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Your feedback on the new Sonos App

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L

I can not listen to thé national radios in France ? Is it normal ? I first had to have to listen to ads (which is just s andalous by thé way) 6 month ago  but now with the New app i do not Even have access to radio !!! Are you going to fix it ? 
Your new app is so bad. 

Ça, c’est radio france qui a limité ses accès : il faut l’ajouter comme un service (iTunes, youtube et radio france ;)

H
Userlevel 1

My Sonos system (6 x Play 1’s of varying generations, plus 1 x Sonos Move) used to play flawlessly throughout my house. Recently, however, and before the new app launched, the performance has degraded significantly. I now suffer constant stopping, skipping, different speakers playing different songs at times when not intended, and all other manner of undesirable playback.

Since the new app has launched I burned over 3 hours trying to get my Move to re-join my system, and it still hasn't done so. It now takes an interminably long time for the system to react to any commands, be it play, stop, next, etc.

Frankly Sonos, I'm probably going to move on to a different provider, despite spending thousands of dollars on your system.

(As I was typing this the system stopped playing music entirely on its own. So frustrating.)

 

Get your act together Sonos, this is embarrassing.

D
Userlevel 3
Badge

Has anyone tried to setup a new device since loading the new app? I had an amp brick with the new software and Sonos sent me a replacement. After 4.5 hours of waiting and working with their support they are not able to get the replacement amp to connect. It starts the process like it should and then loses connection during the process. They are now sending me another replacement amp… My concern is that this is due to the new app failing and not the replacement amp. The last thing I want is to wait another week for the amp to arrive and then spend hours trying to get it setup and running into this same issue… It took me less time to setup all of my devices with the old app.

A
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

Just had a conversation at a local Best Buy store. Their geek squad techs are having the  issues when installing new systems. They've had to take back 3 systems so far. 

O
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

There are over 1000 Sonos products on e-bay now. Likely people are dumping systems - too bad in a way - the cause is not only disgust with the expenditure of many hundreds / thousands of dollars of now unusable systems, but also primarily the lack of any response to this “upgrade” debacle make folks realize the kind of company Sonos has become. Difficult to imagine, and to watch real time, as a corporation cuts off it’s own nose, refusing to even save face with us - the up until now loyal customers. No decent company with any integrity does this - shame on you Sonos! 

O
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

 

O
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

Sonos, Inc. (NASDAQ:SONO –  insider Christopher Scott Mason sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $17.57, for a total transaction of $351,400.00. The stock is now down to $16.52 and falling.

K
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/17/sonos-new-app-update-problems/

The Washington Post:

Why this company’s biggest fans turned against it

When software runs your car, home theater, thermostat and more, one botched update can ruin everything.

D
Userlevel 3
Badge

There are over 1000 Sonos products on e-bay now. Likely people are dumping systems - too bad in a way - the cause is not only disgust with the expenditure of many hundreds / thousands of dollars of now unusable systems, but also primarily the lack of any response to this “upgrade” debacle make folks realize the kind of company Sonos has become. Difficult to imagine, and to watch real time, as a corporation cuts off it’s own nose, refusing to even save face with us - the up until now loyal customers. No decent company with any integrity does this - shame on you Sonos! 

Where is their President or CEO during this? They should be making a public apology with a brief description regarding why they pushed this app out without testing. Just say it, you have headphones coming out that required this move if this is the case. I hope there is something like this to state and they didn’t simply push this out because they thought it was ready…, then I would have far more concerns.

K
Userlevel 4
Badge +1

There are over 1000 Sonos products on e-bay now. Likely people are dumping systems - too bad in a way - the cause is not only disgust with the expenditure of many hundreds / thousands of dollars of now unusable systems, but also primarily the lack of any response to this “upgrade” debacle make folks realize the kind of company Sonos has become. Difficult to imagine, and to watch real time, as a corporation cuts off it’s own nose, refusing to even save face with us - the up until now loyal customers. No decent company with any integrity does this - shame on you Sonos! 

Where is their President or CEO during this? They should be making a public apology with a brief description regarding why they pushed this app out without testing. Just say it, you have headphones coming out that required this move if this is the case. I hope there is something like this to state and they didn’t simply push this out because they thought it was ready…, then I would have far more concerns.

They are saying that they are sticking to their decision and that it was a courageous move AND that this new app is faster and better...They obviously haven’t used it or listened to their loyal customers. The new app is slow, clunky and does not work. I’m so bummed. I love/loved my sono’s system. 

B
Userlevel 1

The new app is nearly completely unusable to how I listen to music, and so far I can’t find anything that I would consider an improvement over the old one.

I used the Queue features 99% of the time -- SONOS needs to reinstate “Add to Queue” and some form of easy queue editing again or it’s basically useless to me.

Also, lumping all Search now under one field almost always forces typing more information than previously when you could select what you’re searching for by Artist/Song/Album etc.    The old app had that functionality across all content available via the app, whereas the new search causes the user to type more info to better identify what is an artist vs. a song with similar or same names.

The fact that I now have an app update that essentially blocks me from how I normally use music and how I listen to the $1500+ worth of speakers I purchase is beyond frustrating.

This is the sort of product rollout that forces customers to abandon your brand. 

Please add the queue features from the old app back into the new app as soon as possible.  How this app update was released without these basic functions is really unfathomable.

K
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

We are a direct dealer for Sonos and have been involved with selling, installing, upgrading and setting  a very broad range of their product lineup since 2007 so we been through the wringer in all those years. But the latest iteration of the UI is to put it kindly, abysmal, awkward and Byzantine.   We are bracing for the calls from our residential clients where they have Sonos products installed and are forced to upgrade the controller in order to play their music only to be totally confused and have to reach out to get help to to now navigate a totally foreign and unfriendly platform to hear their beloved music favorites.  As bad as it is for regular consumers its definitely not a picnic for those in the integration business. 

Just yesterday drove down to Monterey to setup in an Arc and Sub-Mini which took much longer than usual to provision on the client’s account but when trying to run True Play to eq the new setup, found that it would not advance past Continue.  Tried closing and restarting App as well as deleting and starting over several times but wound up empty.  This is on an iPhone15 Plus with iOS 17.4.1.  Had to give up after wasting more than an hour on the deal.   

The team that QC’d this better get back in lab and bring in some fresh faces as this is not the way it should be by a long shot and its back to the drawing board to start over. 

 

Our local high-end whole home audio dealer has suspended selling all Sonos gear.  They are getting too many complaints from existing customers and no support from Sonos!  Great job Spence!  

C
Userlevel 7
Badge +18

We are a direct dealer for Sonos and have been involved with selling, installing, upgrading and setting  a very broad range of their product lineup since 2007 so we been through the wringer in all those years. But the latest iteration of the UI is to put it kindly, abysmal, awkward and Byzantine.   We are bracing for the calls from our residential clients where they have Sonos products installed and are forced to upgrade the controller in order to play their music only to be totally confused and have to reach out to get help to to now navigate a totally foreign and unfriendly platform to hear their beloved music favorites.  As bad as it is for regular consumers its definitely not a picnic for those in the integration business. 

Just yesterday drove down to Monterey to setup in an Arc and Sub-Mini which took much longer than usual to provision on the client’s account but when trying to run True Play to eq the new setup, found that it would not advance past Continue.  Tried closing and restarting App as well as deleting and starting over several times but wound up empty.  This is on an iPhone15 Plus with iOS 17.4.1.  Had to give up after wasting more than an hour on the deal.   

The team that QC’d this better get back in lab and bring in some fresh faces as this is not the way it should be by a long shot and its back to the drawing board to start over. 

 

Our local high-end whole home audio dealer has suspended selling all Sonos gear.  They are getting to many complaints from existing customers and no support from Sonos!  Great job Spence!  

The cracks start to appear? 

It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
D
Userlevel 3
Badge

The new app is nearly completely unusable to how I listen to music, and so far I can’t find anything that I would consider an improvement over the old one.

I used the Queue features 99% of the time -- SONOS needs to reinstate “Add to Queue” and some form of easy queue editing again or it’s basically useless to me.

Also, lumping all Search now under one field almost always forces typing more information than previously when you could select what you’re searching for by Artist/Song/Album etc.    The old app had that functionality across all content available via the app, whereas the new search causes the user to type more info to better identify what is an artist vs. a song with similar or same names.

The fact that I now have an app update that essentially blocks me from how I normally use music and how I listen to the $1500+ worth of speakers I purchase is beyond frustrating.

This is the sort of product rollout that forces customers to abandon your brand. 

Please add the queue features from the old app back into the new app as soon as possible.  How this app update was released without these basic functions is really unfathomable.

It is unfortunately obvious that they have outsourced the development to overseas in an area where Sonos is not in heavy use. The developers are obviously not users of the system and simply built what was documented. Coming from a software development background, this is what you end up getting in this situation quite often. Now it is starting to remind me of the Bud Light marketing campaign from not so long ago. Everyone there too thought that they would just ignore everything and it would just blow over in a week. Not the case...

jgatie

It is unfortunately obvious that they have outsourced the development to overseas in an area where Sonos is not in heavy use. The developers are obviously not users of the system and simply built what was documented. Coming from a software development background, this is what you end up getting in this situation quite often. Now it is starting to remind me of the Bud Light marketing campaign from not so long ago. Everyone there too thought that they would just ignore everything and it would just blow over in a week. Not the case...

 

Sonos development is not outsourced, it is done in the US. 

Airgetlam

Having worked with both American, and ‘outsourced’ code teams in many, many countries, my experience has been the same across the board. There is no difference. 

Bruce
S
Userlevel 2

“the following features are coming back”  What? This is bad software. If you don’t have features, then don’t launch the app. I don’t care what marketing says.

 

Honestly, just give us the old app back. Why would you take away features that people use? Big features??

 

I feel bad for the support people that have to read these messages, because they’re not the C-level idiots that forced this decision on customers. I almost wish we could make the exec in charge listen to us for an entire work week, but they’d just pocket the millions and come away hating customers even more.

jgatie

Having worked with both American, and ‘outsourced’ code teams in many, many countries, my experience has been the same across the board. There is no difference. 

 

My experience has been different, but that is neither here nor there.  Anyone who thinks this app is the fault of the developers knows nothing about software development.  The flaws in this app are due to some executive greenlighting the release, regardless of the flaws, in order to meet some sort of deadline and/or sales prediction.

B
Userlevel 1

The new app is nearly completely unusable to how I listen to music, and so far I can’t find anything that I would consider an improvement over the old one.

I used the Queue features 99% of the time -- SONOS needs to reinstate “Add to Queue” and some form of easy queue editing again or it’s basically useless to me.

Also, lumping all Search now under one field almost always forces typing more information than previously when you could select what you’re searching for by Artist/Song/Album etc.    The old app had that functionality across all content available via the app, whereas the new search causes the user to type more info to better identify what is an artist vs. a song with similar or same names.

The fact that I now have an app update that essentially blocks me from how I normally use music and how I listen to the $1500+ worth of speakers I purchase is beyond frustrating.

This is the sort of product rollout that forces customers to abandon your brand. 

Please add the queue features from the old app back into the new app as soon as possible.  How this app update was released without these basic functions is really unfathomable.

It is unfortunately obvious that they have outsourced the development to overseas in an area where Sonos is not in heavy use. The developers are obviously not users of the system and simply built what was documented. Coming from a software development background, this is what you end up getting in this situation quite often. Now it is starting to remind me of the Bud Light marketing campaign from not so long ago. Everyone there too thought that they would just ignore everything and it would just blow over in a week. Not the case...

Not sure I see the Bud Light example as relevant.  WIthout getting into politics in my opinion that was purely a risk play for trying to enlarge a customer base that backfired.  If Bud Light decided to change their beer instead to a mango-flavored seltzer without changing the name, and then also required their customers to use a wonky bluetooth app on their phone to open every single can to even drink it, THEN I think that’s closer to what we’re experiencing here.   SONOS decided to fundamentally change how their products are used, and as of yet I don’t see any real solution.   Still in disbelief over this.

D
Userlevel 3
Badge

The new app is nearly completely unusable to how I listen to music, and so far I can’t find anything that I would consider an improvement over the old one.

I used the Queue features 99% of the time -- SONOS needs to reinstate “Add to Queue” and some form of easy queue editing again or it’s basically useless to me.

Also, lumping all Search now under one field almost always forces typing more information than previously when you could select what you’re searching for by Artist/Song/Album etc.    The old app had that functionality across all content available via the app, whereas the new search causes the user to type more info to better identify what is an artist vs. a song with similar or same names.

The fact that I now have an app update that essentially blocks me from how I normally use music and how I listen to the $1500+ worth of speakers I purchase is beyond frustrating.

This is the sort of product rollout that forces customers to abandon your brand. 

Please add the queue features from the old app back into the new app as soon as possible.  How this app update was released without these basic functions is really unfathomable.

It is unfortunately obvious that they have outsourced the development to overseas in an area where Sonos is not in heavy use. The developers are obviously not users of the system and simply built what was documented. Coming from a software development background, this is what you end up getting in this situation quite often. Now it is starting to remind me of the Bud Light marketing campaign from not so long ago. Everyone there too thought that they would just ignore everything and it would just blow over in a week. Not the case...

Not sure I see the Bud Light example as relevant.  WIthout getting into politics in my opinion that was purely a risk play for trying to enlarge a customer base that backfired.  If Bud Light decided to change their beer instead to a mango-flavored seltzer without changing the name, and then also required their customers to use a wonky bluetooth app on their phone to open every single can to even drink it, THEN I think that’s closer to what we’re experiencing here.   SONOS decided to fundamentally change how their products are used, and as of yet I don’t see any real solution.   Still in disbelief over this.

My point was only to the lack of feedback from their team, they ignored it hoping it would go away rather than address the situation.

M
Userlevel 3
Badge

Can you please explain whether the limited SMB1 support will still allow to connect in Mac SONOMA to a NAS drive (time capsule) in the future? if so, how???

Looks like this won’t be the case. And there is no work around. I tried everything. Ironically, any folder on the time capsule can be added as shared folder in your Mac system under preferences, and then be added to the SONOS system. But that forfeits a proper NAS setup, as a MacBook, as in my case, needs to be always connected, too. We might be only given the option of buying a new NAS drive that supports Time Machine and the higher SMB protocols, but why can’t SONOS provide full MAC compatibility by implementing the AFP protocol? This should be a no brainer…. And why do they force us to update an app that otherwise was working. It wasn’t great, but at least provided access to your Music Library on a Mac or NAS Drive. If they won’t consider this, I will rather spend my money on new speakers from a different brand and sell the SONOS ones!

J
Userlevel 1

All the Sonos executives can be found and contacted via linkedin.

floresep
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

If you want to prevent the app update from loading on your devices:

Turn off automatic updates

iOS:

https://www.lifewire.com/turn-off-auto-update-iphone-5206079 

 

Android:

https://www.lifewire.com/turn-off-automatic-updates-on-android-5192496#toc-how-to-turn-off-automatic-app-updates-on-an-android-phone 

(Scroll a bit further to next section titled "Stop Automatic Updates for Specific Apps")

D
Userlevel 1

The new app is so unworkable it’s unbelievable this was even released without further, adequate testing. 
 

  1. The app is NOT responsive at all. It takes up to 10 seconds for screens to “load” now. What used to that a few seconds to go in and select a song or even change the volume now takes upwards of a minute. If you’re trying to force me to use SVC, you’ve done it. Now give me an app I can use without having to manage my Sonos system through voice. 
  2. The Number on the volume slider is gone. This was critical in me being able to adjust volume appropriately in my spaces for various uses. Now it’s just a random guess, and I don’t know if this is going to upset the neighbors or not with my guess. Thanks, Sonos! Way to step backwards!
  3. I have a stereo paired Roam that goes in and out of my network, and I use a portable access point with the same SSID and network password for my travel kit. The app doesn’t automatically connect to my speakers when I move between these networks (Same SSID and password, mind you). I have to go through the process of reconnecting to my “Sonos System” every time I move between the home and travel networks. It just automatically worked before, so what gives?
  4. Crew, the responsiveness of the app is atrocious. I have 1GB fiber, and it’s seriously taking 10 seconds for the pages to load. Can’t you cache the screens on my device so they load immediately? My app doesn’t respond AT ALL like your demo videos. 
  5. Are you looking for a software quality and test manager so this kind of BS doesn’t happen in the future? Your test cases (nor the Beta program) weren’t adequate for this release. I’d be happy to offer my expertise in these areas if you do. 
     
A
Userlevel 5
Badge +3

All the Sonos executives can be found and contacted via linkedin.

The executives are part of the problem. It's the board of directors that need to be contacted. They're the only ones that can fire the ceo

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