Simply want it to play next track

I have a friend who approaches an album as a complete work of art that should not be modified. There is no concept of "track", only full albums.

I think that the early music players were attempting to emulate records and CD's which contained a single spiral of music and were intrinsically "Play from here". I never appreciated this with tapes, records and CD's and this was a major reason that I rejected all of the early digital players. I spent a few minutes with an iPod and was shocked at illogical it was -- after hearing all of the gushing "easy" comments from the media. I am not technically shy, but I sat out the digital music revolution until SONOS. The Queue was a major attraction for me. I'm also a RPN calculator fan. If you want to see someone struggle with technology catch me attempting to use a four function calculator.

A problem for me with the "Play from here" is what happens next? After the album finishes should the music stop or continue with the next album in the library index? From the same artist? Genre? Year? Record label? Why would one want to skip the first 'n' tracks from an album and never the last 'n' tracks?

For me this is all very straight forward with the Queue.

Have you tried the multi-select and drag feature on the Windows Desktop controller? This is a really fast way to build Queues that can then be saved as playlists.

So you expect the user to add each track they want to hear one at at time from a feed? Totally manual solution. Select a track let Sonos do the work. If you use Soundcloud directly it works this way.

I know it does, it's bloody irritating, that's why I try to avoid using it directly. I pretty much only use it via Sonos for that reason. Besides, pretty much every level on soundcloud on Sonos has an "All tracks" option, add them all to the queue and then start playing from the point you want, it's that big a deal.

MikeV - why does there have to be a fundamental choice (queue vs. play from here)? As consumers/fans we should Have the option to use either method.

Really? Why? What other music playing software or hardware gives you that choice? I can't think of any and I've used quite a few.

Logitech's Squeezebox system, which I'm still using in 3 rooms, gives you that choice. By default, selecting a track starts play from here, but a long press enables add to queue.

I've had a pair of Play 1's in the kitchen for a year now and every day I wish the playback system worked like my Squeezeboxes. I'm not a programmer but can it really be that hard to enable a "queue from here" option?

Just purchased a play:5 and play:1 - absolutely love the speakers... Until I realised how the queue system works. Working with UX /UI design myself I'm probably more picky than most people. But I'm seriously considering returning my Sonos system due to this missing feature. I've already created my playlists in Spotify, why in the world should I manually build a queue every single time I want to play music?? If the song I'm selecting is on a album or playlist and I haven't manually started building a queue / why not just assume the remaining songs are the 'queue' I want?! For a system that's otherwise built so well around convenience and good sound, this is extremely clunky in my opinion! There has got to be a way of solving this so everyone is happy! For now I'll try to live with this and wait for Sonos to come up with a solution, but otherwise I'll guess I have to resort to another system that plays directly from Spotify..

Okay, so I've now seen that some are writing that you can build Sonos playlist from your queues - in which, funny enough, the logic works as you'd expect it to (selecting a song in that playlist automatically plays the next when finished etc). That's fine and all, but I'm listening to Spotify all day when not near my Sonos system, daily editing and creating playlists in Spotify. Then I manually have to add these tracks to my Sonos playlists as well? Not optimal, in my opinion..

You know you can add entire playlists or albums at once, right?

jgatie, sure and that's at least a step of the way, I just feel that's it's unnecessary. I don't see why the user experience should be different from Sonos playlists to Spotify playlists. I just want it to play the next track automatically like you'd expect from any other piece of audio player.

jgatie, sure and that's at least a step of the way, I just feel that's it's unnecessary. I don't see why the user experience should be different from Sonos playlists to Spotify playlists.

It isn't different, a track played from a Sonos playlist doesn't automatically play the next track unless the entire Sonos playlist is added to the queue. The behaviour is exactly the same regardless of where the tracks in the playlist originate.

I just want it to play the next track automatically like you'd expect from any other piece of audio player.

You mean like iTunes does, there are plenty of audio players that don't assume they know what the user wants to do next. Sonos plays from the queue and only from the queue, if you don't like that send it back and buy something else, it isn't going to change.

As Ryan pointed out a central player-based queue is fundamental to Sonos' multi-room, multi-controller architecture.

A "Play From Here" (or more accurately "Enqueue From This Track To The End Of The Album/Playlist") approach could work. However as already pointed out this could make the list of options messily long.

Play Now
Play Next
Add to Queue
Replace Queue

could become

Play This Selection Now
Play From This Selection to the End Now
Play This Selection Next
Play From This Selection to the End Next
Add This Selection to Queue
Add From This Selection to the End to Queue
Replace Queue with This Selection
Replace Queue with From This Selection to the End

Not to mention the tortured grammar.

I guess a way around this would be an option setting somewhere which toggles the meaning of the current commands between "This Selection" and "From This Selection to the End".

In the meantime, Sonos is the way it is. And speaking personally I find the queue entirely intuitive and convenient.

Yes, the logic is flawless, if you tell it to play one track, it plays one track, if you want it to play a playlist, you tell it to play the playlist. It's not rocket surgery.