New UI is terrible

  • 15 November 2017
  • 13 replies
  • 738 views

Userlevel 2
I have been selling sonos for several years now as a good distributed audio option. But the New UI is so bad Im having second thoughts on new jobs. It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to change rooms without having to select one room in the group and unselect the other. It still takes more clicks through menus to do the same things now. I have had endless calls from clients with the same problems or problems finding their playlists etc. Im actually looking into selling the DTS Play-fi systems instead because of this.

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13 replies

i agree. I am one of the first SONOS owners in Brisbane. I've owned the system for about 12 years and always bang on about how good and easy it is for set up and use. It's completely #*$@ now since the new controller update. Was it designed by apple? ?

I am still yet to work out how to change rooms.
i agree. I am one of the first SONOS owners in Brisbane. I've owned the system for about 12 years and always bang on about how good and easy it is for set up and use. It's completely #*$@ now since the new controller update. Was it designed by apple? ?

I am still yet to work out how to change rooms.


Changing and controlling rooms is straightforward IMO, once you know how. See if this helps:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mI9AOixsZpxDrxVnsnzYQbPZ23bSV-EG
Userlevel 2
same here - i've personally gifted a two-digit number of people with their first sonsos devices trough the years, and reccomended it to many more - I don't any more. If I didn't allready have so damn many sonos components I would be considering switching just about now.

I remember a few years back when I was desperatly waiting for a controller for the Windows Phone, I started programming a basic controller. I't was fairly straight forward and I got a functioning prototype working fairly quickly. Now I'm just considering starting that back up as an open source project to bring the old UI back, seems like enough people would be willing to contribute.
Userlevel 3
I'm glad its not just me who finds this change a joke. I never realised that there were so many issues with the old UI, it always worked really well for me, have they confirmed that this one has been properly designed and won't now need changing?

I have had Sonos for years and always loved how intuitive and easy to use the menus were, I never had an issue. Then one day I want to put some music on and everything has changed, suddenly it's not so easy and I have to sit down, take time out of my day and learn how to use my own music system all over again, this is not what I want when I just want to put some music on

Wish there was a way to block UI updates.

This just seems like changes for changes sake, a development team trying to think of things they can change because they have run out of ideas and have to justify their employment.
It is with this background that I say that the previous UI was great. it was intuitive, quick and a pleasure to interact with. The latest one (introduced in fall of 2017) is frustrating and inconvenient. It is especially hard to control which zones you want on and off, and even after over a month of daily use we still find ourselves in loops of going back and forth to the wrong screen to try and figure out how to achieve this. Much like the introduction of new Coke, this new structure to the UI is the **answer to the question that nobody asked**, and the head 'architect' behind this upgrade should be sacked.
Trip,

I think I get that you don't like the current UI. I'm not sure there's much more to be gained about posting in every single thread about it. Please.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
It is with my background being a long time user that the previous UI wasn't that great.

version 4 I think had better usability then version 5-7. There is great love here all of a sudden for version 7 because version 8 has problems. But version 7 was not natural at all for new users. Version 8 with tweaks will be more of a natural progression from version 4 and I think has the potential (I said potential as the current version is impossible to navigate properly) to be the best yet.
Userlevel 1
Add my name to the list of frustrated long-time customers. Frustrated enough to go online and complain about it. I agree that switching rooms is maddening and I've woken people up by accidentally playing music in their room. But my biggest complaint is the lack of consistency and clarity. Tap the arrow in the top of the screen on Android devices and it's a complete crap-shoot as to what you'll see. Tap it again and it's another crap-shoot. I have two devices side-by-side and they DO NOT DO THE SAME THING. Also it's impossible to tell what is "clickable" and what is not. "Is that a button? It's just black text like everything else, so... maybe?"
Sonos step away from the show-room engineered UI design by screen-shot and work from use-cases.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
ummm . the thread was started back when there were issues before tweaks were made. I'm not sure what you issue with tapping at top of screen is but the Sonos app pretty much looks and behaves IDENTICALLY to that of Apple Music AND Spotify apps.
Userlevel 1
It's juvenile to say "they do it too". But since you need clarity, here's what happens: I tap the top-left arrow and i see BROWSE sometimes. And sometimes I see "ROOMS" and sometimes "SEARCH". There's, quite literally, no way to know what i'm going to see when I tap that - I'm pretty sure that's not IDENTICAL to any other app.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
When you drop down from now playing using the top arrow it goes back to the last screen you were on before the now playing overlay. If instead you use the buttons at the bottom they will automatically minimize now olayjng but go to the exact screen you want. If you don’t want to not know what screen will come up don’t manually minimize now playing. Simple. Stop using the drop down arrow. No need for if you don’t want to GO Back.
Userlevel 1
Oh ok. Thanks for the explanation. I use multiple devices and thought it was random. The idea that i need to "remember" the last screen i was on is silly. The whole concept that now-playing is an overlay is anti-intuitive since that's the "main" screen. Anyway, I won't use that down arrow at all cuz it's useless when all the icons are on the bottom. In fact, isn't it a bit silly that the down arrow is a really a back button? That's a rhetorical question because the answer is obvious.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
That was the problem when this thread was created. The buttons were hidden at bottom
So you had to hit that down arrow and go from there.