Skip to main content
press250
press250
Prodigy III
Jul 24, 2024 7:50 PM UTC

High Battery Drain on this week's iOS and Android apps

Many usersⵜ are reporting extremely high battery drain on this week’s version of both the iOS and Android apps (v80.05.04 and v80.05.06, respectively). Using the iOS/Android battery tracking dashboards, users are reporting 30-50% battery drain‡ from the Sonos app over a 24-hour period.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the battery drain occurs with the Sonos app in the background. Disabling background app refresh doesn’t improve things. Fully exiting the Sonos app is required.

Purely out of curiosity, I plan to monitor Wi-Fi traffic from the app to see if this version of the app is continuously polling the device firmware. Anyone who beats me to such measurements—yay! —by all means let us know what you find.

 

ⵜ Likely not all users, particulars TBD

‡ Figures reported for phones; tablets have dramatically larger batteries so drain is a smaller percentage

    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.

    32 replies

    Show previous replies
    skullc
    skullc
    Prodigy III
    Jul 25, 2024 8:43 PM UTC

    The app uses Bluetooth for the Ace headphones (to tweak eq and other settings) and when you add a new speaker. For the vast majority of people, the app doesn’t need Bluetooth 99.9% of the time … so it will be tremendously ironic if my hunch holds water.

    On my iPhone, disabling Bluetooth results in a “puh-lease enable” pop-up every time I launch the app.

    Not on mine just a notification to update every now and again 😊

    but as I don’t use the app much anymore I don’t care

    Translate
    Network= livewire cpe pro 3 +eero 6 pro wireless
    orbiter-savoy
    Lyricist II
    Jul 25, 2024 8:46 PM UTC

    Hmm, if I turn off Bluetooth completely (Settings->Bluetooth), toggle off for everything, then I get the Sonos message asking to turn it on.

    However if I leave Bluetooth on, but go to Settings->Sonos, I can toggle it off just for Sonos. In that case, I get no message from Sonos.

    Translate
    press250
    press250Author
    Prodigy III
    Jul 25, 2024 9:09 PM UTC

    Hmm, if I turn off Bluetooth completely (Settings->Bluetooth), toggle off for everything, then I get the Sonos message asking to turn it on.

    However if I leave Bluetooth on, but go to Settings->Sonos, I can toggle it off just for Sonos. In that case, I get no message from Sonos.

    Hi @orbiter-savoy, same here. I think Apple may allow audio apps to ignore the app-specific toggles—specifically Bluetooth and Background App Refresh—which sounds odd but seems to be the case.

    Translate
      orbiter-savoy
      Lyricist II
      Jul 25, 2024 10:14 PM UTC

      Hi @press250, looks like my findings are off and there is still background activity with the BT toggled off. Probably didn’t wait long enough for the stats to update. :(

      Translate
      craigski
      Local Superstar
      Jul 28, 2024 10:22 AM UTC

      My guess is Sonos is building in some diagnostic code to get them more telemetry on the App performance to help improve the App. It maybe a third-party eg Sentry.io that is using the battery in background.

      Translate
      olistrut
      Contributor II
      Jul 29, 2024 9:38 AM UTC

      Same here. Sonos causing almost half my battery usage over last 24 hours with no more than 5 minutes of active use. 
       

      App is either fundamentally broken (again) or using massive amounts of energy to spy on my phone. Don’t know which one would be worse. 

      Translate
      m-m-i
      Enthusiast I
      Jul 29, 2024 12:38 PM UTC

      For the last 10 days I have 15m on screen 27h 14m background usage for the Sonos app. I’m fairly certain those 27h are exactly the amount of time the app has just been open (ie not fully quit), as I use airplay and rarely stream using Sonos, if at all.

      Draining users batteries just for opening an app occasionally is an extremely bad bug. I don’t understand why this hasn’t been patched with urgency.

      Translate
      Sideshow_Bob
      Trending Lyricist I
      Jul 29, 2024 7:44 PM UTC

      @press250 I wonder if the battery drain is related to this volume bug. 
       

      On iPhone if you have the Sonos app running, if you mute system volume it will un mute itself. Force close the app and the volume will work as expected. 
      Video;

      https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/s/rUp6sQHORz

      Translate
      DeRochier
      Trending Lyricist I
      Jul 30, 2024 1:25 AM UTC

      Same issue here on my iPhone 13 Pro: after my Sonos app updated I couldn’t make it a full day on a single charge. 18 minutes on screen and almost 4 hours running in the background. What is the app doing? And why is Sonos doing everything they can to anger and alienate their customers? Patrick Spence should be fired.

      Now I open the app, do what I want to do, and force quit the app to preserve my iPhone’s battery life.

       

      Translate
        PloppyC
        PloppyC
        Lyricist III
        Jul 30, 2024 8:45 AM UTC

        One more with excessive idle battery drain.

        Translate
        Show more replies
        Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement