New Sonos app removes key features - beware!


Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Having just upgraded to the new app, I’m utterly amazed at how poor it is from a user perspective.

  • There is no longer a volume number indication
  • You cannot edit queues
  • You cannot add single songs to a queue as ‘play next’ or ‘add to end’
  • You cannot create or edit any alarms

How did this get through any UAT? These are basic features every Sonos user has enjoyed for years.

Absolutely ridiculous, please add this functionality back ASAP.


326 replies

Userlevel 1

All I wanted from a Sonos app upgrade was to make my favourite radio stations accessible on top, not with a click through. 

Now that they made it “more customisable”, they buried favourite radio stations even deeper down the menus.

 

It used to be 

My Sonos (☆) → Stations

 

It now is

Your System - Sonos Favorites → scroll down to Stations → View All

 

Also, in favourite preview in top view they mix favourite stations with songs and albums, same as in the OSX app. This has always been such a messy way to present favs. 

 

And this just on top of the whole mess discussed above.

Userlevel 1

Such an awful update! I use sleep timers & alarms always, they were one of the things I loved & they’re gone. The app is now clunky & not nice to use. I’d always recommended Sonos, but not sure I would now & if I could find another way to control my system I would!

Userlevel 1
Badge

Not happy with this at all.  The new app doesn’t seem to let me play from my local library.  This is an ESSENTIAL feature, Sonos.  This is why I’m on Sonos and not BluOS.  And I can’t downgrade or even use the older version of the app from a different device.

 

You need to offer an opportunity to roll this back until it’s fixed.  Local libraries on a NAS is the most BASIC Sonos feature.

It’s working here for me - I use an SMBv2 NAS share and I can see/play my local library tracks from the main screen under  ‘Your Sources/Music Library”.

Yep, I simply had to re-add the local library address on my setup and it is all up running without a problem. I wonder if the ghosts of SMB1 are biting a lot of folks in the tail. 

Yep, I simply had to re-add the local library address on my setup and it is all up running without a problem. I wonder if the ghosts of SMB1 are biting a lot of folks in the tail. 

Yes I think so too, but maybe from a security point of view with a new App it was decided not to include the old insecure protocols - I can’t say I blame Sonos as it’s what all other large companies are doing too, including Microsoft, Apple etc.

Userlevel 4
Badge +4

From Sonos: It’s a huge undertaking... With this commitment in mind, features such as playlist creation and queue editing within the Sonos app, sleep timers, and local library support will not be available at launch, but will be added to the app on a rolling basis.”

 

So, the question remains, Sonos: - why launch it if the app you’re launching is a lesser version of the one your users already have, and missing essential functionality that everyone has been used to? Why not simply wait a further month and launch it right, rather than annoying millions across the world with an app that isn’t ready? 

Did you, by any chance, have a May 7th “Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Results” announcement by which time it was business critical to shareholders to have launched the app, even if it wasn’t fit for purpose? And while you were at it, it was also vital for news of the new Sonos headphones to “leak” on exactly the same day, correct?

Userlevel 5
Badge +1

Nope - just nope! I m a system developer and system administrator for about 20 years and this has nothing to do with „getting familiar“ - this update is a huge disaster and whoever „coded“ and is responsible for this should be fired! how can core features just miss or not working? the design is not intuitive - it s catastrophic! and the performance is more than worse - and i have an iPhone 14 Pro. It s laggy and with huge delay…

You will be able to give feedback to the responsible people here, on May 14th. I will certainly be. But by that time it will probably have sunk in their minds that this update is catastrophic.

Userlevel 4
Badge +5

I don't know what is wrong with Sonos, over the past few years they just seem determined to ruin their products. I don't get it.

I've been holding off buying new Sonos products for years until I see Sonos improve their customer relations, and that just hasn't happened.

I've blocked updates on our phones, I'm not upgrading to this anytime soon. I use local library (not exclusively, but for music not available on streaming I still use it), alarms, setting alarms via UPnP (does this still work?), queue editing etc, so no way I'm updating any time soon

What is up with sonos, from the botched S2 migration, the connect amp issues and now this. What the hell is going on.

If I released a software update like this at my work, I'd be fired.

Userlevel 3

I’ve already commented once but new discoveries lead to further venting. My playlists (now hidden in Sonos favourites) are not what I created. The ones which are not now completely stripped of content are playing tracks which aren’t in them! I have a 60s list which now has “See Emily Play” in it 11 times although it isn’t playing and it’s played two Beatles tracks which I didn’t add and so far hasn’t played a single track which I had in the list in S2 but general 60s music. When I select “Needles and Pins” it plays “She Loves You”, eventually after first playing the first five seconds three times and “She Loves You” isn’t part of my original playlist. Group volume is all over the place, two speakers of three in the group go down when I slide the group volume bar. Utterly atrocious update. I have always sung the praises of Sonos in the past but this is a slap in the face to users and I will now recommend others seek other methods. Shame on Sonos for releasing a bug ridden piece of tripe, I cannot accept that this has had any user testing when simple bits of functionality don’t work. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +15

There's worse tracks it could play (!) but yeah, 11 times is a bit much.

(seriously though, that sounds a huge bug)

Userlevel 4
Badge +2

If you've read this far, and want to prevent the app update from loading on your devices:

Turn off automatic updates

iOS:

https://www.lifewire.com/turn-off-auto-update-iphone-5206079 

 

Android:

https://www.lifewire.com/turn-off-automatic-updates-on-android-5192496#toc-how-to-turn-off-automatic-app-updates-on-an-android-phone 

(Scroll a bit further to next section titled "Stop Automatic Updates for Specific Apps")

 

Userlevel 4
Badge +4

It will all get sorted out in due course - the previews for the new app showed lots of individual track options (like Add to Queue), so I’m confident those missing options will be rolled out at some point soon, along with any number of other aspects which have caused such ire on this forum over the last 24 hours.

It’s just such a shame that users have to tolerate such omissions while they are rolled out, leading to [ultimately avoidable] frustration and venting - and practically invisible contribution/responses from Sonos on here to allay concerns (and keep thread length down).

Just think how many non-forum users - and non-techie people, like my 76-year-old mother-in-law who uses Sonos - are currently in a tailspin, wondering how on earth to do what they could do on the app just yesterday!

Userlevel 2

rolled back to the previous app within 30 secs of installing this update, it is absolutely terrible 

Userlevel 1

I’ve been using Sonos gear since 2005… for the first decade or so it was just amazing… every update quietly made the product better, added new features, improved existing features, etc.  The past 5-10 years have been abysmal.

This latest “update” is, I think, the last straw.  No sleep timer.  No add to queue.  No edit queue.  To pick just three features I’ve used daily since 2005… now gone… no timeline for their return.

This should be an alpha, not an automatic update to the production app with no way to downgrade or opt out. It’s a complete disaster. But hey they added a big “Shop Sonos Products!” button so I can give them money for more hardware they’ll find exciting new ways to make worse with every update, so I guess that’s something.

Userlevel 5
Badge +1

It will all get sorted out in due course - the previews for the new app showed lots of individual track options (like Add to Queue), so I’m confident those missing options will be rolled out at some point soon, along with any number of other aspects which have caused such ire on this forum over the last 24 hours.

I would not be so confident. For instance “new search” came out over a year ago and it still cannot search into local libraries. Do you think that missing to implement “old search” in the new app was an oversight ?

Userlevel 2

Having just upgraded to the new app, I’m utterly amazed at how poor it is from a user perspective.

  • There is no longer a volume number indication
  • You cannot edit queues
  • You cannot add single songs to a queue as ‘play next’ or ‘add to end’
  • You cannot create or edit any alarms

How did this get through any UAT? These are basic features every Sonos user has enjoyed for years.

Absolutely ridiculous, please add this functionality back ASAP.

The new app is appalling, jumbled and a serious backward step. No way to stop my alarm for a lie in unless I unplug the Sonos!

Also no way to roll back the controller to a version that actually works. 

Userlevel 3

My experience has also been poor. Instead of giving us a better experience and adding features many of us have waited for for years, we get less. I had thought Sonos had learned from the S1 / S2 app disaster, but appears the app side of the house needs a total reset at the company given how poor this update is. Sonos isn’t listening to it’s core customers and that’s going to create detractors.

did they have engineers remake this app that dont use it?  this world is a joke..  everything promoted better and its worse..  

Userlevel 3

Having just upgraded to the new app, I’m utterly amazed at how poor it is from a user perspective.

  • There is no longer a volume number indication
  • You cannot edit queues
  • You cannot add single songs to a queue as ‘play next’ or ‘add to end’
  • You cannot create or edit any alarms

How did this get through any UAT? These are basic features every Sonos user has enjoyed for years.

Absolutely ridiculous, please add this functionality back ASAP.

The new app is appalling, jumbled and a serious backward step. No way to stop my alarm for a lie in unless I unplug the Sonos!

Also no way to roll back the controller to a version that actually works. 

great job sonos..   please hire an engineer that is min 40 years old and has experience..  your 25 years old are lost  id love to see the line up of people that re did this app

 

Userlevel 4
Badge +4

It will all get sorted out in due course - the previews for the new app showed lots of individual track options (like Add to Queue), so I’m confident those missing options will be rolled out at some point soon, along with any number of other aspects which have caused such ire on this forum over the last 24 hours.

I would not be so confident. For instance “new search” came out over a year ago and it still cannot search into local libraries. Do you think that missing to implement “old search” in the new app was an oversight ?

 

It appreciate it must be an absolute pain to have lost this functionality. I can’t guess as to whether local library search is to come, but I also wonder what proportion of Sonos users access music via their own  storage? If Sonos feels a section of its user-base is expendable in pursuit of the streaming mass-market majority, then it will unfortunately reduce focus on those users.

The proportion of local storage users on this forum is very high (and rightly noisy at the moment because of the app omissions) as forums for any tech tends to attract the more advanced users - but what is the proportion of Sonos forum users vs the total Sonos user base? 

I don’t know, just surmising… Has Sonos made a sweeping decision?? (But local storage search and functionality might all show up next week!)

Userlevel 1

I too do not like the new app the group settings are terrible and the over all display looks cheap and unprofessional.

Please go back !!!!!!!!

Userlevel 7
Badge +4

rolled back to the previous app within 30 secs of installing this update, it is absolutely terrible 

How do you roll back? Was this on Android or IOS?

Userlevel 3

I’m finding the all new Sonos ‘Web App’ just has rather basic functionality, but I actually like its layout on my iPad screen (landscape mode) - I think I prefer that layout to the new App, with the rooms down the side, but appreciate it would not work on a phone display. 

One feature request I have already, is to be able to change the order of the ‘pinned categories’ on the Web App, like we are able to do with the new Sonos App.
 

…I really like the layout here.👍

That looks a great layout - just tried it out on my ipad and yes for simple operation much better than the new App!

I was hoping it would let me set and edit alarms and set sleep timer until those are added back in to the new app but unfortunately it looks like you can’t do either of those on the Web App frustratingly. 

Userlevel 3

Awful and more clicks in the interface as far as I can see. Also lost the sleep timer function ! 

I want my old APP back pls

Userlevel 5
Badge +4

There is no ‘skip’ or next function on a self created station from Apple Music now. This was a core function where if Apple recommended a song you didn’t like you could skip it. That’s gone now?

 

 

Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Thanks to APKmirror I could install the previous version of S2 app on my Android phone. I blocked automatic updates.

 

New app is a disaster. My radio stations not accessible, NAS files not accessible. Many features removed. Now way to find out audio format coming from my TV. I am so happy I can use the older version. 

Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Sonos… Please respond to this thread and give us a method to revert to the working App. This release is pretty and pretty useless.

Not impressed, Thousands of pounds of kit now in a pathetic limp mode.

this should never have got anywhere near the general public. As a sometimes Beta Tester for Sonos I have never seen such a bad release, even in first Beta release.

This is not good for PR and I would urge you to respond NOW!

Thanks

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