months has certainly taught us that anything is possible. 😅

R
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Just to also mention, per your reply to me on this in the other thread, those are findings from like-for-like days, when I am mostly at home. So it feels like the app is seeking a mobile/cellular connection even when on WiFi.

That would be fabulously wacky, @Rhonny! I didn’t think an app gets any say in ‘where’ data comes from, that is was entirely up to iOS ... and iOS would pick Wi-Fi over cellular.

That said, the past three months has certainly taught us that anything is possible. 😅

Sure, I do not disagree! But the phone itself will always be getting a 4G/5G signal to make and receive calls (if the signal is good WiFi calling won’t kick in) - so I wonder whether having mobile/cellular data turned off under Settings / Sonos, stops the phone bothering the Sonos app in some way that means it isn’t needing to use unnecessary battery… I don’t know, it’s above my tech knowledge grade!!! 

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