Controller update 8.0

Pretty bad. My playbar won’t stay grouped now as long as there’s a tv audio feed connected to it. It will play music for a few second then drop out like it’s been switched to TV audio. It’s useless now as part of the system. It’s just a dumb sound bar. Very frustrating.

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback. We're sharing all of the suggestions and criticism with the team so they can look into adjusting pain points for the next build. We know there are some big frustrations here and are working on it. This is the first edition of the new app, so there's definitely room to grow, and we're working on that. There are a few things I wanted to clarify based on some of your comments:

This is less of an update and more of a major step backwards. I have SONOS products in 7 zones. Accessing and controlling individual zones has become a royal pain. Unable to select zones, having to group them with accessible zones, then remove the zones I don’t want playing... PAINFUL!
It sounds like you're using the wrong menu to manage your players. There's a red name on the screen, which is the active group. Pressing on that gives you the list of players you have that you can group to that room to play the same thing from.
To change the active room for the controller, slide the Now Playing down and press Rooms. That'll show you your list of all rooms or room groups and you can pick the one that you want to control, leaving the other rooms playing like they normally do.

Pretty bad. My playbar won’t stay grouped now as long as there’s a tv audio feed connected to it. It will play music for a few second then drop out like it’s been switched to TV audio. It’s useless now as part of the system. It’s just a dumb sound bar. Very frustrating.
There is an issue that we're looking into right now with player grouped to the PLAYBAR, playing TV audio, where they have cutouts from time to time. We're on it, so if you're running into this issue, it's being investigated. To make sure, I'd suggest you give us a call on our support line.

Fails to connect half the time and drops out. I hate the new interface. Switching from a room to another doesn’t work.
Failing to connect isn't likely related to the software itself, but something locally that the support team can help you with. I'd suggest that you give us a call on our support line. As to the room switching, you might be using the wrong menu, as suggested above.

Only the current zone shows. I'm now having to unplug a zone and plug it back in for my zones to show.

I certainly hope the software engineers are staying at the office each weekend to fix this cluster f@ck!

Hi Rick, if you tap on the arrow at the top of the Now Playing screen, do you see the other rooms listed?

If not, it sounds like some trouble we can help with. I'd suggest you give us a call on our support line to take a look like with a technician.

Its like we are being punished for owning Sonos with this new update please fix this make it simple again please

Its like we are being punished for owning Sonos with this new update please fix this make it simple again please

Stop it. Posting the same thing to multiple threads is Spam. It does nothing but annoy. Sonos knows your opinion.

I hate to jump on the “me too” bandwagon but wow, this overhaul is terrible. What’s a head scratcher for me is lots of UX 101 has been completely ignored and I’d think Sonos would be far enough along in their maturity to recognize the basics.

Biggest complaint in our house is the interface is no longer intuitive. Before, a novice could pick it up and generally navigate it. It had gotten more cumbersome over the years as features became more plentiful yet still manageable. Now, even I find myself jacking with it for much longer than necessary just to change rooms or change a source.

I appreciate that Sonos is trying to stay current but please please please don’t reinvent the wheel without consulting with professional UI/UX developers since you clearly don’t staff them internally.

please please please don’t reinvent the wheel without consulting with professional UI/UX developers since you clearly don’t staff them internally.

I hadn't considered sonos not having internal ux staff but that would explain a lot. From the obvious lack of user testing, over the bandwagonesque designs, to the apparent cluelessness of how people actually use sonos, it suddenly makes sense.

As someone said earlier, is as if the app was designed by someone with a single sonos speaker, who hardly changes what they're listening to.

The new app is hard work..... OMG why mess with a great product, please Sonos get this massive problem sorted.

I coundn't agree more - I'm finding myself turning on the TV now, rather than bother with the app

Big "icons", hard to get an overview, strange bar at the bottom....PLEASE give me back the good old app - why change something which is nearly perfect ??

My wife - she is very sweet, but not very technical - but she USED to love Sonos - now she won't use it ......and worst of all, she starts singing when there is no music 🙂