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Your feedback on the new Sonos App

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P

Like so many others, most of my speakers are missing from my app - specifically the living room surround sound set up. My living room “room” is gone from the app. The app on my android phone is different (color is black now instead of the gold/brown color) but I didn’t update it manually. I haven’t had time to mess around with it until today and found this forum. Has anyone gotten the new app to work? Is it worth trying to reset my system and/or trying to add my missing speakers? Where do I begin to fix it? Any suggestions as what not to do? I can try with an iphone if necessary. I just didn’t want to spend a bunch of time trying to reset everything if that is not a solution. And not to beat a dead horse but honestly the anger and frustration is real so it would be nice to have an explanation as to why it isn’t possible to revert to the old app. Did that break, too? TIA. 

Bumper

Who is the genius that decided that a play next button and editing the queue was not necessary? I find it hard to believe that you gave this update any serious level of care. Looks like a C level manager trying to put his stamp on the company without understanding the customTher. Well, you failed buddy. This level of incompetence is actually unbelievable. You would think that keeping basic functionality would be prioritized.

The maddening thing is the marketing materials for the new app included screen shots and animated media that showed queue functions as present. It was a dishonest misrepresentation IMO.

D
Userlevel 2

Just an app that works...... that would be a bonus

D
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Can someone clarify this “move to the cloud” functionality I read above:  Are my speakers now dependent on my internet connection, even though my music library is in the same room?  

 

Correct - see my post linked below where I tested this. Maybe try the same steps yourself and see what result you get - would be good to know.

 

R

913 error great update Sonos.

Jordec
Userlevel 2
Badge +1

913 error great update Sonos.

Unfortunately the 913 error is the one that many, many loyal customers are frustrated with, including me. To say that 99% of the customer base is happy and that we are ‘the NOISY 1%’ is insulting. I also don’t believe it. When this many customers have such serious issues, the company needs to do something and quickly. Instead, I have been advised that the next update is not looking at the issues related to 913 libraries. My main issue is that the paths to my local libraries are gone and Sonos will not accept remapping. Aside from the ‘clunky’ interface, irritating ads, inability to play different music on different speakers (which is a major issue when we have a Beam and Soundbars on 2 of the TVs), I just find it hard to navigate. I can’t even see how to clear a queue now! I’m not a big fan of change that is so drastic that I need a new user manual, but I could live with it, if there was more benefit than harm! Sonos has messed up here and although they are now apologising, I see no steps towards a quick interim solution, such as a roll back. I have managed to regress most of my speakers to the old Sonos1 app now and will have to live without the controller functionality for the Beam and Move until they’ve fixed these issues.

To go back to Sonos1 app, reload the old app, then instead of clicking ‘update’, click more options. It will check if any of the speakers are incompatible with the old app and let you know. It will be easy to update them again, once these issues are sorted.

Jo
Magosagazzu
Badge

I encountered a big problem that didn't exist before. I cannot separate speakers belonging to one account from others of a different account if they are on the same wifi network. The new app displays all the speakers of the same network even if I am connected with an account that cannot see the speakers of the other account.. Big problem for my hotel. I should make a wifi network for each zone and account.

Music my life
Bad-audio-hardware
Badge

I received the app update this week, why !???

The software is far from complete, see below link:

https://support.sonos.com/nl-nl/article/the-new-sonos-app-and-future-feature-updates

 

It is very arrogant to use us - paying customers - as a testpanel for their incompetence.

SONOS: All for shareholders value: more adds en more upselling inferiour hardware 

 

Ken_Griffiths

Hey Ken,

“Your feedback on the new Sonos App”

is not the same as,

”Hey Ken Griffiths please go argue with everyone that’s having a bad experience”

FWIW

Yes, apart from the arguing bit, I guess. It’s more a case of showing/describing the things I see with the new Sonos App here. One person mentioned that it takes them over two minutes to launch the new App for example, whereas I see it open from a fully closed state in 7s on an iPad, or 10s on an iPhone XR. I just posted the screen-capture videos to show that was the case.

Another could not start playback, or adjust, the volume of their room for 30 minutes… yet that seems to work okay for me too... in seconds, rather than minutes.

Another was incorrectly selecting the wrong group co-ordinator in the App and wondered why their music stopped playing - so I explained the reasons to them and helped with their understanding of GC’s

Others mention their SMBv1, or http, locally shared library doesn’t show in the new App, but works in the older DCR App. However, that’s correct , it’s not supposed to work in the new App, so I demonstrated that with screenshots from my own setup and outlined that an SMBv2 will work instead and how to sometimes go about fixing the issue

Another user said they could not install a Sonos Roam in the new App, yet that worked okay for me, so it was perhaps not the App, but more likely a local network, or controller-device, issue, perhaps?

And finally, quite a few people could not see their Alarms in the new App, so I showed some steps how to perhaps go about fixing that. A couple had their alarms going off at the wrong time (an hour before or an hour after in some cases), so I just suggested changing the Alarm time, until the matter was fixed by Sonos.

There are lots of other discussions too that were in a similar vein, but it was not arguing @Veeper… I think you’re perhaps mistaken about the context.

Ken_Griffiths

913 error great update Sonos.

There is a fix for that error shown in the thread below. Perhaps give that a try and see if it may work for you…

 

F

Please give back the old app, the new one sucks, it's slow, disconnect with environment, can't control volume...

A
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

Although I don’t like the look and feel of the new app (and yes, I’m sure I’ll get used to it) I’m lucky in that I’m not getting any of the connection or playback issues that some others are seeing. 

I can’t, however, forgive the degradation of the music library features, no matter how temporary they might be. I’m lucky that I can still see and access my library, but removing it from Search is just the pits and who knows how successful it will be when it finally gets added back. Will it go back to being fully searchable with Album art etc, or will it continue to come a poor second to streaming services? 

Many, many historic Sonos users, previously their biggest supporters, will be using Sonos this way and treating them this way is a disgrace. 

G
Userlevel 7
Badge +8

Although I don’t like the look and feel of the new app (and yes, I’m sure I’ll get used to it) I’m lucky in that I’m not getting any of the connection or playback issues that some others are seeing. 

I can’t, however, forgive the degradation of the music library features, no matter how temporary they might be. I’m lucky that I can still see and access my library, but removing it from Search is just the pits and who knows how successful it will be when it finally gets added back. Will it go back to being fully searchable with Album art etc, or will it continue to come a poor second to streaming services? 

Many, many historic Sonos users, previously their biggest supporters, will be using Sonos this way and treating them this way is a disgrace. 

Many users have lost hours of listening to music that they can never get back.

A
Userlevel 3
Badge +3

Although I don’t like the look and feel of the new app (and yes, I’m sure I’ll get used to it) I’m lucky in that I’m not getting any of the connection or playback issues that some others are seeing. 

I can’t, however, forgive the degradation of the music library features, no matter how temporary they might be. I’m lucky that I can still see and access my library, but removing it from Search is just the pits and who knows how successful it will be when it finally gets added back. Will it go back to being fully searchable with Album art etc, or will it continue to come a poor second to streaming services? 

Many, many historic Sonos users, previously their biggest supporters, will be using Sonos this way and treating them this way is a disgrace. 

Actually, what I said about connection issues isn’t quite right. Trying to move playback from one speaker to another is VERY flaky. Often appears to have done it and then just reverts to the first speaker and has to be attempted several times before it works

T
Userlevel 4
Badge +2

Like so many others, most of my speakers are missing from my app - specifically the living room surround sound set up. My living room “room” is gone from the app. The app on my android phone is different (color is black now instead of the gold/brown color) but I didn’t update it manually. I haven’t had time to mess around with it until today and found this forum. Has anyone gotten the new app to work? Is it worth trying to reset my system and/or trying to add my missing speakers? Where do I begin to fix it? Any suggestions as what not to do? I can try with an iphone if necessary. I just didn’t want to spend a bunch of time trying to reset everything if that is not a solution. And not to beat a dead horse but honestly the anger and frustration is real so it would be nice to have an explanation as to why it isn’t possible to revert to the old app. Did that break, too? TIA. 

They cannot go back at Sonos because they have moved the architecture to the web from a local executable across your LAN/WiFi. This is why you will always get intermittent connectivity and functions because the new app is polling for web services to perform the functions that your previous local app simply executed. Apart from the performance and connectivity there are serious security, regulatory and privacy issues with this as they have opened up your WiFi to the internet. And the app won't work if you don't have internet access. 

You can restore the previous app from apkmirror.com. it's 16.1. Make sure you turn off auto update on the app and Google Play. If you're on iOS you can get 3rd party apps Sonophone or Sooner to replace the app. 

A

This app is awful. Just awful. So frustrating. Every time i open it new issues. Driving me crazy!

W
Userlevel 1

Can you please put the Sonos Gold App back on the Apple App Store until you’ve worked out the bugs in the new app? I’d be happy to help alpha test your app, but it’s not ready to replace the working app yet.

I don’t want to enumerate a list of things broken because it would take so long to list it all. Currently, nobody in my family except for me can figure out how to play music with it and my kids are mad at me.

I didn’t care about the S1->S2 app switch at all. I don’t really care about apps or what they look like. All I care about is usability.

As it is now, I’m considering selling all my Sonos and moving on. Two weeks ago, I was planning on buying 8-12 new speakers as part of a remodel.

K
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

Like so many others, most of my speakers are missing from my app - specifically the living room surround sound set up. My living room “room” is gone from the app. The app on my android phone is different (color is black now instead of the gold/brown color) but I didn’t update it manually. I haven’t had time to mess around with it until today and found this forum. Has anyone gotten the new app to work? Is it worth trying to reset my system and/or trying to add my missing speakers? Where do I begin to fix it? Any suggestions as what not to do? I can try with an iphone if necessary. I just didn’t want to spend a bunch of time trying to reset everything if that is not a solution. And not to beat a dead horse but honestly the anger and frustration is real so it would be nice to have an explanation as to why it isn’t possible to revert to the old app. Did that break, too? TIA. 

They cannot go back at Sonos because they have moved the architecture to the web from a local executable across your LAN/WiFi. This is why you will always get intermittent connectivity and functions because the new app is polling for web services to perform the functions that your previous local app simply executed. Apart from the performance and connectivity there are serious security, regulatory and privacy issues with this as they have opened up your WiFi to the internet. And the app won't work if you don't have internet access. 

You can restore the previous app from apkmirror.com. it's 16.1. Make sure you turn off auto update on the app and Google Play. If you're on iOS you can get 3rd party apps Sonophone or Sooner to replace the app. 

The question keep coming back to WHY does Spence et al now force us to use their servers to make our local music/stream function?  jgatie posted that Sonos will never sell our data (sure they won’t ;-).  This crap-app wasn’t just foisted on us b/c of new Bluetooth headphones.  It IS NOT faster Ken G. for the majority of us.  It’s much much slower in response timne, why, b/c it’s now traveling the internet to Sonos’ own servers to do even simple tasks, gleaming a lot of user use-data along the way. 

Sonos has proven it self to be a dishonest and arrogant company.  And this 99% of users are satisfied is the biggest lie yet! 

H

The old app wasnt the best in terms of stability and consistency of performance. The new one is worse. Assuming updates are coming to improve performance before making additional functionality changes….? 

jgatie

The question keep coming back to WHY does Spence et al now force us to use their servers to make our local music/stream function?  jgatie posted that Sonos will never sell our data (sure they won’t ;-).  This crap-app wasn’t just foisted on us b/c of new Bluetooth headphones.  It IS NOT faster Ken G. for the majority of us.  It’s much much slower in response timne, why, b/c it’s now traveling the internet to Sonos’ own servers to do even simple tasks, gleaming a lot of user use-data along the way. 

Sonos has proven it self to be a dishonest and arrogant company.  And this 99% of users are satisfied is the biggest lie yet! 

 

What makes you think Sonos has to be “traveling the internet to Sonos’ own servers” in order to glean data?  I’ve got news for you, Sonos has been capturing data from day one, and they don’t need cloud services to do it.  The fact remains, their privacy policy plainly states they do not, nor will they ever sell your data.  If they fail to follow that policy, or they change the policy to something which reneges on their past policies, the FTC can and will go after them, as they did to Facebook and others to the tune of billions in fines. 

Bumper

Assuming updates are coming to improve performance before making additional functionality changes….? 

Spence says the app is great so I wouldn’t assume anything until they commit. They’ve said they will add missing features. Performance issues will prob be chalked up to your network as before🤣🤣🤣

K
Userlevel 7
Badge +4

The question keep coming back to WHY does Spence et al now force us to use their servers to make our local music/stream function?  jgatie posted that Sonos will never sell our data (sure they won’t ;-).  This crap-app wasn’t just foisted on us b/c of new Bluetooth headphones.  It IS NOT faster Ken G. for the majority of us.  It’s much much slower in response time, why, b/c it’s now traveling the internet to Sonos’ own servers to do even simple tasks, gleaming a lot of user use-data along the way. 

Sonos has proven it self to be a dishonest and arrogant company.  And this 99% of users are satisfied is the biggest lie yet! 

 

What makes you think Sonos has to be “traveling the internet to Sonos’ own servers” in order to glean data?  I’ve got news for you, Sonos has been capturing data from day one, and they don’t need cloud services to do it.  The fact remains, their privacy policy plainly states they do not, nor will they ever sell your data.  If they fail to follow that policy, or they change the policy to something which reneges on their past policies, the FTC can and will go after them, as they did to Facebook and others to the tune of billions in fines. 

LOL, of course many of us long-time users with years in the software/tech industry know they already pull our usage data.  Then please explain the shift from local control to having to go through Sonos’ servers. It has proven to slow down commands and appears to require a live internet connection to function. 

And if you trust Sonos that much, good on you.  Many of us do not!  Their revenues/earnings are not good, Apple pulled them from the online store, +++, you don’t think the executive suite isn’t feeling the pressure to find additional revenue sources besides headphones?  Just b/c they say something doesn’t mean it’s true for ever!  Besides FTC filings can take years. 

jgatie

LOL, of course many of us long-time users with years in the software/tech industry know they already pull our usage data.  Then please explain the shift from local control to having to go through Sonos’ servers. It has proven to slow down commands and appears to require a live internet connection to function. 

And if you trust Sonos that much, good on you.  Many of us do not!  Their revenues/earnings are not good, Apple pulled them from the online store, +++, you don’t think the executive suite isn’t feeling the pressure to find additional revenue sources besides headphones?  Just b/c they say something doesn’t mean it’s true for ever!  Besides FTC filings can take years. 

 

I don’t know Sonos architecture, nor future plans, enough to profess any reasons why they are using a cloud approach.  But I’m not paranoid enough to assign nefarious reasons to everything a corporation does.  As to trusting Sonos?  I don’t.  I trust the agency which has a long track record of harshly punishing those who violate their own privacy policies. 

Also, common sense says the personal data you think is going to be sold is really only useful in the aggregate.  It’s a list of what people listen to, not browsing history, or shopping interests, or any other number of actually valuable things that are harvested every single day.  Now tell me, compared to what I look at to buy, or what I bought last week, or what ads I look at when flipping through Facebook or Instagram, how valuable is the fact that @kassey22000 played Baby Shark on repeat when school got out every day?  Who cares that my alarm was set to NPR on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Nobody!  It’s useless outside of showing trends, and only the aggregate can show a trend. 

Seriously, stop being paranoid. 

G

feedback on new app:

Using on iPhone SE 2020

what I like:

Edit home option

preferred service option. 

 

Key issues I’ve found using it:

INTERFACE:

Search bar takes up alot of space with the fade and white boarders above and below.. 
tap to show the song playing when clicking in the bottom tab, though no tap to send it back down, have to swipe back down. Would prefer tap tap to see quickly/go back.  
icon for linking rooms.. is it two sonos behind each other? 

“Your System” accessible from two ways - button at top and slow swipe up.. Why not just one way, seems wasteful. 
 

LOCAL LIBRARY:

local library took a long time to appear.

needs a search for local library, why not put this in the sources separate from the universal. 

Would be really nice if it auto looked up for the artwork for you, like Plex. 

needs A-Z in scroll of local library. 
 

PLAYLISTS:

all the previous add to/remove/create playlist functionality. 
 

The old app felt a bit clunky, but did do the job. The tweaks with the new search bar I avoided in preference of classic search. Perhaps everything was a bit close together before now it’s all a bit far apart and does feel a bit playschool. Looking forward to seeing it improved. 

 

C

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.

 

Please can we have timings on when local library will be searchable again. I’m still reeling from how little notice you gave us on the SMB1 issue. And please don’t mention your crappy headphones again, or I think I’ll throw every Sonos component I own out of the window - focus on fixing the app. Don’t alienate your existing customers in search of new, lightweight ones

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