Sonos Staff

The New Sonos App and Future Feature Updates

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 11, 2024
2256 replies
156698 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

I

Ian_S

Prodigy III

I think you have to read between the lines of what Spence said sadly.

For people like @BVRBVR who are still running the old S2 app, by definition they are also not on the latest firmware. We know that 16.3 firmware and later causes the old S2 app to stop working and tell you that you now have to update it, breaks some existing SSDP discovery and breaks local library indexing.

Now, if you are lazy (again) and *just* re-release the S2 app alongside the new speaker firmware just disabling the upgrade nag, it may well no longer be stable, but mainly because the speaker firmware has taken a bit of a nose dive too.

However, clearly if you release the old S2 app *with* a tool to take your speakers back to the last level of firmware before the new app, it would function just as well as it did before. I doubt *anyone* would care too much if the newer cloud stuff didn’t work as the old app didn’t use much of it.

But Spence clearly only mentioned the app… which is evasive and dishonest IMO as re-releasing just that would be as stupid as their new app launch.

B

BVRBVR

Contributor I

I think you have to read between the lines of what Spence said sadly.

For people like @BVRBVR who are still running the old S2 app, by definition they are also not on the latest firmware. We know that 16.3 firmware and later causes the old S2 app to stop working and tell you that you now have to update it, breaks some existing SSDP discovery and breaks local library indexing.

Now, if you are lazy (again) and *just* re-release the S2 app alongside the new speaker firmware just disabling the upgrade nag, it may well no longer be stable, but mainly because the speaker firmware has taken a bit of a nose dive too.

However, clearly if you release the old S2 app *with* a tool to take your speakers back to the last level of firmware before the new app, it would function just as well as it did before. I doubt *anyone* would care too much if the newer cloud stuff didn’t work as the old app didn’t use much of it.

But Spence clearly only mentioned the app… which is evasive and dishonest IMO as re-releasing just that would be as stupid as their new app launch.

Makes sense they would need to match the firmware with the app version. From everything I read it sounds like the combination of new firmware and new app isn’t very robust either.
Seems to me that the old firmware could be made available as well. Separate S2 v16 from S2 v80 and make S2 v80 become S3; otherwise, it seems Sonos will stumble from week to week with continued problems for some time, forcing their users through the pain of being unwilling Quality Assurance workers. The unhappiness will continue for both the company and the customers.

There are so many ongoing complaints. I wonder how many nontechnical customers haven’t said anything online and just gave up. How many third party integrators are running away?

It’s a shame, I really like my Sonos system, but I now can’t recommend it.

H

havetoregisteryetagain

Contributor I

abysmal app/eco system.
completely destroyed my listening experience.

downgrading to S1 gives functioning products as it can index my local library but had to lower my NAS file share to SMB1

Proved the issue with S2 local libraries is isolated to the “enhanced user experience” as it still cannot fully index my library under S2.

Latest S2 feature, it will randomly skip to the next song after 30 to 60 seconds, simply appalling since May 2024

D

DaveS00

Lyricist III

abysmal app/eco system.
completely destroyed my listening experience.

downgrading to S1 gives functioning products as it can index my local library but had to lower my NAS file share to SMB1

Proved the issue with S2 local libraries is isolated to the “enhanced user experience” as it still cannot fully index my library under S2.

Latest S2 feature, it will randomly skip to the next song after 30 to 60 seconds, simply appalling since May 2024

SMB1 support is one of the explicitly called out changes - Sonos S1 only supports SMB1 (and only ever can).SMB1 has been retired by most vendors/operating systems due to multiple security vulnerabilites.

S

Steve1958

Contributor I

abysmal app/eco system.
completely destroyed my listening experience.

downgrading to S1 gives functioning products as it can index my local library but had to lower my NAS file share to SMB1

Proved the issue with S2 local libraries is isolated to the “enhanced user experience” as it still cannot fully index my library under S2.

Latest S2 feature, it will randomly skip to the next song after 30 to 60 seconds, simply appalling since May 2024

SMB1 support is one of the explicitly called out changes - Sonos S1 only supports SMB1 (and only ever can).SMB1 has been retired by most vendors/operating systems due to multiple security vulnerabilites.

I had previously accessed my music library which was stored on an external hard drive plugged into my router. That stopped working when smbv1 was no longer supported. I'm not technically minded to fiddle around with NAS drives but another user saved me with a suggestion to store your music on ibroadcast. It was easy to upload my music collection and add ibroadcast as a service on Sonos. So far it's working like a dream. It's also free and no adverts!

https://www.ibroadcast.com/home/

R

Robjim23

Lyricist I

Creeping on 4 months since the software update and we STILL can’t edit the queue. One of the most basic functions to streaming music in 2024 smh how is that not a priority to correct??

almazri

Prodigy I

Creeping on 4 months since the software update and we STILL can’t edit the queue. One of the most basic functions to streaming music in 2024 smh how is that not a priority to correct??

The company has their priorities all f’d up. Brace yourself, queue editing might not be until October, assuming they keep to their new timeline which doesn’t look good as they missed this week’s app update.

A

Alan_6

Prodigy II

Creeping on 4 months since the software update and we STILL can’t edit the queue. One of the most basic functions to streaming music in 2024 smh how is that not a priority to correct??

The company has their priorities all f’d up. Brace yourself, queue editing might not be until October, assuming they keep to their new timeline which doesn’t look good as they missed this week’s app update.

I was assuming for a second that queue editing was there and I just couldn’t figure out the UI, but no, queue editing is missing from the official mobile app but present in the (vastly superior) desktop app. So your Sonos system can still manage the queue. Again, it’s “priorities”. Your crazy priorities (playing the music you own or subscribe to) might not be Sonos’s priorities (headphones, alarms, burning customer goodwill).

One good thing that has come out of this whole sorry months-long episode is that Sonos have learned how to better release software, and have clearly moved from an old “waterfall” style “we have a single code branch and we will ship that code on day X and it had better work” to a more modern “continuous delivery” style of “ship small changes frequently” approach. Given all the broken/missing core features that should fall under either “bug fixes” or “finishing the UI one button at a time”, it is interesting that there haven’t been any updates for a while.

Ken_Griffiths

Creeping on 4 months since the software update and we STILL can’t edit the queue. One of the most basic functions to streaming music in 2024 smh how is that not a priority to correct??

The ‘queue management’ features likely got pushed down the list because of user requests that got quite a few of these things listed below introduced first (in general order of their roll-out). The below is summarised and so not an exhaustive list…

Accessibility/Voice Over features
Alarms
Network permissions fix
Support for Roam 2
Music Library improvements & Search
Improved Add product & connectivity for Sonos Boost
Added support for Sonos Ace
Sleep timer
Additional playback options - play next etc.
Device setup reliability
Improved battery consumption
Mute button
Numerical values for volume controls
Line out settings (Sonos Port)
Stereo/Mono (Amp)
SonosNet channel selection
Service reauthorisation (Android)
Fixed Android crash on startup
Option to forget a Sonos Household
Timezone settings
Line-in Autoplay (Android)
Multi-product setup for installers
Music library configuration & search
Account settings - Sonos Pro
Line-in Autoplay & compression settings
Sub Audio improvements with Amp
Improved volume control responsiveness
TV Audio Swap Beam (Gen 1), Beam (Gen 2), and Ray (Android & iOS)
S2 to S1 downgrade tool
Group volume improvements
Improvements to speech enhancement and night mode
Playback improvements (Android)
Ability to clear a room queue

slworona

Enthusiast II

One good thing that has come out of this whole sorry months-long episode is that Sonos have learned how to better release software, and have clearly moved from an old “waterfall” style “we have a single code branch and we will ship that code on day X and it had better work” to a more modern “continuous delivery” style of “ship small changes frequently” approach. Given all the broken/missing core features that should fall under either “bug fixes” or “finishing the UI one button at a time”, it is interesting that there haven’t been any updates for a while.

Other companies call this process “beta testing”, using a representative voluntary selection of customers. If SONOS has learned anything from this “sorry months-long episode” (well-said!), we won’t know until the next time they roll out a major system change.

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