Wishlist for Sonos Controller Improvements


Userlevel 7
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So on the old ask forum wishlist items would get lost. Thought I would post a topic where people could vote their biggest wish for controller software improvements.

Wishlist Items for Controller


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Userlevel 4
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Sitting here this listening to the wonderful new album by Richard Hawley, I keep being irritated by a feature in the Windows controller. Everytime my laptop goes to sleep (Windows 10) it disconnects from wi-fi and there's no way to reconnect the controller apart from shutting down and restarting the app. Can we have a "reconnect" button / option to save a couple of mouse clicks?
Badge +1
I already post this wish, but I thought maybe this is a better place to post is, so here again....

On this moment I have a Playbar, two play 3s two play 1s and a sub. It sounds great! but it would be very nice if there is a future to make a setup, and create a shortcut to that setup. I give an example:

In my case when I watch TV the volume of the Sub is under 50% of his power. The surround speakers are calibrated as left speaker near 0,6 m right speaker more away 3m. Volume 65% and in ambient modus With this settings I have the best surround effects.

When I listen to music, the Sub is above 50% of his power. The surround speakers are calibrated as left speaker 3 m right speaker 3m. and in “full” modus With this settings I have the best sound to play loud music.

Now when I want to play music I need to [open Sonos-app -- tap left corner -- tap left corner again -- tap settings -- tap settings room -- tab Livingroom -- tap advanced audio -- tap calibrating audio (and walk through the wizard) -- tap back -- tap settings SUB -- change the volume. -- tap back -- tap surround -- tap full -- adjust volume.

When I want to watch TV, I need to go through the same process again. It would be REALY helpful if I can just make some settings, safe them and use a shortcut to activate them!

Another problem is when you want to use your Sub in two room settings. Example. When watch TV you use the Sub in the Livingroom TV profile, so he play’s with the playbar and the surround speakers. Then in you open kitchen you have some play 5s for music, but if you want to play music in the kitchen, you cannot use the sub (who is basically in the same room cause it is an open kitchen. ) If you want to use the Sub, you must takeout the Sub form your TV setting, and join the sub to the Kitchen setting. And when you want to watch TV you have to do that all over again.
Userlevel 2
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I like the ability to make up of customise room grouping but also leave the single room speaker configuration alone, say I got 5 speakers in 5 rooms, I want to be able to create various combination for customs group like

Group 1: room 2 and 3
Group 2: room 2, 4, 5
Group 3: room 1, 2, 4
Group 4: room 1,3,4,5
etc..etc...

But I also like to be able to send sound to individual room and still have the grouping around
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Hi,

I'm using a Sonos Connect as a network music feed agregator. It is connected on my Hi-Fi system in only one room. I control it from several devices. This post is about the PC Controller software UI, and whishes of improvments.

I have a 4K screen. The software is terrible in this configuration as everything is really tiny. So, basically, I have a Controller displaying long lists of unreadable things.
=> wish #1 : make the UI 4K-compatible.
Make it the simple way if you want, or make it the good way (configurable as a Web browser view is) if you can, but make it readable.

I only have one room, so I'm not interested in room pane.
=> wish #2 : make the UI panes configurable.
Make it the simple way : choose from several configurations, or make it the good way (moveable, removeable, resizeable, splittable, ...), but allow me the get the 1/3rd of my Controller window to not be wasted for nothing at all.

I sometimes use different sources for playing music, including ones not related at all to the Sonos system. When I come back to the Controller, everything is lost. I have no history of what I've played, and everything is to be done again. My only way to acheive this is to use the "search" function.
=> wish #3 : allow history to be automatically stored and queried
Do it the simple way by just having a list of tracks and their source, or do it the right way : having the actions stored, their results, to understand what I wanted to obtain instead of the results of my previous actions. Basically, if I select a radio station to play, retain that instead of the tracks played through the stations, but, when I come back, display the fact that I select the radio station, and an excerpt of its playlist, do not forget to keep track of the played tracks in this mode too.

Allow me to configure my board.
When I launch Sonos, I want my Deezer music stations, my Internet TuneIn radios, or whatever I usually listen to to be accessible in one click. I do NOT want to dig in some obscure hierachical structure to find, after remembering how it is organized, what queries I have done before to get my entry points back.
=> wish #4 : let me organize my board
Note that, this is to be used in addition to the history, if I don't want to dig... in the history to recall that I like to play this particular Deezer station.
Make it the simple way : oh, it already exists, this is the "Sonos favourites", reminds me of the Web browser old ages, when they were young, or do it the right way : drag and drop, resizable, with dynamic presentation, à la Windows RT.

I want to search in my current things.
When I display something in the Sonos explorer, I want to be able to search the results, and not the whole library. That means that the search acts as a filter on displayed results.
=> wish #5 allow me to filter my results
Do it the simple way, just as a filter to match anything on the text of displayed results, or do it the right way, by allowing to exclude (filter those that are not this and not that, ..., à la google "searchforthis -this -that"), to query attributes ("album:this author:that"), to express simple conditions ("durationmin:600 recordedyearmax:1955").

Currently, the player is barely readable and I find it awkward to use. But, hey, I have bought glasses, so no worries !
I must add that Connect works, and that is, by far, the most important, so, last wish :
=> wish #6 : do not break the Connect by making the Controller better.
Please 🙂
Simple UI request: Make the touch points (and the slider graphic) larger and give us more prominent, visual feedback to where we've moved the slider. The control buttons (play/pause, fwd and rev) are a great size, but the slider immediately below them is microscopic and made for munchkin hands.
I would very much like to be able to save a song from a Spotify radio to a particular Spotify playlist. Right now I can only save them to "Your Music," requiring that I go to my desktop to organize them into playlists, which I'm not inclined to do because I'm listening to Spotify from SONOS.
Userlevel 7
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For those wanting better Spotify integration - release today added Album folder view back to the new Spotify Sonos App.
A kids mode please, so I can give it to my toddler lock it, and he can choose his own music from a preset list usign a very simple UI.
Userlevel 7
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Yes. Ability to lock down controller very much needed.
Userlevel 1
Badge +8
I think the universal search needs to be improved: for example, when I search by artist, I'd like to refine my search by album or track; currently I can only search by artist or track or album.
I don't need a complex syntax, but the ability to keep my criteria when I swith from a category to another in the search window, with eventually a visual artifact that tells me that I have a filter criteria active on a search categor (that I can clear if i wish).
Userlevel 1
Badge +1
Couple of things I'd like to see in the controller (that I dont think were mentioned):

1. Ability to see artist art (for local artist) when browsing via Artists. There is already a default box icon for this so its strange that there isnt an ability to change it. This could be pulled from the internet or provided locally via a "folder.jpg" style file.

2. Ability to tell the Sonos system not to remove "The" prefixes from artist names.

Cheers.
Userlevel 3
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I feel the GUI is out of date, requiring more steps to reach a function than necessary.

How about utilizing drag and drop a little more?

For instance if I want to group two speakers together, I feel it would be more intuitive to drag one speaker/room on top of another speaker or group to add that one to the group. Now I have to click the "Group" button and then click in the box to add it" and then hit done. Two steps more.

Same thing if I want to remove a speaker from a group, why not make it possible to drag it out of the group? Or simply have a "remove" button or something right there on the group? Now you have to go into group, exclude it and click on done. Two more unnecessary steps.

Of course the old way of doing it could be left intact but just make it faster and simple to perform group/ungroup. It feels a bit out of date and tedious to have to go into a new window to perform these tasks.

Same thing with "eq" and "settings". Why not have symbols on the groups that you can click for direct access? Now the fastest way is to right-click and then choose from a menu. Or you can click on the eq-symbol under the transport but then you have to choose the group first. One step extra.

Just my 2 cents.
I like the ability to make up of customise room grouping but also leave the single room speaker configuration alone, say I got 5 speakers in 5 rooms, I want to be able to create various combination for customs group like

Group 1: room 2 and 3
Group 2: room 2, 4, 5
Group 3: room 1, 2, 4
Group 4: room 1,3,4,5
etc..etc...

But I also like to be able to send sound to individual room and still have the grouping around


i would like to request a granular volume control especially in the lower area. using windows and android the volume control is something like from 0 to 10 instead of 5 - please improve that.

thanks stefffen
My suggestions for improving the Windows controller:

Make it easier to build playlists - currently I have to click on each track and then select add to playlist and then the playlist which is very painful and time consuming. It would be much better to select multiple tracks and then add to a playlist. Or have multiple panes and be able to drag and drop tracks to an already open playlist.

Also I have different categories of tracks: music, language and spoken word. When adding folders from my NAS it would be good to be able to classify the folder and then have this available as a filter for browsing music etc (e.g. I don't want to see the millions of language tracks when searching for music to make a party playlist)
I'd love to see the ability to set up Groups from an alarm. When I get up in the morning, the bedroom is playing music; then I go in the kitchen, which is playing the same music (thanks to the alarm), but slightly out of sync. I can make sure, the night before, to set up a group to wake up to, but it's a pain in the ass and someone getting a late-night snack can easily screw it up.
Userlevel 7
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Yes the alarm grouping seems rather essential.
Userlevel 7
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Or definable virtual zones even better.
Userlevel 2
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I like the ability to make up of customise room grouping but also leave the single room speaker configuration alone, say I got 5 speakers in 5 rooms, I want to be able to create various combination for customs group like

Group 1: room 2 and 3
Group 2: room 2, 4, 5
Group 3: room 1, 2, 4
Group 4: room 1,3,4,5
etc..etc...

But I also like to be able to send sound to individual room and still have the grouping around


Not sure how this isn't a thing yet.
I like the ability to make up of customise room grouping but also leave the single room speaker configuration alone, say I got 5 speakers in 5 rooms, I want to be able to create various combination for customs group like

Group 1: room 2 and 3
Group 2: room 2, 4, 5
Group 3: room 1, 2, 4
Group 4: room 1,3,4,5
etc..etc...

But I also like to be able to send sound to individual room and still have the grouping around


In your example if you stream a radio station to group 1 and a playlist from your local library to group 2, what would you hear in ROOM 2?

Not sure how this isn't a thing yet.


Because it is logically impossible to play different sources to Group 1 and Group 2 at the same time.
Userlevel 7
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I understand what he is saying. Virtual zones and the stand Alone too. Problem becomes if your playing a song to a virtual zone. What happens when you play a song to the single zone that is let of the group. It gets very complicated from a handling standpoint.
Actually, Chromecast Audio handles this very elegantly. I'm betting that deep in the bowels of the Sonos labs in Santa Barbara, engineers are hard at work figuring out a way to implement this, as well.
Userlevel 7
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You can group. But you can't group and have single play from group as op can you.
You can group. But you can't group and have single play from group as op can you.

Yes, if I understand what you're asking. I have two CCAs. I have them in a group (can't remember what it's called, say "My_Group"). This list will show up in them cast menu in any CC-enabled app:

Chromecast12345
Chromecast98765
My_Group

So, I can play to one or the other, or both. If I had a 3rd CCA, I could create more groups, but still be able to cast to each individually.
Userlevel 7
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So if your playing to group then someone plays to the single it drops from group?