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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.

 

3397 replies

F
Userlevel 5
Badge +1

Fire your app developers!!!!

If it’s not the app developers than I apologize as I don’t know the chain of command. Whoever gave final release on putting this app out needs to be fired though. 

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Can someone explain why a broken beta version of an app is released right before a holiday?  If memory serves me right, you did this once before creating a storm of angry people. Why didn’t you learn from that debacle? 

What holiday was that? 

More likely to do with the announcement to the shareholders painting a rosy picture.. 

https://investors.sonos.com/news-and-events/investor-news/latest-news/2024/Sonos-Reports-Second-Quarter-Fiscal-2024-Results/default.aspx

Bring back the old Sonos app. It was clunky, but it actually worked!
A
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Has anyone successfully upgraded to the S1 app since the new app was released this month?

Bring back the old Sonos app. It was clunky, but it actually worked!
G
Userlevel 2

I’m a very technical IT person who has a lot of SONOS products and want my system and network configured correctly.  I spent a lot of time on this to get things working right, and I do not appreciate controls and items being completely removed from my view and control.  We pay a PREMIUM for these products and I expect to be able to use and control them as I always have.  That being said I’ve never been more disappointed and appalled at an “update” where it seems the app and control of everything has been stripped down to nothing.  You had a really good app, please allow us to revert back while and until all the below items have been resolved.

  • SONOS NET vs WI-FI Configuration Gone:  I don’t want my SONOS products on my WI-FI network interfering with other devices.  How do I know my system config communication wise now?  How do I select the channel I want SONOS NET on?
  • Line-In Labels Gone:  I have 4 different Line-In sources I use daily (Bedroom Bluetooth, Living Room TV Audio, Office AV Component, Basement Bluetooth) and now I have no idea which one is playing at any given time on any of my 10 different devices/rooms because the actual room label and input name have been removed.  “Line-In” is all you see now as playing and that is useless to me.
  • Line-In Favorites, Show Them All:  I don’t want to have to click twice into Line-In to then again select my source.  Put it back like it was where I could simply click ONE TIME.
  • Audio Compression Control Gone:  Being that I use a bluetooth receiver as line-in a lot, I liked being able to compress audio when needed since I’m all around the house, and uncompress when I want to use my TV as an input and sync with the video.  Now I have no idea if its being compressed or not, seems like its not though.  That control was huge for me.
  • Boost Not Even Recognized in System:  Are they being used anymore?  I spent a lot of time tuning my wi-fi network to utilize different channels as not to interfere with the SONOS network, the boosts were key in extending connectivity in my tri-level home where communication isn’t easy.  My SONOS devices closest to the boosts benefitted from having them nearby to ensure smooth audio especially when pushing out streaming video audio.  Do I have 2 devices now that are just useless?
  • Music Library Not Included in Search:  I know songs are going to be in Spotify, Pandora, etc.  I’m primarily playing from my music library and need to be able to quickly find the items in there, not on the internet.
  • App Home Loading Issues:  The prior app seemed to store your system config in memory and then just need to connect to wi-fi to allow interaction, which allowed it to load very quickly.  This new app keeps nothing in memory and takes a bit to load completely even when my wi-fi connection is solid, and sometimes disconnects from system even when I have very solid wi-fi.

PS: Maybe form a Beta Testers group and release your updated app to a small number of competent, long term SONOS users BEFORE updating the app store and pushing it out to the masses.  That’s what real development entities do and is what I require of any dev project I’m managing where it affects a large number of users.  This new app and so many of its “updates” would have NEVER made it to production if that had been done.

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

I’m a very technical IT person who has a lot of SONOS products and want my system and network configured correctly.  I spent a lot of time on this to get things working right, and I do not appreciate controls and items being completely removed from my view and control.  We pay a PREMIUM for these products and I expect to be able to use and control them as I always have.  That being said I’ve never been more disappointed and appalled at an “update” where it seems the app and control of everything has been stripped down to nothing.  You had a really good app, please allow us to revert back while and until all the below items have been resolved.

  • SONOS NET vs WI-FI Configuration Gone:  I don’t want my SONOS products on my WI-FI network interfering with other devices.  How do I know my system config communication wise now?  How do I select the channel I want SONOS NET on?
  • Line-In Labels Gone:  I have 4 different Line-In sources I use daily (Bedroom Bluetooth, Living Room TV Audio, Office AV Component, Basement Bluetooth) and now I have no idea which one is playing at any given time on any of my 10 different devices/rooms because the actual room label and input name have been removed.  “Line-In” is all you see now as playing and that is useless to me.
  • Line-In Favorites, Show Them All:  I don’t want to have to click twice into Line-In to then again select my source.  Put it back like it was where I could simply click ONE TIME.
  • Audio Compression Control Gone:  Being that I use a bluetooth receiver as line-in a lot, I liked being able to compress audio when needed since I’m all around the house, and uncompress when I want to use my TV as an input and sync with the video.  Now I have no idea if its being compressed or not, seems like its not though.  That control was huge for me.
  • Boost Not Even Recognized in System:  Are they being used anymore?  I spent a lot of time tuning my wi-fi network to utilize different channels as not to interfere with the SONOS network, the boosts were key in extending connectivity in my tri-level home *Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*where communication isn’t easy.  My SONOS devices closest to the boosts benefitted from having them nearby to ensure smooth audio especially when pushing out streaming video audio.  Do I have 2 devices now that are just useless?
  • Music Library Not Included in Search:  I know songs are going to be in Spotify, Pandora, etc.  I’m primarily playing from my music library and need to be able to quickly find the items in there, not on the internet.
  • App Home Loading Issues:  The prior app seemed to store your system config in memory and then just need to connect to wi-fi to allow interaction, which allowed it to load very quickly.  This new app keeps nothing in memory and takes a bit to load completely even when my wi-fi connection is solid, and sometimes disconnects from system even when I have very solid wi-fi.

Downgrade to v16.1 if you are on Android, and pray they either come to their senses and publish the old app separately, or bring the new app up to feature parity with the old app quickly. 

Tbh I think neither are likely now. They are not apologising or admitting they screwed up by publishing the app before it was ready. Plus the new app is so far from ready it will take months and months to make it usable.

As others have said it's a *!

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

Bring back the old Sonos app. It was clunky, but it actually worked!
S
Userlevel 6
Badge +6

I’m not one to throw the baby out with the bath water but do have a concern in regards to my not having access to my Music Library. We’ve always just used an SSD connected to our iMac (both relatively new devices and previously serving our Sonos needs) to store the music files. The concern lies with the timeline given by moderators for when my seemingly easy fix will be applied: MID-JUNE. Whaaaaat?!?  Cory: please correct me if I’m wrong because I really wanna be wrong right now.

J
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Can we just get the old app back until you fix this piece of garage?!?

K

I joined this group because the new app is really bad. I don’t like the look, not user friendly, slow, very unresponsive, seems unstable on my end. Awful. 

K
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Can someone explain why a broken beta version of an app is released right before a holiday?  If memory serves me right, you did this once before creating a storm of angry people. Why didn’t you learn from that debacle? 

What holiday was that? 

Maybe Memorial day? Or they did release it right before Mothers day. Not sure what other holidays in the US there are right now.

K

I now can’t play anything on any speakers. Have probably 7000 in Sonos stuff and am currently using a Bluetooth speaker. Insane. 

Ken_Griffiths

I’m not one to throw the baby out with the bath water but do have a concern in regards to my not having access to my Music Library. We’ve always just used an SSD connected to our iMac (both relatively new devices and previously serving our Sonos needs) to store the music files. The concern lies with the timeline given by moderators for when my seemingly easy fix will be applied: MID-JUNE. Whaaaaat?!?  Cory: please correct me if I’m wrong because I really wanna be wrong right now.

That’s not whats coming mid-June? That’s going to be support for local libraries, such as indexing, search etc.

Those features will be to support any local library that’s currently in the new App now.

The new Sonos App no longer provides support for insecurely connected local libraries using SMB v1 and http sharing protocols. It will only support SMB 2 or higher. So any library using that newer method of file sharing can be seen in the App right now, it can be browsed and tracks played from it on Sonos devices.

So if your library is not working at this moment in time you might need to find out why, as the changes coming are unrelated to seeing the library in the new App.

You perhaps might also find this link below helpful albeit it relates to a Windows SMB 2 shares, rather than a MAC PC, but it’s a similar issue:

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers%2Dand%2Dmusic%2Dservices%2D229131/adding%2Da%2Dwindows%2Dsmb%2Dshare%2Dstep%2Dby%2Dstep%2D6892060

Anyhow I hope the above helps.👍

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

I now can’t play anything on any speakers. Have probably 7000 in Sonos stuff and am currently using a Bluetooth speaker. Insane. 

Lesson learned?  Big bucks doesn't always mean big sound 😎

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
K

For sure 🤪

R
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Does anyone else look at their Sonos app home screen every time they want to do something and say “Where do I go for that again?” and press the wrong thing? Like tapping the bottom playback pill, thinking it brings up the list of speakers when in fact you need to swipe up the bottom playback pill (or tap the name of your system) to do that… There are so many UX missteps (and I’m pretty technologically adept).

S
Userlevel 6
Badge +6

Hello, Ken_Griffiths… I believe the SMBv2 only applies only to Windows OS systems, right? At least that’s all that I saw in various searches done, including the link that you provided. I’ve always been on an iMac with an SSD drive connected. It’s gotta be THE most straightforward method of storing a music library short of having it on the home drive of a computer as it’s directly part of the USB Bus system on the iMac. My Music Library appeared briefly the other night but, disappeared the next time I opened the app. I thought that, possibly, the iMac needed to be on thus it not showing up (it was visible before but, obviously, couldn’t play the music until I fired up the iMac).  Nothing worked.  So, I tried installing the new desktop controller so that our iPhones were same-same with the iMac. No luck. The installation of the update failed repeatedly and, the iMac is only two years old with a relatively new version of the Mac OS on it. Somewhere in the new app on my iphone, I was prompted to Update my products. No stinkin’ way - as my TV/Sonos connection works fine and I didn’t want to screw that up too.

Ken_Griffiths

Does anyone else look at their Sonos app home screen every time they want to do something and say “Where do I go for that again?” and press the wrong thing? Like tapping the bottom playback pill, thinking it brings up the list of speakers when in fact you need to swipe up the bottom playback pill (or tap the name of your system) to do that… There are so many UX missteps (and I’m pretty technologically adept).

That’s perhaps just a case of unfamiliarity with the App, I suspect.

It’s not been a week yet. That said, there are some things in various Apps that I do ‘mistakenly’, but I guess we all may do things differently and have our own expectations of how things might work. It’s also frustrating when they don’t work as expected.

Also there’s never a case where the developers will be able to please all the people, all the time. 

I presume how everyone uses the App is being monitored aswell and if something can be improved, then that may come later.

Ken_Griffiths

Hello, Ken_Griffiths… I believe the SMBv2 only applies only to Windows OS systems, right? At least that’s all that I saw in various searches done, including the link that you provided. I’ve always been on an iMac with an SSD drive connected. It’s gotta be THE most straightforward method of storing a music library short of having it on the home drive of a computer as it’s directly part of the USB Bus system on the iMac. My Music Library appeared briefly the other night but, disappeared the next time I opened the app. I thought that, possibly, the iMac needed to be on thus it not showing up (it was visible before but, obviously, couldn’t play the music until I fired up the iMac).  Nothing worked.  So, I tried installing the new desktop controller so that our iPhones were same-same with the iMac. No luck. The installation of the update failed repeatedly and, the iMac is only two years old with a relatively new version of the Mac OS on it. Somewhere in the new app on my iphone, I was prompted to Update my products. No stinkin’ way - as my TV/Sonos connection works fine and I didn’t want to screw that up too.

No it applies to every NAS, Windows, or MAC, shared music library - I just gave a link to the Windows setup as one ‘example’ only, I use an SMBv3 share for my local music library on a Linux based NAS for example.

If the share is anything other than SMBv2 or higher then it won’t work with the new Sonos App/System going forward. The compatible libraries should be seen in the App now. See (merged) screenshot from my Sonos App.

 

V
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

, I use an SMBv3 share for my l music library on my Linux based NAS for example.

 

Does your SONOS system work to play music from this source when your internet is offline?

AMPx2, One SLx6, Play5x2, SUBx2, Play1x2, Move, Roam (Yuck), ARC, PlayBar, Beam, SYMFONISKx2, Awful New App.
R
Userlevel 7
Badge +15

Does anyone else look at their Sonos app home screen every time they want to do something and say “Where do I go for that again?” and press the wrong thing? Like tapping the bottom playback pill, thinking it brings up the list of speakers when in fact you need to swipe up the bottom playback pill (or tap the name of your system) to do that… There are so many UX missteps (and I’m pretty technologically adept).

That’s perhaps just a case of unfamiliarity with the App, I suspect.

It’s not been a week yet. That said, there are some things in various Apps that I do ‘mistakenly’, but I guess we all may do things differently and have our own expectations of how things might work. It’s also frustrating when they don’t work as expected.

Also there’s never a case where the developers will be able to please all the people, all the time. 

I presume how everyone uses the App is being monitored aswell and if something can be improved, then that may come later.

Hi. I get that, and I am getting used to it, but it’s just not intuitive in its user journey like an app should be. It doesn’t always follow recognised norms or patterns, with things not taking you to where you expect or being situated where you expect to find them. An app should not be hard work to use or require you to stop and think every time. But as you say, I’m sure this will undergo a lot of additional work to hone the UX and the UI in due course. 

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

Does anyone else look at their Sonos app home screen every time they want to do something and say “Where do I go for that again?” and press the wrong thing? Like tapping the bottom playback pill, thinking it brings up the list of speakers when in fact you need to swipe up the bottom playback pill (or tap the name of your system) to do that… There are so many UX missteps (and I’m pretty technologically adept).

That’s perhaps just a case of unfamiliarity with the App, I suspect.

It’s not been a week yet. That said, there are some things in various Apps that I do ‘mistakenly’, but I guess we all may do things differently and have our own expectations of how things might work. It’s also frustrating when they don’t work as expected.

Also there’s never a case where the developers will be able to please all the people, all the time. 

I presume how everyone uses the App is being monitored aswell and if something can be improved, then that may come later.

I couldn't possibly comment, but.... this Web app design & layout is pretty horrendous:

 

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
Ken_Griffiths

, I use an SMBv3 share for my l music library on my Linux based NAS for example.

 

Does your SONOS system work to play music from this source when your internet is offline?

I’ve not tested that at the moment as I have not had the opportunity to see if the App still works with the internet disconnected, with the WiFi network still up and running, but I’m not the best person to test this as my router and mesh WiFi (Plume) is cloud based too

Ken_Griffiths

@castalla,

I guess it may all depend on the local device and browser used. This is my Sonos Web App (portrait mode) on an iPad Safari web browser for example…

 

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

@castalla,

I guess it may all depend on the local device and browser used. This is my Sonos Web App (portrait mode) on an iPad Safari web browser for example…

 

You're probably correct - but the differences between OSs, browsers and devices aren't going to endear the new Sonos experience to very many users.  The aim should be to create an agnostic interface. 

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
Ken_Griffiths

I personally see the new App Homepage as being similar to the old "My Sonos" (favourites) Tab, but it is now making use of a combined Search feature, that lets me search either one, or all of the streaming music sources I’ve installed. Amazon Music, BBC Sounds, Plex etc.

The slide up ‘room-selector’ screen is somewhat like old ‘System/Rooms’ (grouping) Tab’. It’s now available from anywhere in the App - which is a nice touch.

Then there’s still a ‘Settings’ area (cog icon) that leads to a list of rooms and their settings, such as EQ/Line-in features etc.

An embedded "manage"area off that for various other global settings, such as Alarms.

And finally there is the user Account settings (other image icon) top of screen.

I find it has (or will have) the same features as the old S2 App, but it’s certainly not yet finished and it needs the missing bits and then it can be tidied up and optimised. The AMA also said they would be looking at improving some screens for better App display on Tablets, such as the iPad etc. 

I’m perhaps ‘forever the optimist’ as I can see the potential in this new App, but it’s clearly not there yet and I can’t give judgement, personally speaking, until it’s development is taken further down the line.

S
Userlevel 6
Badge +6

Ken_Griffiths… Well, that’s sad. My Music Library doesn’t show up in “Your Sources” on my iPhone app. The email that came out May 2nd by Sonos gave a link:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/add-your-music-library-to-sonos?utm_source=sfmc_520002004&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=son_bt_eng_afs_eol-legacyshares-announcement-null&utm_term=2024-05-02&bid=&uid=112731505&sid=0031N00001RwbzmQAB

It details how one goes to Manage, select Music Library Settings then, use the “+” on a Mac to add the Library. Unfortunately, there is no “Music Library Settings” that shows up to select. Looks like I’m S.O.L.

From said May 2 email regarding SMBv, I thought it only applied to external DACs or some other devices, not a lowly SSD drive.

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