Skip to main content

New Sonos app - The worst ever


I am writing to express my frustration and disappointment with the latest update of your app. Since the update, I have encountered numerous issues that have severely disrupted my experience:

  1. Speaker Detection Issues: The app intermittently fails to detect my speakers. They appear and disappear at random, making it impossible to manage them effectively.
  2. Grouping Problems: When I try to split the music in one room from the group, the remaining speakers stop working and cannot be re-grouped. This has rendered the multi-room functionality unusable.
  3. Playback Failures: None of the speakers will play music after attempting to manage them through the app.
  4. App Connectivity: The app frequently loses connection with the speakers and is unable to detect them again.

Moreover, the support wait times are exceedingly long, often over 70 minutes, and the chat support has not been helpful in resolving these issues. This situation is unacceptable and has caused significant inconvenience.

I urge you to provide an option to revert to the previous version of the app until these critical bugs are resolved. Additionally, I would appreciate a more responsive and effective support system to address these urgent issues.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

I am beyond furious. I installed Sonos systems in both my homes and I can’t connect without issues. This is the worst app ever. Please re-release the old app and give people a choice. This is absurd. If there is a class action, I will be the first in line. FIX IT IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!


Truly terrible …. The app is broken and has caused no end of problems. It’s quite frankly an awful experience and is making me consider selling the lot and moving onto something else. ROLLBACK to the old app and sort this new one out first!!


Download and install version 16.1 apk

https://apkpure.com/sonos/com.sonos.acr2/downloading/16.1

what will this do?  Is this the old version?  

Has anyone tried?  Is it iOS version?


As an AV company owner, I am literally receiving 2-3 calls PER DAY to help customers through this change. This often times means “rolling the truck” out to help them. The company’s CEO recently released a statement in an attempt to justify the new update. The simple fact that he had to do that indicates there is great dissatisfaction from the public. I am struggling at this point, to suggest Sonos to new clients unless a fix happens soon. I hear Marantz will be releasing their own streaming system on the HEOS platform. We’ll see. 


So frustrating. Nothing works anymore 


SONOS….. LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS ASAP!!!! Your new app is garbage and you are not doing anything about it!

Advice to Sonos users…. While the feedback left here is great, I agree with all of it, it resides in the Sonos world on their help forum.

Take these comments and put them out on the web where other potential customers will see them. If you bought your products anywhere but Sonos directly, leave feedback there (Costco, BestBuy, etc). If Sonos won’t react to the feedback in this forum, they might react more when they start to have horrible product reviews left for potential customers to view…. They may not care about us, but they certainly care about their bottom line…

Shame on you Sonos for forcing this buggy junk app on loyal customers who have invested thousands to enjoy music. Your products rock, but are useless without a quality app. 
 

STEP UP AND DO BETTER!!!


SONOS….. LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS ASAP!!!! Your new app is garbage and you are not doing anything about it!

Advice to Sonos users…. While the feedback left here is great, I agree with all of it, it resides in the Sonos world on their help forum.

Take these comments and put them out on the web where other potential customers will see them. If you bought your products anywhere but Sonos directly, leave feedback there (Costco, BestBuy, etc). If Sonos won’t react to the feedback in this forum, they might react more when they start to have horrible product reviews left for potential customers to view…. They may not care about us, but they certainly care about their bottom line…

Shame on you Sonos for forcing this buggy junk app on loyal customers who have invested thousands to enjoy music. Your products rock, but are useless without a quality app. 
 

STEP UP AND DO BETTER!!!

I wonder how many emails their CEO Patrick Spence (patrick.spence@sonos.com) has received as a result of this fiasco?


Totally agree with other posts here.  This is unacceptable.  I have a Sonos five stereo pair in my office.  Either the sound just cuts out or the right speaker only cuts out and no sound.  The song (as indicated on the Sonos App ) is still playing but no sound.  I have done everything.,.. reboot router , reboot the speakers, etc.  and it keeps happening.  What gives here SONOS? My system (and I have speakers in almost every room) was always working perfectly with no issues before this update.  This is BS

What if I removed the Sonos five pair from my Sonos system completely and then add bak in.  Would this theoretically work or ???   I am afraid I would risk bricking the fives and completely losing use of them.

 

So here is a very odd addition to this whole problem.  The sound dropping out from stereo pair  or just the right speaker seemed to only be occuring when using the sonos app on iphone.  I am running the web app from my mac now and been playing for about 8 hours now and no issues.  Go figure.  Why would it behave differently from the app on iphone?  doesnt make sense to me.


Plain and simple this new sonos app blows...


All this and then some. I am sick of seeing these d bag companies using us as there testing labs. You suck. The person or group responsible for designing and releasing this app should be fired. 


I’ve been a Sonos user since 2008, this is the worst software update I have ever seen. Makes me want to throw all my speakers in the ocean. 


I never participate in this kind of thing, but I am SO disappointed with the new app that I feel compelled to agree with most of the negative comments here. I am tech savvy and can work most new apps out, but this one is a disaster. I plan do control my units through Spotify for the time being. ☹️


I don’t know why everyone is so surprised by this. The company is horrible. I stopped buying Sonos speakers years ago once they failed to EVER produce a stable application. The company doesn’t care about customers and doesn’t even seem to understand what their product is. If they cared or understood anything, they would not have shipped such useless junk.


Fully agreed to all, this is the worst update ever? 


WHAT DID YOU GUYS AT SONOS DO?!@#$& OH NO…

This new app is like all new apps at first – kind of annoying to get used to. BUT, it never gets better. I’ve given it what, a week? It’s still impossible to figure out what the UI is intending. Reminds me of the Apple Music app (I hope it’s understood by the folks at SONOS that this is not a compliment).

The new app plays music in the wrong room, skips in the middle of a song, never remembers my network. Just terrible, I’d go back to the old app asap and chalk this up as a big sleep-walking whoops.

 

Sincerely,

A longtime 20+ product Sonos customer


Glad to know I'm not alone... My system is literally unusable most times I attempt to use it. It shouldn't be difficult to click on a SiriusXM station I want to listen to, and have it play. But it doesn't nothing at all. 

 

Between this and the disaster of an experience I had with my 1st Gen Roam, I don't think Sonos will be getting another dollar from me, and I've been a loyal customer for many years, like many people here. 

The complete lack of even acknowledging these complaints would be surprising if it wasn't so common these days with tech companies. They give zero F$&$#s and it shows. They do not care about their customers, only their boards, PE/VC backers and their P&L's. 

 

Such is the world in 2024 I guess. Sucks. 


It appears Sonos may be getting the message that folks who have made a significant investment in their great hardware are not happy.  Are they setting the App up for advertising and marketing?  We just want a good interface to our hardware.  


Totally agree with other posts here.  This is unacceptable.  I have a Sonos five stereo pair in my office.  Either the sound just cuts out or the right speaker only cuts out and no sound.  The song (as indicated on the Sonos App ) is still playing but no sound.  I have done everything.,.. reboot router , reboot the speakers, etc.  and it keeps happening.  What gives here SONOS? My system (and I have speakers in almost every room) was always working perfectly with no issues before this update.  This is BS

What if I removed the Sonos five pair from my Sonos system completely and then add bak in.  Would this theoretically work or ???   I am afraid I would risk bricking the fives and completely losing use of them.

 

So here is a very odd addition to this whole problem.  The sound dropping out from stereo pair  or just the right speaker seemed to only be occuring when using the sonos app on iphone.  I am running the web app from my mac now and been playing for about 8 hours now and no issues.  Go figure.  Why would it behave differently from the app on iphone?  doesnt make sense to me.

Generally, while there can be accidental, temporary, improvements, a Factory Reset does not repair fundamental issues and simply wastes time. Likely, this issue will resolve after a future update.


It appears Sonos may be getting the message that folks who have made a significant investment in their great hardware are not happy.  Are they setting the App up for advertising and marketing?  We just want a good interface to our hardware.  

Superb observation! If there is one thing that the new app does dramatically ‘better’ than the old app, it is serving up Sonos adverts.


Throwing my hat in the ring as an other unhappy Sonos owner. I tried to understand the logic in this new app and assumed my frustration was due to the new arrangement. I’m happy I don’t have the connectivity or technical problems some are reporting. I do, however, think this new app took something that worked and made sense, and chucked that out the window in favor of something that is not intuitive and very frustrating to use for simple tasks. It stinks of product planners and developers working in a vacuum and concluding the app is exactly what they think it should be without real-life user input. This is the app equivalent to the Pontiac Aztek. Sounded good to everyone involved in building it… and nobody else……… 


So incredibly frustrated...have to join the chorus of complaints. I have 12 Sonos products, started years ago and have continued to add to my system. Why? Because it worked - almost perfectly. And then the new app arrives and with each day I find a new problem, missing functions, missing music services, occasionally missing speakers, crashes, super slow response...basically a trash heap of an app. Use of my Sonos products has dropped off a cliff. I now tend to use my sonically inferior Alexa products more than ever. At least they work. What was once the best music system available is now the absolute worst - I wouldn’t recommend Sonos to anyone until they get this right. Please, please roll the app back to S2 and then try a new app again in a few years. Oh, and maybe you should test it first, duh.


Completely agree. This app is HORRIBLE!  Sonos obviously out locked their coverage and has to fix this ASAP!!!!!


This is outrageous! My Sonos system cost over $10k and they are virtually useless when it comes to playing music. I didn’t know of the mishap until I hosted a house party this past Saturday and music were cutting out at every location. When I go on the app, it shows that the song is still playing but speakers go crickets. It was a frustrating experience, wish I had a backup sound system. Sonos knew their system is heavily dependent on their software yet they released a terrible, untested update to mess things up. Very crazy it is!!


I've never faced issues connecting sound systems throughout my 40 year life.... until the SONOS ONE. Sonos is by far the most abysmal sound system I have ever had the misfortune to use. The app is beyond useless and even worse since the latest update. It just refuses to load most of the time. Then when it does it no longer connects to the speaker. It can't detect it, no matter what I do. Follow the instructions? Yep, did that. No luck. I've reset phone, my router, the speaker, everything and still nothing. 

I am ripping my hair out here. This tech is not cheap. 

I'm going to get rid of it and buy a £25 Bluetooth speaker off Amazon now. At least I know it will do what it was designed to do.


This update to app is really bad! I’ve have connection issues, speakers not found, broken groups and actually worst sound quality when streaming music.  I’ve never had these issue before the update.  I’m thinking of selling my Sonos and move to another platform.  Is there an update or a fix soon? End of financial years sales are on and I might just buy anything else but Sonos. 


Reply