New App Upgrade - HORRID
The new interface is nearly impossible to use... it doesn't even make sense how it works in relation to the previous interface which was better than good enough. As someone that has thousands of dollars invested in sonos I have to voice my utter disgust for this new app. PLs comment below and lets get Sonos to roll back from this atrocious attempt at an upgrade.
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Having that tab visible on a now black now playing screen isn't exactly a world chocking improvement. Especially with that screen now looking like a cluttered mess as a result, which is yet another step backwards.
Maybe it does help some that this bar is always visible, but compared to the old design the new one is still everything but great.
Userlevel 7
+21
You have upgraded to the latest version 8.3? This was released yesterday and is a significant change, and we are told more changes are coming too. It's still not perfect but it is a lot better and easier to navigate, IMHO of course.
I totally agree. The new interface is terrible. Like a step backwards. The android widgets don't work properly now. The navigation to a location is way to cumbersome. Please revert back to prior sotfware
Sonos has stated they are working on both the contrast and navigation issues with the next releases.
When in rooms, please explain why I cant go direct to search? I have to now close the room when enlarged and go to a teenie tiny search button and then search. I also can't just search unless I know my room is selected. I have 5 areas for sonos and if I want to hear a different song in a new zone I've got to navigate this silly app. PLEASE KEEP THIS SIMPLE! IT'S MENU AFTER MENU AFTER SUB MENU AFTER MENU! I can even click on a room and add an alarm or adjust the EQ.
How about allowing a search button in the cue menu? That way I can select a room, select the cue for that room and search. We make up playlists as we go and dig deep into the 3 streaming services we subscribe to.
PLEASE make all roads lead to the same spot, and revisit the UI. It's way to engineered but without user logic. I know why it seems to work from your perspective, but it sucks when trying to be a fun host and DJ an event. it's so clumsy.
So to recap . . .
Let me select the select a new song WITHIN the room queue tab
Chill on all the menus and drop menus. Large networks are super hard to control with this over menu-ing.
Can I get an AMEN from my fellow SONOS owners? I've got lots of money in this thing and Spotify has a better interface! Also, give us a black background toggle, my phone is blinding when it's dark and I want to hear a new song. Not very romantic to light the room with phone light.
Ideally, this should be customizable interface. We all have different workflow ideas and setups. Much like we can add and subtract quick buttons on our web browser or phone home screens. I'd love a quick room group button, individual room buttons with the ability to search in that pop up, an alarm button shortcut etc. My dinky phone has 24 icons on a single screen. That is more than enough space to make a very customizable setup. That would allow for a mute all button and a black background toggle.
Otherwise, keep up the good work! Oh, and Alexa kinda scares me. Will you ever have your own voice service that doesn't listen to anything but music requests? With a cool request like 'SONOS get this party started'?
Sorry for rambling. Gonna to listen to an entire album so I don't have to touch my playlist for an hour.
-Eric
How about allowing a search button in the cue menu? That way I can select a room, select the cue for that room and search. We make up playlists as we go and dig deep into the 3 streaming services we subscribe to.
PLEASE make all roads lead to the same spot, and revisit the UI. It's way to engineered but without user logic. I know why it seems to work from your perspective, but it sucks when trying to be a fun host and DJ an event. it's so clumsy.
So to recap . . .
Let me select the select a new song WITHIN the room queue tab
Chill on all the menus and drop menus. Large networks are super hard to control with this over menu-ing.
Can I get an AMEN from my fellow SONOS owners? I've got lots of money in this thing and Spotify has a better interface! Also, give us a black background toggle, my phone is blinding when it's dark and I want to hear a new song. Not very romantic to light the room with phone light.
Ideally, this should be customizable interface. We all have different workflow ideas and setups. Much like we can add and subtract quick buttons on our web browser or phone home screens. I'd love a quick room group button, individual room buttons with the ability to search in that pop up, an alarm button shortcut etc. My dinky phone has 24 icons on a single screen. That is more than enough space to make a very customizable setup. That would allow for a mute all button and a black background toggle.
Otherwise, keep up the good work! Oh, and Alexa kinda scares me. Will you ever have your own voice service that doesn't listen to anything but music requests? With a cool request like 'SONOS get this party started'?
Sorry for rambling. Gonna to listen to an entire album so I don't have to touch my playlist for an hour.
-Eric
Userlevel 2
While I appreciate John Bs attempts to help, I find it amusing that he complains about being selectively quoted when he selectively ignores all of lemko_rj detailed post about room selection issues, completely unrelated to the ' swipe down at now playing screen' that we all now know. A glib 'Tap Rooms button. Tap room. Tap Browse, Search, or My Sonos and choose your music.' and the usual link was not in the least helpful in that instance. I'm a long time Sonos fan, their hardware is excellent but this version of the Android app seems to be universally hated. To all the apologists and people taking personal offence to any Sonos criticism, do you really think this version of the app is better then V7? If so please detail why (as you ask everyone else to detail why we don't like it), and if you don't think it's better why are you defending it?
That only sounds easy because it's some high level steps, not what you actually need to do:
Tap room actually means
- swipe down on the now playing screen*, assuming you didn't first click on the rooms thingy
- tap rooms
- (optional) scroll down to the room/speaker(s) you are looking for
- click the room you want to select
- be not really sure you actually selected, because making it darker doesn't feel like you just selected it.
- click the room you won't to select again
* Why always go back to that now playing screen you say? Well:
- it shows what's playing, including the album art
- it contains almost all key functionality needed except for changing rooms (even God doesn't know why) and what's playing, from play/pause, over volume control, to previous and next, favoring, browsing the album or artist, etc
Tap browse means
- swipe down on the now playing screen
- tap rooms
- scroll down to find the source you are looking for
- notice you don't immediately see what you were looking for, so instead you now
Tap search
- tap search
- tap search again to bring out the keyboard
- type in your search
- notice you have no results
- use the tabs to get to playlists
- wait a bit for the results to load
- click on more because what you are looking for is not in the top 3 results
- still don't see your playlist you are looking for. So now you
Open spotify and repeat that same search
- click on the top result because spotify prioritizes your playlists
- click on play
- use devices available (aka that room thingy) to select the room you wanted to hear that playlist in
That's almost 20 clicks - assuming you didn't make a mistake - to get your spotify playlist to play in a single room, and quite some of these click are the direct result of the new design.
Most of us have something else in mind when they think of 'easy',
Tap Rooms button. Tap room. Tap Browse, Search, or My Sonos and choose your music.
Another new joiner to the forum here - and another "I don't like it" unfortunately. I also didn't like the last facelift but I quickly got used to it and ended up loving it. It's taking longer to get used to this one, basically because it's not as self intuitive. As someone mentioned with the previous app you could pass it to anyone and they would make a good stab at using it. This one just doesn't feel as slick and that should be the main goal for a UI, especially for Sonos, who have been very good in this area over the years. Even my Bose loving brother has had to admit in the past they had the upper hand. They probably still do but there certainly seems to be a lot of things they haven't thought through/tested properly this time around. I'm sure it will get there, tweaks will be made, we'll get used to it and all that. I do hope Sonos take some learning from it for the next uplift. The upgrade seems to be more that just a facelift as various bugs have crept in. If Sonos have included changes to the core functionality on top of the facelift it's a dangerous game to play if not tested thoroughly.
The comments on here saying they will not rollback to the old version are exactly right, to an extent. It's never as broad brush as that. If you're having fundamental loss of functionality due to the upgrade contact Sonos support. If they cannot resolve it they may well provide you with the old version independently as a short term contingency.
If you're having usability problems/frustration constructive feedback is key to helping Sonos understand where best to focus their efforts. We all have different ways of using their products so will have differing opinions on what is needs to be fixed.
For me I would like to see the following addressed, in order of preference (on Android):
1 - Quick access buttons at the bottom disappear on "Now Playing". As already covered these need to be persisted on all screens.
2 - Widget regularly loses connection. Even when clicking on it takes you into the app which is fully connected. Connection can be re-established by resizing or redeploying the widget. Might be worth mentioning here that room select on the widget is at the top, whereas in the app it is now at the bottom. Best to be consistent, every little helps.
3 - Rooms screen is large and clunky. I have 5 rooms and always scrolling the wrong way, sods law. All I need to see in that list is the room name and if it is playing something. I don't need to know what it is playing.
4 - My Sonos - nice idea, poor execution. Large and clunky again with too much scrolling - sideways scrolling as well, horrible. Being able to rearrange the sections is good. Sub tabs across the top for the 3 areas, like the old app, with vertical scrolling would be much easier to navigate.
5 - Built in torch - I don't like the white background either. It's clean but it's bright, especially when turning off the speaker just as I'm dosing off to sleep.
6 - Quick grouping - I use this all the time to group/ungroup and it is a little bit iffy at times i.e. seems to take a long time to work out exactly what I've asked it to do. I have a bridge as well so maybe naïvely expecting the bridge to handle this better. I seem to remember this being so much quicker a few major versions ago and has slowed gradually since so maybe an issue with the core firmware rather than the app.
7 - Browse & Search - as someone mentioned I'm not sure why these 2 functions qualify for their own button. Again you could make use of the sub tabs across the top layout with only one quick access button.
8 - Drag down on Now Playing - the drag down hardly ever works for me. I end up pulling the notification bar down or nothing happens. I just use the back button to get around it. Not really needed if the quick access buttons are persisted I guess.
Thanks in advance 🙂
The comments on here saying they will not rollback to the old version are exactly right, to an extent. It's never as broad brush as that. If you're having fundamental loss of functionality due to the upgrade contact Sonos support. If they cannot resolve it they may well provide you with the old version independently as a short term contingency.
If you're having usability problems/frustration constructive feedback is key to helping Sonos understand where best to focus their efforts. We all have different ways of using their products so will have differing opinions on what is needs to be fixed.
For me I would like to see the following addressed, in order of preference (on Android):
1 - Quick access buttons at the bottom disappear on "Now Playing". As already covered these need to be persisted on all screens.
2 - Widget regularly loses connection. Even when clicking on it takes you into the app which is fully connected. Connection can be re-established by resizing or redeploying the widget. Might be worth mentioning here that room select on the widget is at the top, whereas in the app it is now at the bottom. Best to be consistent, every little helps.
3 - Rooms screen is large and clunky. I have 5 rooms and always scrolling the wrong way, sods law. All I need to see in that list is the room name and if it is playing something. I don't need to know what it is playing.
4 - My Sonos - nice idea, poor execution. Large and clunky again with too much scrolling - sideways scrolling as well, horrible. Being able to rearrange the sections is good. Sub tabs across the top for the 3 areas, like the old app, with vertical scrolling would be much easier to navigate.
5 - Built in torch - I don't like the white background either. It's clean but it's bright, especially when turning off the speaker just as I'm dosing off to sleep.
6 - Quick grouping - I use this all the time to group/ungroup and it is a little bit iffy at times i.e. seems to take a long time to work out exactly what I've asked it to do. I have a bridge as well so maybe naïvely expecting the bridge to handle this better. I seem to remember this being so much quicker a few major versions ago and has slowed gradually since so maybe an issue with the core firmware rather than the app.
7 - Browse & Search - as someone mentioned I'm not sure why these 2 functions qualify for their own button. Again you could make use of the sub tabs across the top layout with only one quick access button.
8 - Drag down on Now Playing - the drag down hardly ever works for me. I end up pulling the notification bar down or nothing happens. I just use the back button to get around it. Not really needed if the quick access buttons are persisted I guess.
Thanks in advance 🙂
Your reading comprehension sucks. JohnB said:
"It is in fact quite easy to get music playing in the room you want,..."
A fact? Really? Hilarious you 2 are all butthurt when customers take offense to this bs "help".
Don't fret John B, it's not like he is trying to stop you from posting by implying some sort of insult or offense is inherent in your personal opinion that it is easy to change rooms. Nah! He's just "helping" out.
I am just trying to help. Sneer if you must.
I am just trying to help. Sneer if you must.
Try expressing some sympathy with people having to suffer this app - instead of telling them it's actually easy and almost implying it's their mental capacity that's the problem - and explain that your guide may help them deal with it. It'll be a lot more appreciated.
Try expressing some sympathy with people having to suffer this app - instead of telling them it's actually easy and almost implying it's their mental capacity that's the problem - and explain that your guide may help them deal with it. It'll be a lot more appreciated.
"Easy" is a bit of an exaggeration don't you think? "Easy" doesn't require a link with directions. "Easy" is when Lemko_rj didn't need a link to figure out how to play music in the room he/she wants.
It is in fact quite easy to get music playing in the room you want, once you get the hang of it. Perhaps this will help.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mI9AOixsZpxDrxVnsnzYQbPZ23bSV-EG
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mI9AOixsZpxDrxVnsnzYQbPZ23bSV-EG
Trying to use the new app over the holiday's was an eye opener on how horribly bad it is. Searching the internet and finding this forum thread just validated it even more with the amount of frustration and head scratching my wife and I have experienced over this new app.
I don't know if any one else is having this same problem but we are having extreme issues trying to select the rooms to which we want to play music. We have different devices using the app. In our kitchen we have an iPad that we use for various functions around the house (security cameras, sonos, etc.)
We usually use this device for our sonos system. But sometimes we will also control it from our phones (which are all android). In the past we never had any issues selecting rooms and playing what we want from any device. With the new app changes don't seem to want to take, ever, once multiple devices have the app running.
It seems to be all confused as to what is currently happening. Example: Turn the system on, it shows music only playing in the family room, but in reality the basement is also playing. I try checking then unchecking the basement, no changes are made. Other times my wife is upstairs in the family room listening to music while I am in the basement trying to play music for myself. My changes all of a sudden affect the music playing in her room.
Most times the only way to fix it, is to close every app on all devices then start it on only 1 device for it to sync properly and resolve all the issues. It is completely frustrating and maddening as to what is going on.
The latest app is also the first time we have had to view some youtube videos in order to figure out where some albums and internet radio functions disappeared to. How intuitive is that???
Did they simply let the programmers run wild with this or did they actually field test this with regular John Doe's? Unbelievable how they can screw something up so badly. The worst thing is, how do you even begin to give any constructive criticism back to them, as some have protested... when it seems every single area of the app seems to be in shambles! Perhaps that is why many of us (such as myself) would rather just roll it back to an older version and just have it simply work as it used to.
More embarrassing was the fact of showing guests who have never seen a sonos system before on how confusing and poorly implemented this new app seemed. Just terrible.
I don't know if any one else is having this same problem but we are having extreme issues trying to select the rooms to which we want to play music. We have different devices using the app. In our kitchen we have an iPad that we use for various functions around the house (security cameras, sonos, etc.)
We usually use this device for our sonos system. But sometimes we will also control it from our phones (which are all android). In the past we never had any issues selecting rooms and playing what we want from any device. With the new app changes don't seem to want to take, ever, once multiple devices have the app running.
It seems to be all confused as to what is currently happening. Example: Turn the system on, it shows music only playing in the family room, but in reality the basement is also playing. I try checking then unchecking the basement, no changes are made. Other times my wife is upstairs in the family room listening to music while I am in the basement trying to play music for myself. My changes all of a sudden affect the music playing in her room.
Most times the only way to fix it, is to close every app on all devices then start it on only 1 device for it to sync properly and resolve all the issues. It is completely frustrating and maddening as to what is going on.
The latest app is also the first time we have had to view some youtube videos in order to figure out where some albums and internet radio functions disappeared to. How intuitive is that???
Did they simply let the programmers run wild with this or did they actually field test this with regular John Doe's? Unbelievable how they can screw something up so badly. The worst thing is, how do you even begin to give any constructive criticism back to them, as some have protested... when it seems every single area of the app seems to be in shambles! Perhaps that is why many of us (such as myself) would rather just roll it back to an older version and just have it simply work as it used to.
More embarrassing was the fact of showing guests who have never seen a sonos system before on how confusing and poorly implemented this new app seemed. Just terrible.
Your new app is terrible. The main reason is that it's so unintuitive. Your designers have implemented lots of clever things but have forgotten the basics of good ui design, keep it simple and easy to use. Please please sonos get it right next time.
+1 to the complaints. The latest UI is awful. Seriously give some thought to a look and feel more like v7. Also as others have reported many of the music services no longer seem to work as previously.
To cap it all the latest version of the Spotify App has broken Sonos integration! Happy days.
To cap it all the latest version of the Spotify App has broken Sonos integration! Happy days.
I could not agree more with the sentiment of these threads.We have 2 android phone controllers and the frequent changes to the user interface render them useless until we randomly work through the new apps to search for music selections in services and libraries. Once we get a version figured out another upgrade appears with a new user interface and we have to start all over again figuring out what swipe or tap does what. We have 11 Sonos components and have been a user since Sonos' inception. Your desk-top controller, products and support services are top notch, but the Android app is rapidly becoming worthless. Finally, the zone selection and grouping no longer works on latest version of the Android controller. Your support techs are currently trying to sort this out. We hope your software planners do not forget that user interface simplicity and ease of use was once a hallmark of this premium product line.
I came to the forum to see if anyone had answers to the new app update and it seems that most people are in the same boat as I am. I feel the new app is as user friendly.
When I want to turn off a zone, I have to group and ungroup the zones to make it happen. I've tried clicking on the zone to bring it up and that doesn't seem to work.
I feel that they can do better with the zone control.
It took me a bit of time to get used to the new layout of everything else but my biggest gripe is with the zone control. It is hard to turn speakers on and off with the current app.
When I want to turn off a zone, I have to group and ungroup the zones to make it happen. I've tried clicking on the zone to bring it up and that doesn't seem to work.
I feel that they can do better with the zone control.
It took me a bit of time to get used to the new layout of everything else but my biggest gripe is with the zone control. It is hard to turn speakers on and off with the current app.
Agree with all the above, new controller app is awful, I have a Play one in the Kitchen, but this longer exists in my sonos world (according to the app) I had to reset my Play one in the bedroom approx 5 x times before the app accepted it. The Play Bar in the living room seems to be OK, but this now only works using a cable directly to my hub. seraching for Music on Spotify has become a joke, all i get is a spinning icon, when it does eventually find a song/artist I'm looking for it will play but then cut out after a 40 seconds or so. I didn't experience anything like this on the old app version. I love my sonos system but the new app is making it unusable. Please sort this out Sonos, I want to keep keep being able to tell my non sonos owning friends what they are missing out but but at the moment, I would say avoid at all costs, just because of the app user experience.
Stop putting in large graphic blocks in the list of albums, keep it just like the artist lists with small graphic and one entry per line in uncluttered text. Anytime I have to scroll 10 pages down to get to the album I want it makes me lose my mind. And don't cutoff the album names, wrap them. How am I meant to tell which copy of "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" is the one I am selecting?
The Sonos interface used to be almost flawless, very simple to use and navigate. Now it's just frustration.
The Sonos interface used to be almost flawless, very simple to use and navigate. Now it's just frustration.
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