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bamber2000
Trending Lyricist I
June 24, 2020

Is Sonos S2 a lemon?

  • June 24, 2020
  • 23 replies
  • 1369 views

I’ve had Sonos for many years.  My system grew to 8 zones and although there would sometimes be problems there was never something that couldn’t be fixed by rebooting everything from my router through switches to wired and wireless Sonos devices.  Hey ho, this is the price we pay for humanity’s early steps to networking Nirvana (which probably won’t be reached in my lifetime!)

Then came news of Sonos S2.  After getting past Sonos’ poor initial communications, and finding that most of my devices were S2 compatible I upgraded the remaining ones and apart from being annoyed that the new Sonos Port is functionally a backwards step (no volume control buttons, no pause/play button, no optical digital output) I was ready to say ‘Hello’ to S2.

I hesitated.

I had a splendid multi-room sound setup feeding both simple speakers and two traditional hifi stereo systems.  I didn’t want a load of hassle.  Life’s too short to spend hours rebooting, deleting and adding components or hanging on the phone to Support.

So I came to this forum.  Oh boy, am I glad I did?!  There appears to be a constant stream of trouble with S2.  But is this representative?  There may be millions of happy S2 users out there, or millions of people pulling their hair out.  Of course it’s mainly those with problems who come here so the bias toward troublesome upgrades may not be representative.

How do I find out?  It appears that reversing from S2 back to S1 isn’t a supported process so I’m very reluctant to ‘give it a go’.

What is the truth?  Is Sonos S2 a lemon?

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23 replies

bamber2000
Trending Lyricist I
June 25, 2020

Thanks Bumper.  I’ve removed all devices that aren’t compatible with S2.  I take the point about bug fixes and updates but I thought I’d read that S1 would get bug fixes too.  As for updates, yes, eventually I’ll see enough advantages to move to S2.

I have Sonopad on two old iPads (old enough to have 30-pin connectors, not Lightning connectors) but sometimes it’s terribly slow.  Those   iPad’s other apps aren’t anything like as slow so I’m inclined to blame Sonopad.  I dare say you’re right about Sonos never supporting older devices.  I think they’re missing a trick.  It would be a selling point to say that there were apps that could make use of older control hardware.

bamber2000
Prodigy III
June 25, 2020

@bamber2000  you are correct Sonos have stated that they will continue to provide big fixes

“I don’t want to update to S2. Can I keep using my Sonos system with the S1 app?

You can continue listening with your Sonos system as you do today. Your system will receive bug fixes and security patches, but it will not receive any of the new software features found in S2.”

From the S2 overview page.

Me personally am stuck on S1 for the time being due to my connects but I wouldn't make the move to S2 even if I could until there was a feature that i really wanted or some time had passed and at least the .1/ .2 version had been released.

 

Lyricist I
July 2, 2020

Bamber2000 - was in the same decision boat as you - in fact I have the v1 Connect - waiting on the Port till I see the next step with high res - both Streaming with Tidal and Amazon HD and with real higher resolution of local FLAC files - however in the meantime I have split system with no issues running both S1 (Connect and Connect:Amp) and S2 (several Play:3s and a Beam) - only had to reset the S1 devices after upgrade to S2 and then have them join new S1 setup all good performance and reliability - just anxious for the high res improvements!!

Contributor I
July 4, 2020

I just posted a thread because I have been having nothing but major problems since upgrading to S2 a couple of weeks ago.

In my view it is a big-time lemon.

Trending Lyricist I
July 10, 2020

I'm staying S1 for now, will wait until there is a significant gain on S2 before considering a swap over.

Hi-Res isn't of any interest to me, I have a Playbar (the ARC is too wide to fit our TV stand anyway) and it's all working perfectly fine on S1!.

Keith, please tell me how you are able to stay with s1. when I open my s1 app, it gives me an update screen to S2, and no option to avoid it. So I can't even get to the functions in my s1 app anymore. Help!

controlav
Lead Maestro
July 10, 2020

I am sticking with S1, mostly, for now. I did reset a One and set it up as a fresh S2 system, for testing purposes, so I have a simple split system, and I’m glad I did go the whole way.

The S2 app on iPhone has real trouble finding my lone S2 device for some reason, despite it being wired, so I’m glad I am mostly-S1 for the moment. Other 3rd party Sonos apps on the same device have no problem finding it, so its clearly an app problem.

I love my Play5:Gen 1s and an Arc is not in my immediate future, so I have no reason to upgrade any more devices to S2 at this time.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
Trending Lyricist I
July 10, 2020

How can you stick with s1? I have NOT upgraded to S2 but the upgrade screen prevents me from accessing S1

controlav
Lead Maestro
July 11, 2020

How can you stick with s1? I have NOT upgraded to S2 but the upgrade screen prevents me from accessing S1


I just used the PC app, which seems to be easier to use for this than the mobile apps.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
Collaborator I
July 11, 2020

I had the same problem as DrVJMJ that the upgrade screen prevented me from using the S1 app, I could only control the Room that the app was controlling before the upgrade screen.  Decided to do the upgrade. Lost 5 of my 6 SONOS devices - all of which are listed as S2 compatible. Still trying to get them to add back in - Search for Missing Device, and Add Product both fail to find them. 

Trending Lyricist I
July 11, 2020

Hornet 305, there is another threaded conversation in this forum about how to get past the upgrade screen to keep S1 running. No answers yet but we hope it will attract some Sonos attention and a fix. But it may be too late for you since apparently you did the update. So sorry! BAD press for a company hitherto perceived as TOP quality.