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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

    Show previous replies
    Clfy
    Enthusiast I
    May 19, 2024

    Hi Keith. Long time Sonos user .. took a while to go across because I was concerned about buying into a 'system' that would then take advantage of my investment to force me into using products I didnt want, or end up paying a subscription to use the products. ~8+ years on and my decision to 'buy in' seemed to be justified until this App drop which seems to be done purely to satisfy your marketing department & perhaps shareholders who want to launch headphones in this quarter 🤔 

    I dont want headphones (Ive already got heaps, and dont listen to them in a home setting), I just want to use Sonos for the reason I bought it the first place, to listen to my music, > 13,000 tracks that I have carefully and legally ripped to FLAC and are stored on my NAS. Sure, CDs are getting a bit dated & streaming music is getting better quality, so I'm starting to use Spotify & happily will use your old App, or Spotify to play streaming music through your speakers.

    One of my sons also likes his music and likes Vinyl, but wants the music piped to wherever he & his wife are, so I suggested he look at a Port and a couple of Sonos speakers to do that. He also streams his music so it seemed to me where you were going would satisfy his needs, and mine, plus a couple of other people I've recommended your product to (bit worried about how to handle that conversation with this new App).

    So, to sum it up, did you guys do any Human Centred Design and map the personas of your user base, or did a few of you sit in a room and come to the conclusion that streaming was the go, and anybody that wasnt there was probably not worth keeping? Or were you getting shareholder pressure to grow and needed to show them some new shiny product to keep them off your backs? Either case, you arent doing yourselves any favours!

    Perhaps in the end, my original concerns were completely justified, it just took you 8 years for them to eventuate and now I need to find some happy startup that offers 'Sonos lite' functionality and just switch now to cut my losses?

    There's a simple solution, work out the different types of customers you have and provide versions of the App to support them .. don't treat us like idiots. Take us on the journey and you will build loyalty, do stuff like you have with this new App and you will lose a lot of customers

      MatF
      Enthusiast II
      May 19, 2024

      … I’m aware that many Sonos users don’t see the value in taking on a Roon subscription but I’ve had one for years and it’s a great platform even taking into account the cost. Roon can stream natively direct to most Sonos devices as well as via Airplay. This means that I can still use my fully indexed Roon library and stream to my Sonos devices from the Roon client. 

       

      I may well go this way for now as well.  I moved to a Roon setup for my music room a while back, when I bought a Roon Ready amp (a Hegel H120), and I love it.  Picked up a cheap second hand Dell Optiplex micro PC to use as a Roon server, and it's great.  It just works.

      Suspect I may go down the path of progressively replacing my Sonos speakers elsewhere in the house with something that Roon works nicely with and be done with it.

      DeanShaw
      Enthusiast I
      May 19, 2024

      You would have thought with all the outcry that Sonos would take the banner off the top of their website suggesting people to download the new app, which begs the question, are Sonos bothering to read this?

        Flattliner
        Flattliner
        Enthusiast II
        May 19, 2024

        Quite - “The Sonos app is redesigned and better than ever. Get the latest update now.” would be hilarious if meant as joke. Should read “The Sonos app is redesigned and worse than ever. Get the latest update if you want to lose a lot of functionality and hate listening to your music.”

        SONOS: Great hardware, terrible software.
          jnelly
          jnelly
          Enthusiast I
          May 19, 2024

          Keith, I appreciate you and the team trying to stem the bleeding.  I don’t envy your position of having to clean up self-inflicted consequences from management decisions.

          That said, these timelines strike me as tripling down on the tone deaf and self-congratulatory  “courageous” marketing messages being sent out.

          You are telling me, the market leader Sonos speakers won’t be able to add a song to the listening queue for a month.  This capability was available last week, but no longer due to an unannounced impact of the “upgrade.”  

          If I tried to suggest surprising users by taking away core functionality and promising to bring it back in a month, I’d be laughed out of a job.

          The most obvious way to get back to current state parity is to provide access to the v16.1 app.  No need to rush development and testing on the v80.x.  Let those for whom the new app works continue.  Let those for whom the new app does not work migrate when core feature parity is achieved.  The last thing you want is to make the above promises and introduce new bugs.  

          Yet, for unspoken reasons, this option is never mentioned.

          I’m all for change and creating a new platform for the business.  I would like to see Sonos succeed.  However, I haven’t seen evidence of Sonos having the judgment to know how and when to course correct.

          Best of luck.

          I’m curious, for those technically fluent, what is going on, in Sonos backend with resources, that they refuse to offer reversion to the previous instance in this app.? It was the same with the update a few years ago, that changed the bass sound profile.

          ​​​​​@Leefc makes perfect sense with his suggestion. There must be something difficult on Sonos’ side in not offering this?

          Ken_Griffiths
          Ken_Griffiths
          May 19, 2024

          I’m curious, for those technically fluent, what is going on, in Sonos backend with resources, that they refuse to offer reversion to the previous instance in this app.? It was the same with the update a few years ago, that changed the bass sound profile.

          ​​​​​@Leefc makes perfect sense with his suggestion. There must be something difficult on Sonos’ side in not offering this?

          The AMA (link below) seems to suggest changes to the back-end for the new App and so the old S2 App may start to not work as those changes take place. So no point going back if it’s perhaps going to then break anyway … (that’s just my own thoughts, taken from the things mentioned)…

           

            skullc
            skullc
            Prodigy III
            May 19, 2024

            I’m curious, for those technically fluent, what is going on, in Sonos backend with resources, that they refuse to offer reversion to the previous instance in this app.? It was the same with the update a few years ago, that changed the bass sound profile.

            ​​​​​@Leefc makes perfect sense with his suggestion. There must be something difficult on Sonos’ side in not offering this?

            The AMA (link below) seems to suggest changes to the back-end for the new App and so the old S2 App may start to not work as those changes take place. So no point going back if it’s perhaps going to then break anyway … (that’s just my own thoughts, taken from the things mentioned)…

             

            That’s bad news as Sonos doesn’t support my broadband service does that mean I can claim money back from them?

            Network= livewire cpe pro 3 +eero 6 pro wireless
            Gaham
            Headliner I
            May 19, 2024

            Keith, I appreciate you and the team trying to stem the bleeding.  I don’t envy your position of having to clean up self-inflicted consequences from management decisions.

            That said, these timelines strike me as tripling down on the tone deaf and self-congratulatory  “courageous” marketing messages being sent out.

            You are telling me, the market leader Sonos speakers won’t be able to add a song to the listening queue for a month.  This capability was available last week, but no longer due to an unannounced impact of the “upgrade.”  

            If I tried to suggest surprising users by taking away core functionality and promising to bring it back in a month, I’d be laughed out of a job.

            The most obvious way to get back to current state parity is to provide access to the v16.1 app.  No need to rush development and testing on the v80.x.  Let those for whom the new app works continue.  Let those for whom the new app does not work migrate when core feature parity is achieved.  The last thing you want is to make the above promises and introduce new bugs.  

            Yet, for unspoken reasons, this option is never mentioned.

            I’m all for change and creating a new platform for the business.  I would like to see Sonos succeed.  However, I haven’t seen evidence of Sonos having the judgment to know how and when to course correct.

            Best of luck.

            I’m curious, for those technically fluent, what is going on, in Sonos backend with resources, that they refuse to offer reversion to the previous instance in this app.? It was the same with the update a few years ago, that changed the bass sound profile.

            ​​​​​@Leefc makes perfect sense with his suggestion. There must be something difficult on Sonos’ side in not offering this?

            @jnelly there are a couple of technical reasons that may be at play here.

            My guess, and it is a guess, is that the issue will relate to the size of the S2 OS on our speakers. We know that new devices have faster processors and more memory so I’m guessing that they needed to streamline S2 OS to make room to include the headphone support on older speakers. This way they are avoiding the problems they had with the S1/S2 split. They have mentioned optimising their API code.

            Of course there could be other reason both technical and commercial and that is the heart of the problem. Sonos are keeping us in the dark and asking them to trust us while making decisions and releasing an app that has disrupted our use of our speakers for their primary function LISTENING TO MUSIC.

              Ken_Griffiths
              Ken_Griffiths
              May 19, 2024

              I’m curious, for those technically fluent, what is going on, in Sonos backend with resources, that they refuse to offer reversion to the previous instance in this app.? It was the same with the update a few years ago, that changed the bass sound profile.

              ​​​​​@Leefc makes perfect sense with his suggestion. There must be something difficult on Sonos’ side in not offering this?

              The AMA (link below) seems to suggest changes to the back-end for the new App and so the old S2 App may start to not work as those changes take place. So no point going back if it’s perhaps going to then break anyway … (that’s just my own thoughts, taken from the things mentioned)…

               

              That’s bad news as Sonos doesn’t support my broadband service does that mean I can claim money back from them?

              That’s not something I can personally answer @skullc, but I know that Sonos have always published their system requirements and a list of incompatible hardware. It might also be the case of looking at the issue (in a similar way) based on the service being provided by your ISP, or router manufacturer too, I guess.

              Whenever I’ve had incompatibility issues develop,  I try to work with the manufacturers or service providers ‘Support Desks’ to see if things can become compatible through software/firmware updates. If not, then you or I, each have the choice to change supplier... so in your case you can move away from Sonos (which I think you have mentioned you are doing anyway), or move away from your ISP/router manufacturer. Those choices are your own of course. 

              I’ve been with my current ISP for years, it’s not the cheapest, but their service is fine. I nearly always use my own router however and have probably changed router three, or four, times in the last 6 years and currently using a Plume mesh, which is a cloud based (annual) subscription service and I’ve worked with their Support Desk in the distant past to resolve issues, such as Amazon Prime TV App being blocked by their cloud filtering service etc. but now all is good and Plume quickly fixed it. So I’ve no plans to move on at this point until perhaps something better comes along, I’m on a WiFi-6AX setup, but will likely move to 6E later in the year, but I plan to get the Sonos Headphones first… assuming those are going to be launched soon

              BVRBVR
              Contributor I
              May 19, 2024

              I’m curious, for those technically fluent, what is going on, in Sonos backend with resources, that they refuse to offer reversion to the previous instance in this app.? It was the same with the update a few years ago, that changed the bass sound profile.

              ​​​​​@Leefc makes perfect sense with his suggestion. There must be something difficult on Sonos’ side in not offering this?

              The AMA (link below) seems to suggest changes to the back-end for the new App and so the old S2 App may start to not work as those changes take place. So no point going back if it’s perhaps going to then break anyway … (that’s just my own thoughts, taken from the things mentioned)…

               

              That’s bad news as Sonos doesn’t support my broadband service does that mean I can claim money back from them?

              That’s not something I can personally answer @skullc, but I know that Sonos have always published their system requirements and a list of incompatible hardware. It might also be the case of looking at the issue (in a similar way) based on the service being provided by your ISP, or router manufacturer too, I guess.

              Whenever I’ve had incompatibility issues develop,  I try to work with the manufacturers or service providers support desks to see if things can become compatible through software/firmware updates. If not, then you or I each have the choice to change supplier... so in your case you can move away from Sonos (which I think you have mentioned you are doing anyway), or move away from your ISP/router manufacturer. Those choices are your own of course. 

              I’ve been with my current ISP for years, it’s not the cheapest, but their service is fine. I nearly always use my own router however and have probably changed router three, or four, times in the last 6 years and currently using a Plume mesh, which is a cloud based (annual) subscription service and I’ve worked with their Support Desk in the distant past to resolve issues, such as Amazon Prime TV App being blocked by their cloud filtering service etc. but now all is good and Plume quickly fixed it. So I’ve no plans to move on at this point until perhaps something better comes along, I’m on a WiFi-6AX setup, but will likely move to 6E later in the year, but I plan to get the Sonos Headphones first… assuming those are going to be launched soon

              Do you have a large local music library you listen to using Sonos?  Have the short comings of the new app affected your music enjoyment?  

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