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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
    John Guarr
    John Guarr
    Enthusiast II
    June 1, 2024

    I was on the phone for the past 1:40 m with your techs trying to add my music library to the new app and we received (913) error codes from both Music folder and selecting a folder on the computer.  The 3rd option NAS was similar equally unsuccessful.  What is both me and the tech missing?  It says in the message above, it states available now: 

    • Improved Local Music Library playback of folder

    Very disappointed.

    I’m not sure I understand your exact issue, but you mentioned NAS and that got my attention. My music library has been for years sitting on a Western Digital My Passport Ultra drive attached directly to a port on the back of my Linksys EA 8300 Router. Both iTunes and Sonos points to this drive, so when I purchase music using iTunes it goes to this drive and then I would just go into my Sonos app on my PC, update the music library, locate that song and transfer it to one of my Sonos playlists. Well since upgrading to the new app everything stopped working. I worked for hours with a knowledgeable tech from Sonos named Jules. He explained that the new Sonos app uses the SMB2 protocol to talk to NAS drives and I found out that my WD Passport is really not a NAS drive and it uses SMB1 protocol. Luckily I would back all my music up to a Western Digital My Cloud drive, which is a stand-a-lone NAS drive and this drive speaks using the SMB2 protocol. Once I pointed the Sonos app to my My Cloud NAS music directory it started to populate all my music. (i could only do this using the Sonos PC app since the IOS version is useless). I managed to keep some of my playlists, but I have many duplicates and larger playlists now so I have to go in and start deleting duplicates. So for NAS drives, the SMB2 protocol is important. Sonos told me that if I copied all my music from the My Passport  drive to a directory in Windows 10 it would work also since Windows 10 supports SMB2.  But overall, the PC version of the new Sonos app works okay, but the IOS version on my two iPads are horrible, There are no pull down menus and doesn’t show the songs in your playlists. So I have to keep running upstairs and making changes on my PC. When I go to the Help menu on the top row on the PC and go to About, it shows that I am running S2 version 16.2.  This is the version that Jules from Sonos, installed on my PC when he had remote access yesterday. I hope this might help someone. And I sure hope Sonos gets the IOS version working properly. It is very difficult to do anything using my iPad. 

      mdpeterman
      Trending Lyricist I
      June 1, 2024

      Looking at the calendar, it is now early June. Where is our queue management? If your dev team has been permitted to leave the office in the past 3 weeks they aren’t dedicated to fixing this problem as much as they should be. 

        Yorkshire_Kev
        Avid Listener
        June 1, 2024

        Looking at the calendar, it is now early June. Where is our queue management? If your dev team has been permitted to leave the office in the past 3 weeks they aren’t dedicated to fixing this problem as much as they should be. 

        Tbf it’s Saturday / the weekend. I wouldn’t expect anything before Monday, and more likely midweek. “Early” has a way to go yet.

        Everyone has to sleep, and I can assure you that the best thoughts don’t come when you have a banging head from reading and cross referencing pages of code. I’ve done my fair share of post midnight jobs and staying awake for up to 36 hours. It’s far from productive.

        Also, realise this debacle is unlikely to be down to the tech team, it will be pressure from Senior Management & Marketing. If allowed, I’m sure the tech guys will fix things, but don’t give them a kicking online because they’re not going to be happy with this, and doing so only puts you backing the “bosses” who I suspect have instigated this 🤔

          amalo
          Lyricist II
          June 1, 2024

          Sonos is deaf and blind, and no matter how many times it's told, it keeps blindly and deafly walking in the same direction. 

            Steve1958
            Contributor I
            June 1, 2024

            I'm playing one of my playlists. Trouble is the queue doesn't load so I can no longer see what's coming up, alter the order of play etc etc. This is a really bad experience compared to the previous app.

              mjchosen
              Contributor I
              June 1, 2024

              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: May 21, 2024. See release notes.

              • VoiceOver on iOS now properly interacts with individual elements of the Sonos app's home screen - and now adds improved VoiceOver support for allowing for navigating and controlling the Now Playing Screen, System View, Output Selector, Queue, Volume Sliders, and Add Product
              • Improved TalkBack support for the Now Playing Screen, System View, and Add Product
              • Improved Local Music Library playback of folders
              • Adding and editing alarms with the ability to Search for content
              •  

              Coming soon

              • Continued improvements to navigation for visually-impaired customers: mid-June
              • Adding to queue and playing next: early June
              • Sleep timer: mid-June
              • Local music library search and playback: mid-June
              • Update WiFi settings: mid-June
              • Snooze alarms: TBD

              I hate to be the only one to say this but no one gives a crap about these so called new features, we just want the old ones back that actually worked. We have paid thousands of $$$ for this SONOS system work, which did quite well until this half developed app rolled out. Please fix this piss pour attempt at an upgrade, any consumers are not retained customers..
               

              Known issues and workarounds


              "Sign in as the System Owner" error while updating products during setup

              • Workaround: No workaround currently available.

               

              Our latest update resolves some of the most critical known issues, but know we have more to do. We hear your feedback and are working hard to deliver the experience you expect and deserve.

               

                Brcotten
                Contributor I
                June 1, 2024

                Why couldn't you make the old version of the app available in the meantime? You screwed it up and won't take responsibility for fixing it. 

                  Brcotten
                  Contributor I
                  June 1, 2024

                  When I started buying their speakers a few years ago I could play all of my music and couldn't have been happier with the system. Then there was an update. Suddenly a lot of songs in my Apple music library couldn't be played because the songs weren't encoded properly. The system just skipped them. I spent a great deal of time with Sonos support and the promised me that they would fix that problem. It never happened and now they release an even more problematic update. I have very little confidence that this will be resolved.

                  I regret ever buying these four sets of speakers.  Looking for alternatives now.

                    John Guarr
                    John Guarr
                    Enthusiast II
                    June 1, 2024

                    Looking at the calendar, it is now early June. Where is our queue management? If your dev team has been permitted to leave the office in the past 3 weeks they aren’t dedicated to fixing this problem as much as they should be. 

                    You mention queue management. Excuse me if I don’t know, but is this the reason why I can’t see the songs in any of my playlists or add a song to play?  Because I am running the new Sonos app on my two iPads and don’t see the ability to do this. I can however, do it from my PC controller running Windows 10.  

                    BVRBVR
                    Contributor I
                    June 1, 2024

                    Sonos will not leave the app without basic playlist functionality long term. It will return before we know it. Only an utter fool would think they would remove it with no intention of reinstating it. 

                    The absolute idiocy on here is beyond astounding. No-one appears to have the ability to think rationally for themselves.

                    What about making the decision to release the app? Was that absolute idiocy or do you think that was the right decision? 

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