Google Playstore (Germany)… now down to 1.2 and more than 170k feedbacks. Whats is most interesting.. no reaction or answer or whatever from Sonos. It must be really important for them to proceed this way to whatever end. I cannot believe, that it is only the upcoming headset,  that isn't available, yet. The lack of communication makes me believe, that many users might not be very happy with their plans.

Yes!!! it works….. Thank you!

really frustrated with this new app !

don’t have time for this.

just want it to be as it was .

thats what i chose when i purchased the system .

this is not what i would have purchased had i have known it would have changed to this terrible app .

how do i go back to the old app please ?

Someone above posted this: “So am I the only one who read this about local music libraries, which is the point in question here (see below) - this was widely discussed here in the community too… I had notifications/emails as well, long before the new App was released.”

I got THE single email on May 2nd that in part reads:

“We want to let you know that in the upcoming months, Sonos will no longer support streaming audio files from HTTP and SMB1 local music libraries on S2 products.”

Later in that same email:

“Sonos allows you to stream your music library from any computer, or network attached storage drive, to your Sonos system. This article will show you how to add your music library using the Sonos app for macOS or Windows.”

Honestly, when I received this, I read the entire thing. I also honestly didn’t think I had an SMB1 local music library because I had no stinking idea what SMB was.  I was ignorantly blissful and figured that whatever was going to happen wasn’t going to effect my simple little setup. I know that I’m not alone in my assumptions.

It honestly blows me away that Sonos could think it reasonable to remove core functionality (local library support, queue management, etc) in an app update, say “it'll come back at some stage”, and provide no way to revert to the version where it did work.  I'm stunned that anyone could think this would be acceptable.

WHY IS THE OLD APP NOT BEING MADE AVAILABLE AGAIN?  I just don't get it.

I moved to a Roon Ready amp ( a Hegel) for my music room some time ago.  I'm tempted to just move to Roon to control my Sonos speakers now too - until they die - and then replace them with some other Roon Ready speakers (Bluesound or similar).

I am an intensive Sonos user. I love its sound quality. I have recommended it to many people, and I practically listen to music as much as I am at home. But I am desperate with the new application. The waiting times are exasperating. When you have more than one speaker playing together, simply trying to change the volume in one of the rooms is maddening.

I have revived an old iPad with an outdated version of iOS to be able to use the previous version of the Sonos app. Please. Fix this as soon as possible. I need to see all my playlists, my services, my speakers... but why the insistence on putting everything on the main screen?

Fix the search. Sometimes I have to perform wizardry to find titles in my library. Please, you have great hardware. Take a moment, breathe. Take your time to create an app that matches the quality of the speakers. We will be patient. And in the meantime, let us use the old app.

1. Go to a apk website where you can download Sonos 16.1. I used apkpure.com
2. uninstall new sonos app.
3. Instal old sonos app, you’ll find it in you ‘my files’ - ‘downloads’
4. in old sonos app go to settings - system - system updates - and make sure ‘update automatically’ is OFF.
5. Lastly, go to Google Play Store. Open the main menu. Go to ‘Manage aps and device’ . Click on the ‘Manage’ tab find the Sonos app and tap on it. The new page that’ll open about the app should have the update button highlighted… Don’t click on that one!!!!  Look for the 3 button menu top right hand corner, click on that and UNtick the Enable auto-update box.
6. Hopefully that’s Job Done!

This is an interesting read.

https://www.strata-gee.com/sonos-says-q2-fiscal-2024-exceeded-our-expectations-revenues-16-9-losses-127/

Key initiatives in the quarter (reordered):

Offered ‘Install Base’ Customers Special Upgrade Deals – In the second quarter, Sonos experimented with reaching out to “our most loyal, longest-tenured customers” with limited-time upgrade offers.

​​​All-New Sonos App – The company has launched a completely revamped Sonos App, “Our most extensive app redesign and re-architecture yet,” the CEO said.

Expanded Distribution – Starting in March, Sonos became a first-party seller on Amazon.com in the U.S. Spence says this initiative will help to expand their reach to new customers.

So they understand their most loyal customers are a cash cow. Up sold them new devices to create revenue before the new product launch, prior to dropping the new unfinished/buggy app, upsetting their most loyal customers. It all lays the ground for the new product launch in a multi-billion dollar category (headphones).

It's all about expanding the customer base in new markets as the current products aren't creating enough profit. Customers come after profit.

The forced update to this wholly inadequate new version was unacceptable. Too many issues, bugs and functionality gaps to list, I can’t see how development teams, QA and support staff at Sonos ever thought that this was ready for release.  This says it all. 

Had to post this.  You have to laugh, really.

Bluesound speakers - sticky mess

Many angry & frustrated owners are threatening to switch to other systems. 

Be aware that Bluesound speakers have soft-touch covers.  These can, if you are unlucky, become a sticky mess within 2 years.

There is no fix. 

Be careful

Do we have any news on a ‘fix’ for the awful app that has in effect bricked my system. I can’t use anything at all nowadays via my iOS app as it says I have nothing on my system (despite having a playbar, 4 3’s and a couple of roams).

I can’t believe it’s been nearly a fortnight and no form of resolution. Whoever signed this off for release in Sonos needs to be given a boot (or maybe given ‘the’ boot)

I am still angry and frustrated.
Thumbnails of songs in my music library are missing (not shown).

Is there any way to add a radio station (URL) to the new app?

Dear SONOS Community Moderators & Staff
I know you are busy, but I would appreciate it if you could answer just the following two questions.
(1) Is the situation of this community and the screams of users reaching the SONOS decision makers with a real sense of reality?
(2) Are you currently considering new user-oriented measures, such as parallel provision of S2 apps, in response to this outcry?

Dear Corry, I imagine working at Sonos isn’t easy at the moment. What a mess.
 

I have an actual issue for you: My entire system became unavailable. The new app simply says “Something went wrong” and fails to play anything, from any streaming source incl. Sonos Radio. I can change settings for all my speakers. But I can’t play anything.

I tried:

• Restart App
• Restart Phone
• Reinstall App
• Reboot Speakers
• Reboot WiFi

No use. In the end only sideloading the old App worked, fixing the issue immediately. So yeah, you gotta do something, fast. Customers on iPhone can’t sideload and I expect 95% of your Android users don’t know how to.

I once heard “use the problem” as a motto. So please, use the problem. The app launch is a trainwreck, no way of changing that anymore. But how you deal with the situation now can make the difference?!
E.g. offer roll-back to the old app for whoever wants to. Get addtl. 3rd party emergency support people in. I tried calling your German hotline. 45 Minute wait, seriously?
The Google Play store rating for the app has plummeted even below the already abysmal rating of the old app and there is no comment from Sonos whatsoever. How many of your customers see only that and are greeted with silence from Sonos? How many will never buy Sonos again? How many will never recommend Sonos again?

In that regard I have to admit I find your post a bit lacking, nothing personal. You write things like “We hear you. Feedback is coming in fast and thick (...) having trouble just keeping up (...) some topics that have not yet been replied to will go unanswered”.

That sounds to me like a bog standard corporate way of saying “you are on your own and we do in fact not listen, we only manage”. Clearly, everybody at Sonos understands this isn’t to be managed, it isn’t about reading or not reading all threads. It’s about acting! I have not seen any action so far. No app update, no roll-back, not even an apology.

You also write “We know many of you are concerned about certain features going missing...”.

No, we are not concerned only about features missing, that is woefully understating the situation and I am alarmed by this sentence. This is about a total functionality breakdown. People can’t work the new app. It crashes, it fails to load, it just bogs out like mine did. As long as you treat this as “a few features” you haven’t understood what it’s about and as you put it “quite frankly” that upsets me big time, because I perceive it as lack of respect for your customers. I paid good money for Sonos products, I don’t have to be told I am upset because of “some features” when really what I have is an expensive paperweight….

I hope I am making sense here. Nothing personal, but please, kick into gear and act.

It seems like the “Alternatives to sonos” board is being pre-moderated. So I will place my thoughts here:
 

Given that this is not the first time sonos has shown questionable customer service (S1 - S2 precedent), there is no way I am remaining in their eco system.

I have therefore started the process of changing my hardware.

A sonos amp (paired with monitor audio silver 100s) has been replaced with a pair KEF LSII speakers (active with streaming built in) which I am very pleased with and were cheaper than the original pairing.

Currently looking at replacing my other amp with a WiiM amp or a Bluesound Powernode.

The 2 ports I have will be replaced with a Bluesound node or WiiM Pro Plus.

All of the devices in question are Roon Ready and I have taken out a Roon subscription (which to be honest is a bit on the pricey side) but it will give me a unified point of entry for any of the hardware I choose. That way I am not tied to any hardware vendor. Should any them act in the reprehensible way that sonos have.

Unfortunately I will still have my arc I use in the bedroom. It’s wall hung and the room has just been decorated otherwise I would have probably replaced it with KEF LS50’s given how good their smaller siblings are.

My Mum aged 83 has just lost connection from her Play 1 to USB stick of all her classical CD’s MP3 encoded onto a USB stick inserted to the house Internet router. How do I explain SMBv1 and why it no longer works to her ……

She is not interested in security, robustness etc, just wants to play her classical music collection, which currently is no longer possible….

My parents are in the same situation. They have no desire to pay for a streaming subscription either.

Your Mum is not alone... I'm sure there are many others (incl. myself) who happily streamed from a SMBv1 device without problems. But no, the security zealots have got their way after about 15 years & Sonos clumsily killed off a large constituency of users.  Ah, so what, silly old fools, resistant to change, they'll say or think.  The whole fiasco reeks of arrogance & callous disregard for the very people who've paid for their corporate lifestyle. 

It seems very strange to me that Sonos seems to be moving to an increasingly cloud dependent solution especially regarding local library access.

The ENTIRE home automation industry, led by the big players, is rapidly moving, or has moved, to Edge and Matter ecosystems that, barring some app access cloud dependencies, are entirely local.

Seems a counter intuitive move to me, hopefully these new cloud dependencies we seem to be seeing will be resolved. If they persist then Sonos will be further distancing itself from integration with the broader smart home market.

They already seem to have broken the Ikea app integration...

Also not working or unreliable: crossfade in Apple Music. The lack of queue management and playlist editing and lack of cover art from streaming stations…this app barely does 20% of what the old one did.

 Honestly every day this gets worse and no one from Sonos seems to understand crisis management. And this is a crisis. 
 

2 months ago I added a Move 2 and an Era 300. I have 7 speakers now. I probably would have continued upgrading my older kit.

Now there’s NO chance I will ever by another product. Good luck with the headphone sales

I’d love to hear what the mods are actually talking about and what they are being told to tell us. Because this is terrible public relations and awful crisis management.
 

It’s tragic how silent you are.

... ...

I am so beyond frustrated with the new app experience - it’s so laggy, clunky and buggy.

Arguably the worst I have ever experienced. How does even happen with so many modern devops and product release processes? 

Did Maxime Bouvat-Merlin and Nick Millington clear this? 

This slices to the heart of it, really.  I’m betting that all of the original vision-casters for Sonos have been put out to pasture, and the new/hip/youth have a vision that simply aligns with the current market.  At the end of the day, only Sonos knows their sales numbers and product channel streams. 

I know what I want though, and it’s simply a device that plays music when I ask it to, and that it plays the music in a way that the artist intended for me to hear it.

I don’t want another technology buddy in my house.  I don’t want another device suggesting any more crap to me.  No more nudges.  No more pop-ups, pop-overs, bells, notifications, alerts to new offerings, or anything else.  Just let me play my GD music or find things on my own.  STOP suggesting things, or saying “did you know...”

Every other service/device/computer/OS treats me like a product.  At the end of the day, I just want music.  Not whatever this new vision seems to be.

Music is the star of the show.  NOT SONOS, and NOT the new SONOS predatory pat-ourselves-on-the-back-for-our-courage-to-light-a-dumpster-fire-and-tell-our-customers-its-for-their-own-good BS.