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Your feedback on the new Sonos App


Hi Everyone

We moderators of the community - @Corry P@Jamie A & @Sotiris C. - wanted to take an opportunity to explain some of what is currently happening on the community.

First of all, we value all the feedback you are providing about the new Sonos App. We hear you. Feedback is coming in fast and thick, however - for understandable reasons - and to be frank, we are having trouble just keeping up with it all. For this reason, some topics that have not yet been replied to will go unanswered. We will, however, do our best to amalgamate some of these separate threads into bigger, related threads (such as one big thread for Alarm complaints and another for Queue Management) to be answered en-mass. The threads that are feedback on other aspects of the new app will be merged with this post.

Threads that describe issues such as missing rooms and app crashes (those that are not just feedback, in other words) will be answered, as will threads not relating to the new app in anyway, but these will take a bit longer than normal.

Please be aware that we are reading every post, we are recording and collating all feedback, and all of it will be passed over to the app software development team. In addition, we are doing our best to identify previously unidentified issues and report them to our technical teams.

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:

  • Alarms management
  • Sleep timers
  • Queue management
  • Playlist editing

In addition and contrary to some speculation, local Music Library is not going anywhere, though SMBv1 support has been permanently removed. Local Music Library searching is something that is still being worked on.

We’d also like to thank everyone who has taken it upon themselves to help others here with their questions and concerns - we appreciate you all!

Thanks for listening - take care of yourselves, and each other.

 

Combined threads:

General feedback (not relating specifically to those below):

Queue management: 

Alarms:

Playlists: 

Music Library:

Sleep Timers:

 

Please note that there is an official statement that can be read here.

 

OMG AGAIN SONOS? I am so glad I watched Peter Pee before updating ...I read that trueplay doesn't work, speakers dropping from network, and other issues...All I wanted was individual channel volume control for my surround sound and to be able to set locations of additional speakers.What do you send instead? A bag of useless crap.Wishing Sonos would listen to customers and move more quickly with issues than like the post 14.10 update that killed sub sound that took months to fix.

They should just let us download the last working version of S2. Will let us use our products while buying them time to put out the dumpster fire. 


Can you PLEASE give us the old app back while you work on this MESS?  Had company over tonight & couldn’t even play music!  When I did get something playing all it did is skip in & out.  I’ve spent thousands on speakers & it’s all GARBAGE at the moment!


Can you PLEASE give us the old app back while you work on this MESS?  Had company over tonight & couldn’t even play music!  When I did get something playing all it did is skip in & out.  I’ve spent thousands on speakers & it’s all GARBAGE at the moment!

100%


Please give the old app back until the fixes are made!


As someone who works in software development, I’m shocked how bad this update is. I’d recommend giving people the opportunity to revert to the old app while iterating on the new app in a test environment. Not sure if it was beta’d first, but that’s probably a better home for it now. Potential is there, just definitely not ready to replace old app.


At least some of you can use the app…!!

On the iOS app I cannot reconnect to the sonos system or re-add it as its not accepting local network connections despite being turned on...

  

so after an hour on hold i finally got through to support and they confirmed this is an issue they are working on. He was able to remote access my iphone and remote view and access the dignostics log etc. seems to be a possible Pro Max issue 

Currently using the MacOs app and have control of the system again along with NAS library, apps and alarms…. which I am currently happy with as a work around

 


I run the app on my iPhone 15.
Since the app update my albums pinned from Spotify won’t load.
I get an error “Unable to load content”
Is anyone else experiencing this too?


If you are good at network stuff, I found I can make the new app really pissed off by blocking Sonos.com domains. 
 

my ad blocking appliance has this this for me IF I wish to cut off access from my home to sonos.com sites. 
 

Good luck to us all!

That’s because the new app uses the Web API, not the Sonos Control API.  The new app is basically a reskinned version of play.sonos.com.

  • That’s why it’s slow.  Everything you try to do goes back through Sonos servers.
  • Thats why you’ve lost functionality.  It basically has the functionality of the web version of sonos.
  • That’s why they rolled it out.  They want to do away with local control and do everything in the cloud

That’s because the new app uses the Web API, not the Sonos Control API.  The new app is basically a reskinned version of play.sonos.com.

  • That’s why it’s slow.  Everything you try to do goes back through Sonos servers.
  • Thats why you’ve lost functionality.  It basically has the functionality of the web version of sonos.
  • That’s why they rolled it out.  They want to do away with local control and do everything in the cloud

Are you suggesting that in future they want all the good little Sonos piggies to get their daily dose only by latching on to the mother sow?


If you are good at network stuff, I found I can make the new app really pissed off by blocking Sonos.com domains. 
 

my ad blocking appliance has this this for me IF I wish to cut off access from my home to sonos.com sites. 
 

Good luck to us all!

That’s because the new app uses the Web API, not the Sonos Control API.  The new app is basically a reskinned version of play.sonos.com.

  • That’s why it’s slow.  Everything you try to do goes back through Sonos servers.
  • Thats why you’ve lost functionality.  It basically has the functionality of the web version of sonos.
  • That’s why they rolled it out.  They want to do away with local control and do everything in the cloud

This is an interesting post - explains quite a lot.  Thanks. 


Is it possible to go back to the original S2 app without the update??


Bonjour 

Je viens de rentrer de vacances et j'ai découvert la nouvelle version de l'application,  quelle horreur 😡

Tout était plutôt bien avec la S2 , celle ci est horrible à utiliser , comment Sonos peut mettre en place cette app c'est une aberration,  qui a validé celle ci chez Sonos,  ceux ci doivent vivre dans un monde parallèle et pas dans celui des utilisateurs et CLIENTS de Sonos

Faites vite pour une nouvelle mise à jour facile d'utilisation comme S1 ou S2, sinon je changerai de matériel 

 


What the F Sonos?!?… really messed up here!

I haven’t read anything about this so far, but seems there are some serious issues with the new OS. I noticed that all works better as of the moment you start working with fixed IP’s. “Lost” speakers are back and stable… the IP’s do not get released on the devices so DHCP can not allocate the right IP to the various devices.

before the fixed IP I noticed that often addresses were claimed that were take , resulting in some serious general network issues, with outages and serious performance degradations.

I don not understand how such an immature product got shipped. Also, if so, you would expect almost daily updates…


Well I’m perhaps going to play ‘devils advocate’ here, as I like the layout/concept of the new App. Yes there are features missing, but I accept they’re on their way. I can wait patiently for those.

I agree with @sjw’s comment th…….

 

In general I agree, but….

  • It is ok to further develop exisiting products and software and it is also ok to release this at an early stage to get customer feedback
  • the product should clearly be marked as “Beta” then and customers should have the choice to participate in the program or not. This is very common with Android apps, at least.
  • core functions are missing or near to be broken (and I do not mean the alarm or slumber functions)

Unfortunately I decided two days ago to reconfigure my Sonos system. Have you tried to set up a system with the new app? Have you tried to connect Alexa? Good luck! Without rollback to the old app I would not have been able to use my Sonos right now. The setup is a mess and you need several attemps to bring a speaker back to work. Alexa is literally impossible as the new app isn’t able to connect to Amazon Alexa. And now wait for months to bring the app back to work? Without the app, Sonos is brickware only…..

Ralph


This just popped up on the Mac desktop app.

Nice try Sonos...nice try. 

No. Not in a million years.

 

 


Nice try Sonos...nice try. 

No. Not in a million years.

 

 

I think it’s pretty bold to continue with the updates now…..


That’s because the new app uses the Web API, not the Sonos Control API.  The new app is basically a reskinned version of play.sonos.com.

  • That’s why it’s slow.  Everything you try to do goes back through Sonos servers.
  • Thats why you’ve lost functionality.  It basically has the functionality of the web version of sonos.
  • That’s why they rolled it out.  They want to do away with local control and do everything in the cloud

Firstly if you inspect network connections on play.sonos.com you will see all api requests go through a websocket connection to wss://api.ws.sonos.com/websocket, which is not officially documented but looking at the request data follows the publicly documented Control API:

l{"command":"setVolume","namespace":"groupVolume","groupId":"XXX","authorization":"XXX","corrId":"XXX"},{"volume":69}]

https://docs.sonos.com/reference/groupvolume-setvolume-groupid

As for “Everything you try to do goes back through Sonos servers.” anyone can prove this baseless claim wrong by doing the following:

  • open the mobile app and play something on a device
  • disconnect your WAN cable from your wifi router so you have no internet but still have wireless
  • adjust the volume of the playing device

You may notice the volume of the device changes with no internet, and this person is literally just making things up.

I could go on. Honestly, what absolute rubbish.

 

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


Well, I gave Sonos a few days and it seems that the most we are going to get out of this company, is the ‘courage’ statement to save face. (Not that it does in any way) I, like so many others, have spent thousands on my Sonos setup at my home. What I have now is a non-functioning environment that is so glitchy that’s it’s not even worth trying to use, with a vague Sonos promise to fix it within month to months away versus doing the actual courageous thing and backing out this release until they can transform their alpha release into a final product fully tested by their QA team and actually ready for release. I think it’s high classic action lawsuit time since a ton of money is the only way Sonos is going to listen to their user base. I’m not sure how this is done, but if someone could start the process, I’ll gladly join it.


Well as has been stated here this release is terrible. I have reverted to a previous version as described in the thread here:

and disabled all updates until it is fixed and functionality is returned (esp. local libraries). 

I am a long term Sonos user but if there is not some movement on this then all my kit (not insubstantial) will be headed for auction. This app version is truly unusable and should never have been foisted on us. All that has been achieved is the alienation of a once(?) loyal user base... 🤬🤬 


Well, I gave Sonos a few days and it seems that the most we are going to get out of this company, is the ‘courage’ statement to save face. (Not that it does in any way) I, like so many others, have spent thousands on my Sonos setup at my home. What I have now is a non-functioning environment that is so glitchy that’s it’s not even worth trying to use, with a vague Sonos promise to fix it within month to months away versus doing the actual courageous thing and backing out this release until they can transform their alpha release into a final product fully tested by their QA team and actually ready for release. I think it’s high classic action lawsuit time since a ton of money is the only way Sonos is going to listen to their user base. I’m not sure how this is done, but if someone could start the process, I’ll gladly join it.


I am curious about people who claim their devices are bricked, non-functional, ‘missing’ etc.  I am of course sympathetic if your system is genuinely unusable.  I’m lucky that I don’t have any issues — I mean I’m missing those things other people are missing.  But apart from being buggy with the  occasional error message, it does work and I can pick and choose music both from my own library and from Amazon music.  I am sure also that those with the biggest issues will be more prominent on here.  Again I sympathise if your issues are extreme, but it’s curious how users are having wildly different experiences with this.  There is nothing special about my system, after all. 


In the end, we are not talking about a $ 5.99 app, but about a product, that is essential to use equipment that can be worth thousands of $. And in this case, a bit more attention from Sonos would be very nice.

I've got my equipment back to work again, but that was nothing that I consider as a good user experience. I think, if I've just bought my first Sonos, I would have it returned.


Two simple things I miss:

- Seeing the actual volume "number" when adjusting volume in the app. 

- Seeing the actual battery "percentage" remaining for portable speakers without having to dig so deep.


I am astounded at this complete stuff up. This feels like a company ending move. I can’t even access my system after the update, and there is no guidance or assistance from Sonos. It is astounding how what was once a great system has steadily been eroded. This latest effort though takes the cake. The lack of communication shows the complete contempt Sonos now has for its loyal customers. I suspect PE has taken over and are just ripping the guts out of the company. What a disgrace!


You seriously signed off a piece of software that removes the ability to add a track to the upcoming queue? That prevents you from adding a track to a playlist? That prevents you from saving a new playlist? 

What is this - are you run by schoolkids? I have eight SONOS speakers in my house. What a great experience it now is. And then you say, have patience? Why didn’t you just get it6 right first time?


The new UI is more modern, but many features are missing. This is not the way to release a new update; it feels like an alpha version.

I don’t like how every page is displayed. The back button is near the Sonos logo instead of near the page title. I suggest removing the logo and placing the title of the selected page there.

 


Well, I gave Sonos a few days and it seems that the most we are going to get out of this company, is the ‘courage’ statement to save face. (Not that it does in any way) I, like so many others, have spent thousands on my Sonos setup at my home. What I have now is a non-functioning environment that is so glitchy that’s it’s not even worth trying to use, with a vague Sonos promise to fix it within month to months away versus doing the actual courageous thing and backing out this release until they can transform their alpha release into a final product fully tested by their QA team and actually ready for release. I think it’s high classic action lawsuit time since a ton of money is the only way Sonos is going to listen to their user base. I’m not sure how this is done, but if someone could start the process, I’ll gladly join it.


I am curious about people who claim their devices are bricked, non-functional, ‘missing’ etc.  I am of course sympathetic if your system is genuinely unusable.  I’m lucky that I don’t have any issues — I mean I’m missing those things other people are missing.  But apart from being buggy with the  occasional error message, it does work and I can pick and choose music both from my own library and from Amazon music.  I am sure also that those with the biggest issues will be more prominent on here.  Again I sympathise if your issues are extreme, but it’s curious how users are having wildly different experiences with this.  There is nothing special about my system, after all. 

 

No issues eh?

“I’m lucky that I don’t have any issues — I mean I’m missing those things other people are missing.  But apart from being buggy with the  occasional error message,”


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