Battery drain on Android app 9.0.1


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3 minutes ago
I see I'm not the only one with this problem - the latest update seems to have caused the app to consume more battery than the screen, even with notifications and lock screen off! I've had no choice but to uninstall the app as killing it, clearing cache etc, none of the usual things fixes it.

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Exactly the same issue. I've tried anything to reduce the battery consumption, without any acceptable result.. any idea about it?
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Hopefully someone from Sonos will give us a proper reply soon. If you look at the reviews for the Sonos app on the Google Play site, there are loads of people all saying the same thing about 9.0.1.
Most of the staff on the boards is Monday through Friday, so it's unlikely to get a response here today. You may want to ping the 24/7 twitter folks: contact Sonos to discuss it. They'll likely ask you to submit a system diagnostic in order for them to get a better look at the system you have set up.
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Yes I thought it would be quiet at the weekend. Thanks for your reply - it wouldn't have occurred to me to use Twitter.
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Same behavior on my Samsung Galaxy S5 (Android). Battery life has plummeted since recent release.
Phone has been on for < 8 hours & the Sonos app has depleted 21% of battery.
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Still seeing crazy battery drain with the recent release (9.0...). I also find that I cannot "force stop" the app. It restarts immediately. This leaves only uninstall - which I have done for now.

This app is doing something weird. My phone is out of range of my Sonos system most of the time, yet the Sonos app is by far the leading drain on my battery - more than 15 times the next app, which is the Android OS.
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Hi everyone, there isn't a specific known issue right now with the Android app and battery life, but we'd be happy to look into it. Can you please submit a diagnostic from your Sonos system when you think the app has been using too much battery and post it here?

Also, please post your model of phone and the Android firmware running on it?

For general troubleshooting steps, I'd start with rebooting the phone and uninstalling the Sonos app.
done the reboot and uninstall of app, several times. sonos app still keeps munching battery. on last reinstall i had the app installed for 1 hour, not using the app and it still drained 6% of battery life. this on android 8.1 on a wileyfox swift 2. I'd love to submit a diagnostic but as the app keeps killing my battery I'm not keeping it installed. how long should the app be installed before sending the diagnostic?
Diagnostic 1493051276
diagnostic number is 1377965854
I agree the battery life has decreased. I am typically below 40% at bedtime compared to above 50% with Nougat. Could be this is the price for improved performance
Same problem. Had to uninstall the app which means my Sonos system is now effectively unusable. Phone wouldn't last a day with the app installed. When will this be fixed?
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Running a diagnostic is pointless as the battery drain also occurs when out of range of the network. You say you're not aware of a specific issue with battery life - just look at all the comments and negative reviews on Google Play since July 13th, when 9.0.1 was released! Phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5 running Android 7.1.2.
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Hi everyone, there isn't a specific known issue right now with the Android app and battery life, but we'd be happy to look into it. Can you please submit a diagnostic from your Sonos system when you think the app has been using too much battery and post it here?

Also, please post your model of phone and the Android firmware running on it?

For general troubleshooting steps, I'd start with rebooting the phone and uninstalling the Sonos app.


Here are some of the comments from the Google Play store so now you can't say that there isn't a specific known issue with the Android app and battery life -

Steve F, 22 July 2018. It eats battery on my Moto G5 android 7.0 phone. Totally unacceptable to use, even with the Sonis app closed and notifications off its using more than the screen on max! This is Sonos 9.0.1 app. On wife's Lenovo tablet Android 6.0 it is fine?

Graham Bissell, 19 July 2018. Sonos is slowly dying and that's a real shame! The app has been getting progressively worse for the past 3 years to the point where you never know if it's going to work....but you do know it'll drain your battery.

Frankie Jenkins, 15 July 2018. I was fine with this app until the latest updates. Now my phone is constantly slowing down and it's because Sonos keeps starting up in the background, killing my battery and overheating my phone.

Sarah Chiodetto, 17 July 2018. In Oct 2017 I said "Latest update is just awful as evidenced by all the recent reviews." Now July 2018 and it's the same again but this time I am uninstalling it from my phone as it's draining battery like nothing I've seen before.

Michael Trim, 20 July 2018. Since the latest update or possibly since updating to Android Oreo (from Nougat), the Sonos app is draining my battery while running in the background (not even playing music or connected to WiFi).

A Google user, 20 July 2018. Battery draining after latest updates. Uses nearly as much power as the display. Having to force stop the app as it seems to be running constantly

Chad Foster, 14 July 2018. After 7/13 update and still sucking battery like crazy. What happened?

A Google user, 17 July 2018. Killing phone battery - deleted the app will have to rely on Apple devices to control Sonos devices sad day!

John Ball, 15 July 2018. Latest version (9.0.1) runs in background, draining battery and overheating phone. Uninstalling.

Andy Fawkes, 17 July 2018. terrible battery gobbler!! please fix asap.. why wasn't this picked up in testing?

Colin Hensley, 14 July 2018. New update is a battery drain. Hope you can fix that quickly.

Matt Walls, 23 July 2018. App constantly runs even when not on the same network as the speakers. I am getting messages from my phone saying that the app is using 25% of the CPU.

Lars Dennert, 17 July 2018. Sucks my battery when the phone is in airplane mode.
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I too have been having problems since 9 upgrade. Posted elsewhere (https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/android-8-6-battery-drain-and-windows-8-6-issues-6808576) but no response so I will add my name to this list.
Did all the rebooting bit, turned off the lock screen no difference still burns the battery, In fifteen or so minutes this morning Sonos used CPU12mins 29 Secs with CPU foreground at 4mins 38 secs - impressive not
Moto 3G running 6.0.1
diagnostics 1586645488

Also have an old very slow unreliable Nexus 7 running 5.1.1 which does not have the problem, Sonos has been running in background all day and does not even register on the CPU usage
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Submitted diagnostic # 873721855
Had my Android (Samsung galaxy S5 - SM-G900V) on today, and the Sonos app has drained 22% of the battery in ~9.5 hours.
Running Android v 6.0.1.
My phone was out of range of Sonos network for all but ~30 minutes of this time. The Sonos app is doing something pretty significant for being out of range - burning through over 2 hours of CPU time while not connected. Sure sounds like some shenanigans going on here.

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Thanks for the details everyone, they help out a lot to pin down what's happening. I've passed them along to the team and they're investigating the issue.

I'll let you know when I have more to update you on.
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Thanks for looking into this Ryan. After a long exchange with tech support they escalated the issue and opened a ticket - 00170369. The clincher for them I think was when they asked me to do a Force Close on the app, only to see that it was still consuming (a lot of) power afterwards.
I wonder how that's possible. Unless the act of a force close isn't actually closing the app. Wish I knew more about how the Android OS works.
I've also had quite a long exchange with tech support, ticket 00167744. I've found that on a force close it seems to use a chunk of power and stop. ish. I'm still not convinced that force close was actually killing everything the app was doing. I've now got it (on android 8.1) to kill all sonos background activity, I've disabled its ability to use notification dots. and that has reduce its consumption to 5% of battery over the day. still too much for an app that wasn't used that day. tech support started by insisting I turn of options not available on the latest version of android (setting wifi on during sleep from always to only when plugged in) then switched to blaming my make of phone with comments suggesting battery usage on a swift2 x was a common issue, I've seen nothing on any site i could fine supporting that, and apart from the latest sonos app, battery life has been fantastic. but not according to sonos tech support where its everything but their app.
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My woes exactly as the above continue. I'm on Android 7.0..
I also have a ticket raised and long unfruitful session with support on another phone a mine was dying haha!

I am currently using the Macronous for Sonos third party app, cost a few quid. It works with hardly any battery use but can't see my saved podcasts so I have to load them as favourites, listen and then remove..

Anybody tried any of these older versions?
https://sonos.en.aptoide.com/versions

Will give some of the 8's a go and see. Will probably lose some functionality but the as long as I can control playing in various rooms and do the things Alexa can't - start certain Pod casts and Swedish Radio cos' the skills aren't there, I'd be happy for now.
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I installed 8.6 app from the link above.
Even after 1hr I can't see Sonos in my battery usage list!
Screen is at 5%! Sonos less than 1% a no show.
Batt life is not an issue.
I know this version will be fine on my phone all day.
As a seasoned SW / test engineer and manager in telecoms infrastructure
I know this is not rocket science haha. The 9.0.1 app could never have been tested properly on different Android versions / common phones.
Must be so simple to trace this back and see where the code went wrong in 9.0.X.

Sonos tech support should testing older versions and advising customers to try the suitable older version!

There i've given you a good temp fix!
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2 hours in. No Sonos 8.6 App battery use showing on my Android 7.0 Moto G5. I've left the app running in the background the whole time.
Screen now at 7%!
Just posting to say "me too". Had to uninstall v9 as my phone wasn't making it thru the day. Have now installed v8.6 and all is well again. If only there was an option to turn off updates completely.........:?
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That's good Gybe.
I've been running 8.6 all day. It doesn't feature on the battery usage list, so it's less than 1%.
Complete contrast to 9.0.1!
Go figure..

Yes the update reminders are annoying but only happened to me when I first opened the app, so not that often.

Will look into how to turn them off.