Sonos Staff

The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 11, 2024
2256 replies
156776 views

Hey all, today we're sharing a message from our chief innovation officer, Nick Millington in the announcement here. Going forwards we will update that topic and we therefore close this one for further replies.

We set out to create a more personalized and effortless listening experience with the updated Sonos app. It was rebuilt from the ground up to ensure it could support future innovation in the years to come. For its initial rollout, we focused on how we could answer some of the most common requests from our customers, including increased reliability, performance, and faster access to music.

Many of you have shared valuable feedback on both the improvements that have made your experience better, as well as the areas where we fell short. We are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible. Over the coming weeks, we will reintroduce the below features, while fixing bugs and performance issues. Thank you for your engagement and we look forward to building upon this first step to create a listening experience that meets everyone’s needs.

Available now

To access these changes, check for updates in the iOS / Android app store to download the latest version of the Sonos app. Make sure your Sonos products are also up to date.

Last updated: Oct 28, 2024. See release notes.

The update has the following version numbers:

80.11.38 - iOS
80.11.32 - Android

In this update:

Support for the all-new Arc Ultra soundbar and Sub 4
Music library improvements*
Improvements to product setup
Improved performance when browsing content in Home and in Browse on Android
Improvements to multi-system support on iOS
Fixes for multiple settings including Bluetooth display, EQ, and Sub bonding on iOS
The ability to schedule System Updates on iOS
Continued Voiceover improvements on iOS

* Requires player update - 81.1-58074 (or higher)

You can also follow along with updates in this article:

New Sonos App Update!

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

A

Audiophone

Renowned Enthusiast I

Sonos had to overhaul the app when bringing out the headphones. Connectivity with them works suboptimal, check the reviews.

Now they may get new customers due to the headphones but loose some due to the bad app update.

I will keep my sonos stuff for the moment as it runs good with the old S2 app on Android. But I will certainly NOT buy any new Sonos product or promote them.

As a 30+ years developer I ask Sonos: why didn't you bring out a separate headphones app bridging with S2 app. You could have merged them later.

Keep it simple

J

joshp68

Lyricist I

Is there a time frame to expect a bug fix to address the known Roam SL compatibility issue? My recently purchased Roam is nothing more than an expensive paperweight. If the bug fix does not happen soon I will have no choice but to return it.

John Guarr

Enthusiast II

The 80.02.04 is still useless ! The system doesn’t work. It connects and disconnects without any reason. Music plays and stops playing without any reason.

Will there be a solution to this nightmare or shall I forget about all the money spent in my Sonos system which doesn’t work as simple speaker anymore ?

It sounds like at least some of your issues are not related to the app. Music is not routed through the phone or the app on the phone, so if it is stopping unexpectedly this would not be the app. It could be network issues causing this.

Yes, I was thinking network issues also. I had one speaker a couples of years ago in the far reaches (in the Kitchen) from my router that would stop and skip occasionally, especially on rainy days. My router is upstairs and I have a direct cat5e going downstairs to a gigabyte switch under my TV. I plugged one port into my Sonos Connect which is near the switch and created the SonosNet topology, which is a mesh network. Along with having a BSEE, I am also a Cisco Engineer. So I know a little about networking. The mesh topology allows all the speakers to communicate with each other and basically extends your Wi-Fi coverage. So one of my speakers downstairs (Beam, Connect, Play 3, etc.) is providing Wi-Fi coverage to the Kitchen speaker instead of relying on a direct shot to my router and I never had a dropout again on that speaker. And that Kitchen speaker also has Alexa enabled and there were many times she wouldn’t talk or respond to me. So I don’t know if you can run an Ethernet cable to one of your speakers, but that might help you.

John Guarr

Enthusiast II

TOTAL INCOMPETENCE- i have never seen any company company provide and update that eliminates key features - like allowing users to listen their music library.

i am surprised that the media and investment community has not yet picked up on this. 🤔

Of course, it has been stated dozens and dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times that Sonos has not remove the ability to play local libraries. I’ll repeat that, as for some reason the message gets lost. Sonos has NOT removed the ability to play local libraries.

i have been enjoying my own local library from day one of the new apps release, and so has every other Sonosuser I know.

There has been posts about any specific issues that may have caused your own library not to be available, and I suggest looking them over or calling Sonos for support. But whatever that reason is, it it’s not because that functionality has been removed.

One of the things that would be really helpful would be for the release notes for the updates to have a list of known issues.

Local library access is a good example of the requirement for this because as far as I can tell there are two types of issue:

The drop of SMB-V1 support. This should be easy to identify and has a known resolution (even if users are unhappy about it).
Other undefined issues. I’m sure that as Sonos investigate this they will find patterns that may include the NAS/File Sharing Service, the speakers in use, etc. These may be harder to diagnose and/or fix but by collating and publishing the information Sonos can at least demonstrate that they understand what is happening. This will also help manage customer expectations. But Sonos need to take into account that for the users in this group the file sharing worked with the old app so the inference is that Sonos broke it.

Sonos might not be able to fix everything in a day but they can communicate better and in my opinion the biggest problem with the release of this App is the ack of communication.

Sonos used to be a lot better than this. Yes, you listed the two biggest issues above. Users should have been informed about the dropping of the SMB1 support with the new app. That is what really caused most of the problems. I’m sure we will all get over this in the near future (I hope). I remember years ago, my music stopped working and I contacted Sonos Tech Support and they knew right away what the problem was. In my setup, I point my Sonos music library to my iTunes library, since all the music that I purchase is usually through iTunes. But when the music stopped a while back Sonos knew right away that Apple had changed something in the iTunes directory which caused the music not working. We talked for a while since we were both technical and I realized that in order to work for Sonos Tech Support, you had to know all the intricacies of all the various music services to keep these expensive speakers running. So I was always impressed with Sonos. So hopefully they will survive this mishap and we will all be up and running soon. Can’t wait.

Not entirely true. My shared music library is hanging off of a Windows 2019 server. SMBv1 is disabled by default, and SMBv2/3 has been in use for years. I haven’t had any visibility or sharing issues until this latest update when my shared library, and practically all other functionality disappeared. It’s an app issue. My PC controller app didn’t change. Only in the process of troubleshooting did I upgrade it from 16.1 to 16.2 with no luck. Again, primarily an app issue. Right now it’s a waiting game until Sonos can get their ducks back in a row. A looonnnggg waiting game.

I, too, have gotten the “you must be using SMB1” response. Same as you, of course I’m not, I’ve been using the S2 app for as long as it’s been around. It is the update that is breaking everything! Thank goodness I spend $3.99 of Sonospad so I can use my stuff - it’s really good for basic playing - better than the Sonos app.

While reading through these posts I’ve glared over users talking about Sonopad and Sonophone, but now I’m going to go back and pay more attention. Might be something I might consider, which would be a shame since Sonos is working so hard on this new app.

H

Henke77

Avid Listener

My wife came and talked to me about the new App.. ”I tried changing the music in the gym, the app is not working!!” I must agree with her, this is the worst experience I have had since we started with Sonos products some 15 years ago. The app is just awful, it takes forever to start/stop music, changing songs etc… how could this have happend?

I

iantergalactic

Lyricist II

Sonos “are listening to all of your comments and working to address them as quickly as possible”.

Presumably they have to listen to the comments strictly in the order they were added.

R

robokitty

Enthusiast II

I tried to sell my Sonos system because I expected QA and software to get worse, and boy was I correct. Unfortunately, many others have been experiencing similar issues and the market is flooded with second hand Sonos products that people are trying to get rid of. And I don’t blame them.

Putting aside my own thoughts, feelings and experiences of the new app, I have seen a lot of posts like this that state (or imply) that Sonos kit is now worthless, because of the new app. This post states that @av18 tried to sell his system, suggesting that he was unsuccessful in doing so.

In the first instance there is no suggestion that the hardware is faulty and of course the app doesn’t render the hardware faulty, so that alone would suggest that the value is not significantly impacted by the new app. But nobody has to take my word for this — just a quick look at EBay’s completed listings show that second hand Sonos kit sells extremely well and for prices that are broadly in line prices obtained before May’s software release.

If you want to sell up and move on, you are completely at liberty to do so, and you of course should be happy with where you spend your money. But why you are trying to convince the forum here that your (and by extension our) kit is no worthless is beyond me. This is blatantly not the truth of the matter.

because without the ability to use the hardware it doesn’t matter how good it is. You need the controller app to use it. One can speculate endlessly about why some price on ebay is what it is, but there are a lot of use who have a lot of sonos components and can’t listen to them anymore.

A

Anonymous

I tried to sell my Sonos system because I expected QA and software to get worse, and boy was I correct. Unfortunately, many others have been experiencing similar issues and the market is flooded with second hand Sonos products that people are trying to get rid of. And I don’t blame them.

Putting aside my own thoughts, feelings and experiences of the new app, I have seen a lot of posts like this that state (or imply) that Sonos kit is now worthless, because of the new app. This post states that @av18 tried to sell his system, suggesting that he was unsuccessful in doing so.

In the first instance there is no suggestion that the hardware is faulty and of course the app doesn’t render the hardware faulty, so that alone would suggest that the value is not significantly impacted by the new app. But nobody has to take my word for this — just a quick look at EBay’s completed listings show that second hand Sonos kit sells extremely well and for prices that are broadly in line prices obtained before May’s software release.

If you want to sell up and move on, you are completely at liberty to do so, and you of course should be happy with where you spend your money. But why you are trying to convince the forum here that your (and by extension our) kit is no worthless is beyond me. This is blatantly not the truth of the matter.

because without the ability to use the hardware it doesn’t matter how good it is. You need the controller app to use it. One can speculate endlessly about why some price on ebay is what it is, but there are a lot of use who have a lot of sonos components and can’t listen to them anymore.

You are absolutely correct, I agree with you. But that wasn’t the argument @av18 was puttting forward. I don’t deny there are many users who are having severe diffficulties with their kit and I sympathise with those users. But thst is not the same as saying Sonos kit is now worthless and impossible, or near impossible to sell. I am just suggesting that people keep their posts real and grounded in facts — that is all.

John Guarr

Enthusiast II

TOTAL INCOMPETENCE- i have never seen any company company provide and update that eliminates key features - like allowing users to listen their music library.

i am surprised that the media and investment community has not yet picked up on this. 🤔

Of course, it has been stated dozens and dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times that Sonos has not remove the ability to play local libraries. I’ll repeat that, as for some reason the message gets lost. Sonos has NOT removed the ability to play local libraries.

i have been enjoying my own local library from day one of the new apps release, and so has every other Sonosuser I know.

There has been posts about any specific issues that may have caused your own library not to be available, and I suggest looking them over or calling Sonos for support. But whatever that reason is, it it’s not because that functionality has been removed.

One of the things that would be really helpful would be for the release notes for the updates to have a list of known issues.

Local library access is a good example of the requirement for this because as far as I can tell there are two types of issue:

The drop of SMB-V1 support. This should be easy to identify and has a known resolution (even if users are unhappy about it).
Other undefined issues. I’m sure that as Sonos investigate this they will find patterns that may include the NAS/File Sharing Service, the speakers in use, etc. These may be harder to diagnose and/or fix but by collating and publishing the information Sonos can at least demonstrate that they understand what is happening. This will also help manage customer expectations. But Sonos need to take into account that for the users in this group the file sharing worked with the old app so the inference is that Sonos broke it.

Sonos might not be able to fix everything in a day but they can communicate better and in my opinion the biggest problem with the release of this App is the ack of communication.

Sonos used to be a lot better than this. Yes, you listed the two biggest issues above. Users should have been informed about the dropping of the SMB1 support with the new app. That is what really caused most of the problems. I’m sure we will all get over this in the near future (I hope). I remember years ago, my music stopped working and I contacted Sonos Tech Support and they knew right away what the problem was. In my setup, I point my Sonos music library to my iTunes library, since all the music that I purchase is usually through iTunes. But when the music stopped a while back Sonos knew right away that Apple had changed something in the iTunes directory which caused the music not working. We talked for a while since we were both technical and I realized that in order to work for Sonos Tech Support, you had to know all the intricacies of all the various music services to keep these expensive speakers running. So I was always impressed with Sonos. So hopefully they will survive this mishap and we will all be up and running soon. Can’t wait.

Not entirely true. My shared music library is hanging off of a Windows 2019 server. SMBv1 is disabled by default, and SMBv2/3 has been in use for years. I haven’t had any visibility or sharing issues until this latest update when my shared library, and practically all other functionality disappeared. It’s an app issue. My PC controller app didn’t change. Only in the process of troubleshooting did I upgrade it from 16.1 to 16.2 with no luck. Again, primarily an app issue. Right now it’s a waiting game until Sonos can get their ducks back in a row. A looonnnggg waiting game.

I, too, have gotten the “you must be using SMB1” response. Same as you, of course I’m not, I’ve been using the S2 app for as long as it’s been around. It is the update that is breaking everything! Thank goodness I spend $3.99 of Sonospad so I can use my stuff - it’s really good for basic playing - better than the Sonos app.

While reading through these posts I’ve glared over users talking about Sonopad and Sonophone, but now I’m going to go back and pay more attention. Might be something I may consider, which would be a shame since Sonos is working so hard on this new app.

R

robokitty

Enthusiast II

I got Sonospad last week. It’s really nice.

Show more replies

Sign up

Login to the community