The app update has made our speakers almost worthless from the standpoint of how we use them. We have three Sonos speakers. They sound great, look good but here’s the catch. We are a multi user household. The updated app as I am told by Sonos customer services is designed for protection in public use. So they require the “owner account” to add music and content services to the app as well as to add or remove devices from the system. Previously I have always been able to use our system as a guest while logged in to the Sonos app on my own email/account. This allowed me to add and access my own personal Apple Music catalog and other app services independently of my wife who simply by default when setting up the system used her email/account.
With the recent update I can no longer do this. The app instructs you to log out and log in with the owner account to add services or devices. If I do so I cannot add a second Apple Music service to the system. My wife and I have our own catalogs and playlists as well as other audio apps that we use that the other may not care for at all. The new app essentially makes the Sonos a one user product instead of allowing the app to be personalized for the current user of the speakers. What a complete blunder on Sonos end!
- Every system should be expected to have multiple users who want to interface only with the content and apps they select. This was how it worked before as a guest.
- If the rational for requiring owner account access is protection from manipulation of the system by outside users… there should be an opt in security selection not a default restriction of multiple users with no apparent opt out. My guess is most Sonos system owners are on private WiFi networks so access is already firewalled by the network not the device or the app. In the instance of a a public network I am sure the devices and app can be configured to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the devices.
- The speakers should operate as hardware. Period. They should be accessible from multiple devices and users and it should be as easy as possible for multiple users to access and link their preferred content to their app settings and the speakers have one job… play sound.
- somebody really screwed this up and they should fix it or refund the cost of our devices so we can take our business elsewhere.
