Just throwing my .02 in. The new app is simply terrible. You just don’t know what you are doing when trying to switch rooms/audio sources, totally non-intuitive interface. Amazon is broken and the inability to manage the queue as by far the biggest fail! The app should make it easy to pick sources, specify targets (rooms) and have an ability to manage the playlist(queue). This to me is the core functionality that should always be considered sacred, anything Sonos does should only enhance those functions and never degrade. Somehow Sonos managed to mess up all of them, simply brilliant. I do software development for a living and I get sometimes change is necessary but you always have to consider what the core functionality and that always needs to be managed to meet user expectations, not sure whose expectations they are targeting but they certainly did not target me, a loyal user for many years. I just spent a small fortune updating my new house with all new Sonos stuff, should not have gotten rid of my S1 system.

Future doesn’t look bright with everything cloud.

Perhaps don’t contact multiple log and tracking servers when starting the app?

I get that you might need them, but how about doing that AFTER the app has started and the GUI is loaded and all local devices are found?

Then get all functions as radio, Spotify, Apple Music etc.

And lastly get your log, track, monitor etc servers.

Ha, who am I kidding, the log, track and monitor servers are probably more important to Sonos then the music…

After all, we the users want the music, and we have seen how we are treated.

As they say, when someone shows you who they are, trust them.

Should have left at the S1 speakers can’t be on S2 systems artificial limitation

Different groups for S1 and S2 speakers in the same app would have been to difficult to understand for the user?

“ We know many of you are concerned about certain features going missing, so let us take this opportunity to say that the following features are coming back”.   Really? When? Some time, never?  Did you think that people who use Sonos for alarms and sleep timers every single day would just be happy to lose those facilities for an unspecified time?  I love my Sonos system, but I have no love for the managers and teams who thought that it was ok to remove important features in use by your loyal users day after day.  Are you trying to put people off from buying Sonos?

This is the worst app update I have ever seen.  

I have my entire house supported by various Sonos devices. I used to energetically recommend Sonos to anyone that was interested due to seamless connections and user friendliness. I will NOT recommend Sonos to anyone again until this new app is fixed.

Issues I have experienced with the app:

• every time I bring the app up it defaults to one Amp in my house and not the last used
• Playlists jump back to the very first song even when I am listening to the playlist (starts over)
• ‘Something went wrong, try again’ errors on playlists 
• Amps that AREN’T playing show they are and amps that ARE playing don’t show as selected, as a result I can’t adjust volumes on Amps that show as not selected (but are actually playing)

I’m sure I could find other issues, but the app is so poor, I just quit trying to use it due to the numerous issues and growing frustration. 

I’ve now sold 4 pieces of my Sonos kit, just two remaining, due to the fact that I just can’t trust Sonos to gate-keep a reliable system anymore.  This is the second time you have rolled out a disastrous app update.  We all make mistakes, and the important thing is to learn from them - something Sonos have demonstrated they are not very good at.

With two clear flaws in that core functionality for many users was simply removed without reason, and that the UI is generally extremely buggy, it just became dysfunctional.   What happened to Beta testing, where was the communication.  Why create such hype over something that wasn't fit for purpose?

I reached out a number of times to get you to make your previous app available in the App Store again until you sorted this mess out but honestly, the distain you have shown to your customers who have shelled out extremely good money for your products is unbelievable .

I certainly wont be buying Sonos again, and simply can't recommend them to others from this point forward.

Fixing the app doesn't even warrant me being able to recommend them again.  This is the 2nd app rollout they have messed up.  Even when they eventually sort the issues out they simply can't be trusted anymore.

Sonos new app missing most features that were available in prior app version

You released a buggy new app version, removing crucial features and rendering it useless, even breaking my Sonos System. Despite promises of better ultimate listening experience, you're only planning to reintroduce these features later as if they're new and per your support staff this was actually planned to remove features and provide them back with later updates. This decision is inexcusable. Let me know when my Sonos system will work again because your new app is useless.  How did you decide what features are important enough to bring back in the updates in your new Sonos app.  Just curious which ones you think are important to your customers.  I mean we pay for the products so maybe we should have had a voice. 
 

The missing features was actually the plan. Per the Sonos support

“ (5/7/2024, 1:18:12 PM): I'm not joking around it. All the information that was given to me about the new app, and these missing features is that they will be missing on the release that is happening now, but they should be added in a future update. ””

No cover art.

In general, do you mean? Only I do actually see cover Art in the Web App?

My complaints about the Web App are that the Homepage icons are a bit big - I’d like to see them smaller and more of them. Also it needs a full-size ‘Now Playing’ screen made available from the ‘Mini-Player’ bar at the bottom of the screen. Here’s the landscape view of the App…

I hope Sonos has fixed the issue with mesh networks if they are discontinuing SonosNet, as I had to resort to SonosNet because my speakers kept disappearing from the app if they weren’t all connected to the same node in my mesh WiFi. 

 

No cover art in my playlists nor in music from my library (if I see it, for it comes and goes at random).

They knew that the features were missing when the app was released.  That is entirely different than planning to release the app with features intentionally missing as if it was some sort of plan to intentionally make the app worse for customers.  No doubt that the plan was to have a fully functioning app available when it was released last week, but the development and testing did not complete in time, and Sonos decided (surely based on information we don’t have and probably don’t matter to consumers) to release anyway rather than postpone.

Wow

My Home Sonos setup is running on a Plume WiFi-6AX Mesh setup and that’s working just fine. All SNR levels in the App are well above the 45dB “Strong Connection" level that now displays in the new App and no issues seen with SSDP multicast device discovery and no audio dropouts too. So things are/have improved, I would guess.

I can’t see me returning my system to the old SonosNet connection myself, I’m beginning to see that as perhaps bygone times, but I guess not every WiFi mesh system, or network environment, can be accounted for these days either.

As a user, it has been quite some time since this incident occurred.
We recognize that this incident is already not only a problem for your software development team, but should be addressed company-wide as a crisis management issue.
Due to the nature of your product, unlike hardware products, the application affects almost all existing users.
Also, this incident is not about a simple bug.
As a company, you have made a decision to unilaterally remove several basic functions without prior notice to users.
Therefore, this incident has the potential to result in the loss of existing customers and various other risks to the company's operations.
It would be better if the impact of this incident on users and their reactions had been escalated internally and the entire company, including management, had responded to it....
I hope that your company can recover from the loss of corporate credibility and customer experience caused by the mishandling of the release procedure and decision-making of this new version by taking smooth and prompt action.

I completely agree and there is evidence for this as the screenshots and documentation released shows the completed App screens and some of the features that are missing - here is just one quick example of it….

They did make a decision to hype the app, use visuals (like screen caps that showed queue controls) and language that omitted that features that some might find important will be missing. They knew the lack of voiceover support was going to make the systems inaccessible (beta tester leaked this fact). Surely if they had to release on schedule the hype machine should have included some asterisks. 

There’s dozens of bugs. You are being way to generous to Sonos framing this as an oopsie they didn’t see coming. 

I’m still on v16.1 of the app, but I’m considering downgrading my hardware to S1 so I can use the old app. I don’t want/need my system connected to the cloud and to be “music service” centric. I just want to be able to search and listen to my local music library. The only issue is my Roam is not compatible with S1, but it has issues connecting half the time, so no great loss.

I’m going to wait and see how this car crash pans out first...

If it’s an Android controller you are using, I ‘think’ the library art is a known issue. I’ve seen others mention it and presumably Sonos are aware. The Artwork is working okay on iOS at the moment as far as I’m aware and is okay for me. Either way, I understand that selecting the icons though should still start playback.

Hope it gets fixed for you soon.

How do I reinstall the old version? Thanks.

I’m on iOS… 

The only thing working for me as it should is still the old faithful Windows Desktop Controller.

Intermittent cover art in iOS for me in music services. No local library cover art. Music library source list comes and goes, requires a force close. 

So many bugs. 

As a long time Sonos user, I am very disappointed with the latest app.   The app cannot:

1. Turn on/off spkrs in different rooms with the toggle like before.  Now this porcesss of leaving music on in one room while turning it off in another is a multi-tap process that often must be repeated several times.  This is bad. 
2. No alarms ?   There is no alarm feature on the new app. How is that even possible that someone green-lighted that as ok ?

I have invested heavily over the years in Sonos products at multiple locations. I am always generally impressed with the quality and sound. BUT STOP MESSING WITH THE APP !!  As soon as folks figure it out, it gets updated and we have start over with troubleshooting. STOP IT !

Pete Curran

Los Angeles