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Keith N
Keith N
Sonos Staff
May 11, 2024

The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

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: 

 

    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.

    2256 replies

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    Ken_Griffiths
    Ken_Griffiths
    July 23, 2024

    Looking at just ‘Today’ only, the Sonos App activity with the same iPad shows 11% of battery for 1 hour 8 minutes on screen and 10 minutes in the background. (A total of 10 hours 19 minutes total screen time for the iDevice).

    edit: In my own use-case it seems to use approx. the same amount of battery as my iOS Mail App (give or take one percent or so).. that’s a very rough comparison, looking at the battery use in the iPad device settings.

      press250
      press250
      Prodigy III
      July 23, 2024

      Looking at just ‘Today’ only, the Sonos App activity with the same iPad shows 11% of battery for 1 hour 8 minutes on screen and 10 minutes in the background. (A total of 10 hours 19 minutes total screen time for the iDevice).

      Interesting @Ken_Griffiths. iPads have dramatically larger batteries than iPhones, so it’s hard to know if your 11% figure is business as usual. All of the 30-50% battery use (in a 24 hour period) reports are on iPhones, where high power drain is much more obvious. Experiments underway: disabling Background App Refresh to see if that mitigates the problem.

      Ken_Griffiths
      Ken_Griffiths
      July 23, 2024

      Looking at just ‘Today’ only, the Sonos App activity with the same iPad shows 11% of battery for 1 hour 8 minutes on screen and 10 minutes in the background. (A total of 10 hours 19 minutes total screen time for the iDevice).

      Interesting @Ken_Griffiths. iPads have dramatically larger batteries than iPhones, so it’s hard to know if your 11% figure is business as usual. All of the 30-50% battery use (in a 24 hour period) reports are on iPhones, where high power drain is much more obvious. Experiments underway: disabling Background App Refresh to see if that mitigates the problem.

      I just added a bit of info. to my post above - in my case it’s about on par with the iOS Mail App on my iPad device - I don’t use the controller that much on my iPhone, but I’ll start using it more and see what I see too. 👍

      Ken_Griffiths
      Ken_Griffiths
      July 23, 2024

      I think a good comparison might be to compare it to say the iOS web browser (Safari by default) to maybe gauge what amount of battery that uses for the same amount of time on screen and in the background and just see if the Sonos App is going way over what that browser perhaps uses.

      press250
      press250
      Prodigy III
      July 23, 2024

      I don’t think folks are actively (app in the foreground) using the Sonos app the way they actively use Safari. At least I hope not. 😅 So it would be hard to glean much from that comp.

      The issue reported with battery drain is with the Sonos app in the background, in other words, when the app is not being used. Let’s wait and see what happens when those users disable Background App Refresh for the Sonos app. I’m guessing that will mitigate the high battery drain, at which point I’ll report the issue to Sonos.

      Ken_Griffiths
      Ken_Griffiths
      July 23, 2024

      I don’t think folks are actively (app in the foreground) using the Sonos app the way they actively use Safari. At least I hope not. 😅 So it would be hard to glean much from that comp.

      The issue reported with battery drain is with the Sonos app in the background, in other words, when the app is not being used. Let’s wait and see what happens when those users disable Background App Refresh for the Sonos app. I’m guessing that will mitigate the high battery drain, at which point I’ll report the issue to Sonos.

      I was thinking more along the lines of opening up Safari and the Sonos App, backgrounding them both and leave the phone sit for a day and see what both perhaps show as their daily use… just a 24 hour test to see if that reveals any huge difference.

      MmTt
      Lyricist III
      July 24, 2024

      I don’t think folks are actively (app in the foreground) using the Sonos app the way they actively use Safari. At least I hope not. 😅 So it would be hard to glean much from that comp.

      The issue reported with battery drain is with the Sonos app in the background, in other words, when the app is not being used. Let’s wait and see what happens when those users disable Background App Refresh for the Sonos app. I’m guessing that will mitigate the high battery drain, at which point I’ll report the issue to Sonos.

      I’ve had the setting for background app refresh set to Off all day but the info on my battery still says it’s used up a significant amount, and shows 13h 27min of background activity… So something’s wrong :/ 

       

      (iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 17.5.1, Sonos App 80.05.04)

      press250
      press250
      Prodigy III
      July 24, 2024

      I’ve had the setting for background app refresh set to Off all day but the info on my battery still says it’s used up a significant amount, and shows 13h 27min of background activity… So something’s wrong :/ 

       

      (iPhone 15 Pro, iOS 17.5.1, Sonos App 80.05.04)

      Hi @MmTt, earlier today we confirmed that disabling background app refresh on iOS does not stop the Sonos app from sucking down power. Disappointingly, the only solution is to fully exit the app.

       

      As an aside, Android users report the same aberrant behavior … though the Android OS includes a cool optional feature called Battery Optimizer that notices the offending program and alerts the user proactively. 

        sounds2k
        Renowned Listener
        July 24, 2024

        So local library search is back (hurrah!). Still no A-Z list though, which combined with the firmware bug introduced last week is extremely annoying, especially if like me, you have over 100 compilation albums.

        Sonos testing appears to have no focus whatsoever on local music streaming. I get that it’s relatively niche, but it’s my main use case. As such, I won’t be buying any Sonos kit ever again. When my speakers eventually need replacing, it will likely be with simple Airplay speakers

        same here, restoring local library a search is a step in the right direction - but the A-Z list is what’s really consicuous by its’ absence. I also have my music library on a NAS which contains thousands of tracks, A-Z search is very much needed !

         

        Woodlandone
        Lyricist III
        July 25, 2024

        Well, it's the end of July and I spent over an hour with a tech after calling to figure out where all my playlists went. I just figured it was a bug that I'd wait to see if it resolved.  Turns out you know you did it and there is no fix. 

        Now I'm reading several very key things got destroyed on an app that was supposed to give us easy access to calming audio (regardless of genre, listening is for learning and or enjoyment is calming).

        Then I'm told the app bug fixes were supposedly coming in August.  GO BACK TO WHAT WORKED.  IT'S LIKE A PRESCHOOL TOOL NOW.  YOU'LL LOSE THOUSANDS OF POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS IF YOU DON'T FIX THESE THINGS.  THEN A CLASS ACTION SUIT FOR ALL OF US WHO'VE LOST THOUSANDS $$$ PER CUSTOMER BY YOUR REMOVING FUNCTIONALITY FROM A PRIOR FUNCTIONING ROLLOUT. 

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