Enthusiast II

New Sonos app removes key features - beware!

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 7, 2024
391 replies
32982 views

Having just upgraded to the new app, I’m utterly amazed at how poor it is from a user perspective.

There is no longer a volume number indication
You cannot edit queues
You cannot add single songs to a queue as ‘play next’ or ‘add to end’
You cannot create or edit any alarms

How did this get through any UAT? These are basic features every Sonos user has enjoyed for years.

Absolutely ridiculous, please add this functionality back ASAP.

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starflyergold

Contributor I

What an unmitigated disaster. Not only is the new app buggy but with the loss of TuneIn (legacy) now all my manually added radio stations are lost too. And there is no way of adding radio stations manually anywhere now. This has been the main use of my Sonos system (using URLs from my premium Digitally Imported account). Why Sonos Radio does not have a manually adding URLs feature instead nobody knows. It has been flagged endlessly in the past months but is just being disregarded. Way to go to ignore your customers.

Sonos Favorites from the old MacOS controller (16.1 version) do not carry over to the new iOS app either. Make any changes now and they are limited to the Mac controller only, no syncing. Useless.

N

Nicolas_Ayrton

Contributor I

Hello all,

I join all the complaints as you all : I discussed with the support and here is the official answer…. It’s not a surprise that this feature don’t work. How, such a big company like Sonos, can manage a new app like that 🤬

I understand how you feel about the functional change. This revitalization of the Sonos app is our most ambitious software update yet, and aims to address what our customers have been asking us for. It’s a huge undertaking, and we are taking the time and effort to ensure all features work seamlessly and meet both our standards and the standards of our listeners. With this commitment in mind, features such as playlist creation and queue editing within the Sonos app, sleep timers, and local library support will not be available at launch, but will be added to the app on a rolling basis.

P

prAsco

Contributor I

Hello all,

I join all the complaints as you all : I discussed with the support and here is the official answer…. It’s not a surprise that this feature don’t work. How, such a big company like Sonos, can manage a new app like that 🤬

I understand how you feel about the functional change. This revitalization of the Sonos app is our most ambitious software update yet, and aims to address what our customers have been asking us for. It’s a huge undertaking, and we are taking the time and effort to ensure all features work seamlessly and meet both our standards and the standards of our listeners. With this commitment in mind, features such as playlist creation and queue editing within the Sonos app, sleep timers, and local library support will not be available at launch, but will be added to the app on a rolling basis.

This is a ******** joke!

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

Ken_Griffiths

It is a shame that the new Sonos applications are released without check of the functionality with real users. Releasing application with very limited feature set (especially in context of connection to NAS and external physical sources) is not really what the company should do. This seems to be very arrogant vendor move.

Sonos did publish some info. on this very topic about NAS/local library connections. It’s the one area they did announce things about, prior to launch of the new App. To sum up in simple terms the old “known to be insecure” connections are out (thats SMBv1 and http protocols) but everything else is fine (eg. SMB v2 or higher) so that’s where you need to be to get things working again (if not working for you at the moment). Note if the NAS box does not support SMB v2 or higher, you probably need to consider upgrading it anyway. You could also use a recent Windows PC instead - there are posts (with step by step images) here in the community that help to setup shared libraries that can be viewed via the new Sonos App. Hope that assists.👍

M

mjezewski

Lyricist I

I have not found in the new Sonos App any place to refresh the existing library from external data server - when I use the unofficial Sonos controlled for Linux system, everything is working fine so it is not the question of connectivity to the system - it is only BAD Sonos new application which is badly organized, unclear and not intuitive at all. Maybe they should hire developers who are more focused on usability of their user interfaces.

R

raftr

Lyricist I

All I wanted from a Sonos app upgrade was to make my favourite radio stations accessible on top, not with a click through.

Now that they made it “more customisable”, they buried favourite radio stations even deeper down the menus.

It used to be

My Sonos (☆) → Stations

It now is

Your System - Sonos Favorites → scroll down to Stations → View All

Also, in favourite preview in top view they mix favourite stations with songs and albums, same as in the OSX app. This has always been such a messy way to present favs.

And this just on top of the whole mess discussed above.

A

andrea_e_w

Lyricist I

Such an awful update! I use sleep timers & alarms always, they were one of the things I loved & they’re gone. The app is now clunky & not nice to use. I’d always recommended Sonos, but not sure I would now & if I could find another way to control my system I would!

ranash1995

Contributor I

Not happy with this at all. The new app doesn’t seem to let me play from my local library. This is an ESSENTIAL feature, Sonos. This is why I’m on Sonos and not BluOS. And I can’t downgrade or even use the older version of the app from a different device.

You need to offer an opportunity to roll this back until it’s fixed. Local libraries on a NAS is the most BASIC Sonos feature.

It’s working here for me - I use an SMBv2 NAS share and I can see/play my local library tracks from the main screen under ‘Your Sources/Music Library”.

Yep, I simply had to re-add the local library address on my setup and it is all up running without a problem. I wonder if the ghosts of SMB1 are biting a lot of folks in the tail.

Ken_Griffiths

Yep, I simply had to re-add the local library address on my setup and it is all up running without a problem. I wonder if the ghosts of SMB1 are biting a lot of folks in the tail.

Yes I think so too, but maybe from a security point of view with a new App it was decided not to include the old insecure protocols - I can’t say I blame Sonos as it’s what all other large companies are doing too, including Microsoft, Apple etc.

R

Rhonny

Prodigy III

From Sonos: It’s a huge undertaking... With this commitment in mind, features such as playlist creation and queue editing within the Sonos app, sleep timers, and local library support will not be available at launch, but will be added to the app on a rolling basis.”

So, the question remains, Sonos: - why launch it if the app you’re launching is a lesser version of the one your users already have, and missing essential functionality that everyone has been used to? Why not simply wait a further month and launch it right, rather than annoying millions across the world with an app that isn’t ready?

Did you, by any chance, have a May 7th “Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Results” announcement by which time it was business critical to shareholders to have launched the app, even if it wasn’t fit for purpose? And while you were at it, it was also vital for news of the new Sonos headphones to “leak” on exactly the same day, correct?

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