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MarkK
Trending Lyricist I
November 9, 2017
Question

iOS app, HUGE bug trying to change rooms. The whole new way it does groups is a mess

  • November 9, 2017
  • 10 replies
  • 673 views
I've been a big Sonos fan for many years. Boy am I frustrated with latest iOS app!! The biggest thing that irks me is if my app is focused on one room and I want to change my focus to another room, I can't do it without first joining the two rooms into a group! It happens every time, without fail. For example, my wife will have started playing something (via her iphone) in the kitchen, and asks me to change it to another station. I bring up my iPhone, and notice that my app is currently set for Living Room speakers. So I click on Living Room at the bottom, and I see all my zones and only Living Room is checked. Since I want Kitchen, I uncheck Living Room OFF and check Kitchen ON. Then I click Done. Does it switch me to Kitchen? NOOOO. It keeps my iPhone on Living Room. I do it over and over, to no avail. It leaves me wherever I was before. The ONLY way to get my iPhone to switch to Kitchen is to select BOTH Living Room and Kitchen, let the music play in both rooms (which I don't want but I gotta do), then I can select zones again and unselect Living Room. That "usually" works, but not always.

The grouping of rooms was SO easy before. And I still use the PC desktop app which is SO easy to group rooms and is not buggy like the iOS app. Eesh, I hate when app updates delete a great feature and just give you a poorly designed buggy feature in its place.

Look, I'm a software developer, it ain't always easy. But a modicum of quality assurance testing would be appreciated, given all of our huge investments in Sonos equipment.
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    10 replies

    John B
    November 9, 2017
    Stop using the quick group utility, and start using the proper Rooms screen. You want to control a particular room? Tap the Rooms button. Double tap the room. You got it.
    John B
    November 9, 2017
    If you cannot see the tab bar on which the Rooms button sits, swipe down the screen.

    Grouping is just as it was before.
    MarkKAuthor
    Trending Lyricist I
    November 9, 2017
    Thanks John B! That does work. I didn't see the Rooms button. It's not on the display by default, only when I click the little down arrow in the upper left corner. It's an extra step but it works great, so thanks a million. I would still like to suggest the quick group utility be fixed... or am I just using it wrong? What should it do if I use it, uncheck my active zone and check another zone? I assume it should go to that other zone, yes?
    John B
    November 9, 2017
    So not bug but user error. Understandable though. The quick group thing is a menace and I would scrap it
    John B
    November 9, 2017
    And you are right that the bar should be visible always. Hopeful that that is coming

    Here is another trick if you are moving from one room to another. Tap the pause button on speaker in current room. Walk to new room. Long press on button in new room. Hey presto!
    Kumar
    November 9, 2017
    Along with just the long press in the new room to have play both together as a group. Both very useful additional features from Sonos.
      MarkKAuthor
      Trending Lyricist I
      November 9, 2017
      Thanks John, Kumar.
      Paulw123
      Paulw123
      Virtuoso
      November 9, 2017
      Try sonophone, just for experimentation sake.
      It has drag & drop room control, child's play compared to v8.1
      https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sonophone/id815251931?mt=8
      John B
      November 9, 2017
      Pleased to have helped. The 'quick group' thing has, I suspect, caused more frustration and confusion than all the other app changes put together. I am still not completely sure whether it is meant to have very limited functionality, doesn't work properly, or I haven't got the hang of it.

      But since I stopped using it completely, controlling rooms has become pretty straightforward.
        John B
        November 10, 2017
        I'd like to modify my advice. It seems it is even easier than I thought to put the music you want on in the room you want.

        Let's say you are in the Kitchen and want to listen to The Killers. So...

        1. Tap Rooms on the tab bar at the bottom of the screen (if you are on the Now Playing screen you'll have to swipe down to show the tab bar)
        2. If Kitchen is already the highlighted room, leave it be. If not, tap Kitchen once to highlight it
        3. Tap Search on the tab bar and search for the Killers in the same way you always have.
        4. When you find what you want, tap to play it.

        Of course you don't have to use Search. Use Browse to bring up all your sources, or My Sonos for your Sonos Playlists and Favourites.

        Simples!
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