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The new Sonos S2 App Sucks

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The new app is terrible. I think my experience is worse because the app update happened during our move into a new house, new network, new ISP, etc. I have deleted my Sonos app, Sonos account, reinstalled the app, set up a new account, factory reset all devices a dozen times, tried 2.4 GHz, IoT onboarding, etc, etc, etc. I can see the devices all connected to my Wifi, but none appears in the Sonos S2 app on my system. I was able to get the ARC to finally appear on a wired ethernet connection, but disappears when I unplug and go wireless. I might be able to run a switch at my TV to connect TV, ARC and Sub wired, but Sonos should fix their issues.

I think the best thing I can do right now is file a warranty claim on my Platinum AMEX since Sonos will not respond to Support emails. I don’t have hours to spend on the phone on hold since apparently their help desk is overwhelmed with customer issues. I have already wasted hours trying to set up the Sonos. I installed at least a half dozen other devices (two garage door openers, two wireless garage door opener keypads, power shades, etc) on our new network easily in a few minutes, so it is not me or my networks that are the issue. Sonos is the problem.

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Ken_Griffiths

I forgot to mention there’s also the button on the ‘mini player’ screen that allows the user to jump directly to the room grouping/ungrouping screen aswell.🤷‍♂️

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Mr. T

If I recall the comment Nick Millington made on the Reddit Q&A, it related to the actions performed on the mini-player/slide-up ‘room-selector’ screen.

In the background area of the minimised player at the top of the ‘room-selector’, in the Sonos App, the user ‘taps’ to show the ‘now playing’ screen, or slides ‘up’ to reveal the ‘room-selector’, or touches the volume slider to increase/decrease volume (by 1%) or ‘taps/slides right’ to show group volume screen (in the case where rooms are grouped/displayed in the mini player), or presses and holds the volume button to increase/decrease volume on a room/group… he was concerned that those things were perhaps confusing for the end user and there might be a need to improve the UI/UX at some later point.

It certainly was not a reference to the new Sonos App search feature, which was first introduced in the S2 App as an alternative to the Classic search. That said I guess Sonos will go onto listen to their users/testers and will make any changes they think will help to improve the UI/UX.

No, the quote was around UI in general, with an example given. It did also touch on search, so there may be further developments there too.

His actual quote from Reddit is as follows:

The obvious solution is to make all the main areas of the UI (music browse/search, Now Playing, Rooms/System View) accessible from all other areas. This however takes up a lot of screen real estate with navigation buttons, or forces us into gestures like swipes that can be difficult for new users to discover

The current UI is our attempt, based on a considerable amount of user research, to make the most common navigation operations obvious, but still allow power users to get from each of the areas to the others in one operation. There are certain compromises that are not ideal in my personal opinion, like the different behavior when tapping vs swiping up on the Now Playing strip at the bottom of the screen, which breaks the physical metaphor of a stack of cards you are shuffling through (as you point out) and we will continue to work hard on optimizing the design.

As the Reddit poster stated, the UI in its current form is a hot mess, which I have to agree with.

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Ken_Griffiths

Yeah I read it differently and see it more about the reason why Sonos stepped away from a tabbed interface to make main areas of the App more accessible from everywhere, mostly in just one step and the improvements to the search at that point were more a reference to the local library search.

I’m personally happy with any interface as long as it works and I am able to become quickly familiar with it - I find the new Sonos App does work for my needs and see it as being simple to use. I didn’t need to study a user manual to understand how to navigate around it - I think new users would find it much easier than the old S2 App.

In basic terms it really is a simple matter of slide up the ‘room selector’, choose a room/group and play an audio source from the Home Screen. It doesn’t really get much easier than that.

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Mr. T

Yeah I read it differently and see it more about the reason why Sonos stepped away from a tabbed interface to make main areas of the App more accessible from everywhere, mostly in just one step and the improvements to the search at that point were more a reference to the local library search.

I’m personally happy with any interface as long as it works and I am able to become quickly familiar with it - I find the new Sonos App does work for my needs and see it as being simple to use. I didn’t need to study a user manual to understand how to navigate around it - I think new users would find it much easier than the old S2 App.

In basic terms it really is a simple matter of slide up the ‘room selector’, choose a room/group and play an audio source from the Home Screen. It doesn’t really get much easier than that.

The quote mentioned the Search option, it had nothing to do with local library search not being available at that time.

The UI is much more than simply selecting music to play on a speaker.

As I mentioned above, thankfully Sonos acknowledge the UI Fit and Finish can be improved and have it listed as an ongoing app improvement. Unfortunately, 7mths on since the disastrous release there are still many aspects of the UI that need improvement.

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Ken_Griffiths

I can’t really add anything further @Mr. T - I just find the new Sonos works for my system needs and find it extremely simple to use. I can’t truly say I’ve seen that many errors with the App.

It loads much faster than the previous S2 App and never fails to discover all my devices. All the music sources work (except where there’s been a known outage) and I don’t have issues with volume controls like some users mention.

I can’t recall the last audio interruption or dropout either across my rooms or groups. So I have very little to complain about here.

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Ken_Griffiths

Even my old iPhone XR, which must be at least 4, or 5, years old (probably even older) and perhaps not as fast as more modern mobile devices, does a pretty good job as a Sonos controller with the new Sonos App… The old S2 App seemed to me to be far slower to startup and ‘discover’ my Sonos rooms and be in a position where it was ready to group rooms and play music to my speakers.

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Mr. T

Here’s a few UI/UX improvements that I would like:

Ability to easily remove System suggestions (ie. Trueplay speaker ABC) on an iPad Pro as the ’x’ is nearly impossible to select using a finger
All sliders to be as responsive as they were on S2; Sonos app requires much more precision
Ability to see all portable battery %s at a glance
Ability to hide a room
Ability to see on System screen if there’s an issue within a Stereo pair room
Ability to access EQ settings from Now Playing tab/pop up
Removal of a play/pause icon on grouping pop up that has no functionality when pressed
iPad Pro layout to fully utilise the available screen estate
Any interactions involving swiping to be moved away from the very edge of the screen
Improved layout for grouped room volumes
Remove the swipe down action that takes you to Home

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.

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Ken_Griffiths

Here’s a few UI/UX improvements that I would like:

Ability to easily remove System suggestions (ie. Trueplay speaker ABC) on an iPad Pro as the ’x’ is nearly impossible to select using a finger

Yes there is an option to turn off popup messages in ‘App Preferences’, but it’s clearly not working at the moment.

All sliders to be as responsive as they were on S2; Sonos app requires much more precision

I’m not having this issue, but appreciate that some users are seeing this issue.

Ability to see all portable battery %s at a glance
Ability to hide a room

Yes I’d like these two features too. I think the hide a room option will be in there at some point (well here’s hoping🤞).

Ability to see on System screen if there’s an issue within a Stereo pair room
Ability to access EQ settings from Now Playing tab/pop up

Yes, although it’s rare that I have a dropped speaker issue …and the EQ setting for me is not that important as it’s still accessible.

Removal of a play/pause icon on grouping pop up that has no functionality when pressed

I’m not sure what you are referring to here🤔?

iPad Pro layout to fully utilise the available screen estate
Any interactions involving swiping to be moved away from the very edge of the screen
Improved layout for grouped room volumes
Remove the swipe down action that takes you to Home

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea.

I’m again okay with what’s available already in the App and have got used to the areas mentioned here, but agree there’s room for improvement. The new App is undoubtedly a much better layout for a mobile phone user.

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Mr. T

@Ken_Griffiths - the first issue I mentioned is not related to disabling popup messages, it’s the user interface that currently does not work to remove the popup.

Secondly, the slider user interface is not about the responsiveness on the speakers, but the app itself when attempting to use the sliders.

I’m not with my system at the moment, but there was an erroneous play/pause icon on grouping popup. Potentially for the overall group, but the icon does nothing when pressed.

That’s fine, you can be okay with what’s already in the app, it doesn’t stop others expressing their opinions.

You say the new Sonos app is undoubtedly a much better layout for a mobile phone user. I personally don’t see much difference between new Sonos app and S2, but prefer the tabbed interface of S2. The Account and Settings icons are effectively tabs, even ‘Sonos’ takes you to Home Screen, but the UI is certainly not intuitive for users to know that, unless they tap it by mistake.

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Ken_Griffiths

@Ken_Griffiths - the first issue I mentioned is not related to disabling popup messages, it’s the user interface that currently does not work to remove the popup.

Secondly, the slider user interface is not about the responsiveness on the speakers, but the app itself when attempting to use the sliders.

I’m not with my system at the moment, but there was an erroneous play/pause icon on grouping popup. Potentially for the overall group, but the icon does nothing when pressed.

That’s fine, you can be okay with what’s already in the app, it doesn’t stop others expressing their opinions.

You say the new Sonos app is undoubtedly a much better layout for a mobile phone user. I personally don’t see much difference between new Sonos app and S2, but prefer the tabbed interface of S2. The Account and Settings icons are effectively tabs, even ‘Sonos’ takes you to Home Screen, but the UI is certainly not intuitive for users to know that, unless they tap it by mistake.

There’s always the Sonos online user-guide to assist those that maybe find it difficult to perhaps use the new App. It’s a helpful guide for anyone that’s new to Sonos.

https://www.sonos.com/en-us/guides/sonosapp

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