The new Sonos S2 App Sucks

Several things have been added over the last several releases. You can see the details in the release notes here. Sonos has published a (not complete, IMHO) list of things they plan on releasing in this FAQ article.

My understanding is that the FAQ article will be updated as needed.

I won’t ever buy another Sonos product simply because of the new app . They obviously released this without testing in real users . The largest AV company in Florida stopped pushing Sonos because the app is so bad and they r flooded with calls . The IT department has been influenced by bud light syndrome . 

I’ve been a Sonos user for at least 10 years. Sonos apps have gotten worse with every upgrade. 

Sonos, you make amazing speakers and awful apps. Stick to what you’re good at and outsource your app development. You’re ruining your reputation and making a lot of loyal customers very unhappy with these bad apps you roll out. 

I would certainly agree that the old version was much better more intuitive. This one fails more often then works.  When will we see an upgrade that fixes all these connectivity issues!

This new app is terrible, brand new speaker out of the box and it can't find it and then locks up the app.  Had to factory reset my other speakers and still couldn't get them all on.  Not to mention the lag is terrible, it randomly drops speakers etc. This is the worst update of any product I have ever been involved with.  It is so frustrating the amount of time I have already spent just trying to make it work.  BTW on a fiber connection with ubiquity gear, not an issue on my end.  

I still us the Sonos 1 app on my old speakers at my cabin that works like a charm.

WTF Sonos, 0 out 5 stars right now fix this hung of garbage you call an update.

SONOS should be embarrassed by this release, and the board should step in with the CEO to find solutions. As the CEO called it, this' courageous' experiment was a FAILED experiment, yet the company will not acknowledge this or offer any solution. Every update comes with the hope that they have addressed the issues, but there are still more bugs than a Florida Motel 6 in this thing. I am not a Luddite and have spent hours working through every reset, wired, and unwired connection and update, and can’t even play music from the IOS app. I have been able to get it working from the desktop, but that is not ideal. I ask those who are criticizing the less tech savvy on the forum, why should they be forced to figure it out? Many other companies have figured out how to make their software intuitive and workable. It is not the customer’s job to be an IT expert, that is what the customer pays for.  Like many posts I have read, I have invested thousands of dollars in SONOS equipment. I remember the company’s early promise of making all changes backward compatible with older speakers. I guess the new philosophy is to build an app incompatible with any SONOS speakers. S2 was not the world’s best IOS app by any stretch, but why make your customers suffer with the new app until you work out your issues? Is it pride? is it that you don’t want to admit you screwed up? Well, s*** happens, and people don’t care if you give them options while you get it right. All Sonos is doing here is making the problem worse and losing customers. This is really poor leadership and should be addressed by shareholders as well.

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

New Coke 

I’m throwing all this stuff in the trash - devices won’t connect to the network - won’t with with Alexa - Spotify won’t show the speakers anymore. 
 

simply awful. 

Ken Griffiths: The newest version of the app remains buggy and lacking basic features many, many users have relied on for years. On my ipad, connected to a gigabit cable feed via extremely fast wifi, the app is slow to load and often refuses to load unless I shut down and restart the device. The ‘recently played’ function is nonfunctional, which is now the only way to retrace my steps if I want to create a new queue, which is the only option to remove tracks from an existing queue since queue editing and playlist creation no longer exist.

Indeed, Sonos playlists have simply disappeared from the app altogether. Given that’s how I created my music library, that is a huge problem… a deal killer in fact. 

Sonos playlists do display using the web controller, but that controller works erratically and the interface is downright bizarre. Besides, no way should users need to resort to a web site to play music, not when there are so many more user friendly options available from other purveyors of hardware and playback software.

None of these problems existed prior to the ‘courageous’ management decision to force-feed the new app on all Sonos owners without the option to revert to the prior version. And a month after the new app release, Sonos still seems to be in no great hurry to rectify these problems. 

I’ve resolved to live with this fiasco for a month or two, limp along with limited functionality, and wait for Sonos to step up its game. I download updates as they appear, but thus far, none of them has addressed my concerns. I have a few thousand dollars invested in Sonos playback hardware and don’t want to abandon it and replace it… yet.

But if this situation persists through the summer, by autumn I’ll be shopping for new equipment and shove the Sonos speakers I now own in a corner of the basement to gather dust. And I will never buy or recommend any Sonos product - except, perhaps, to my worst enemy — ever again.