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Your feedback on the new Sonos App

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skullc
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

@Rhonny

my lgb8 lg oled tv from 2018 is still amazing and it supports dts 5.1 unlike the c1 or c2 newer versions 

also lg updates do not stop me watching pictures or make any sound or vision unavailable 

just my point of view 😊oh and keep going 95/100 😜

my bad 96!

 

Network= livewire cpe pro 3 +eero 6 pro wireless
B
Userlevel 2

Oh. But I guess your remote control works.

 

What this new app does is remove the remote control and disable the manual switches.

 

If I want to adjust the volume, I leterally have to use remote desktop to connect to my PC so I can use the Windows app which, so far, hasn't been buggered.

skullc
Userlevel 7
Badge +12

Oh. But I guess your remote control works.

 

What this new app does is remove the remote control and disable the manual switches.

 

If I want to adjust the volume, I leterally have to use remote desktop to connect to my PC so I can use the Windows app which, so far, hasn't been buggered.

I actually use my Apple TV remote but yes it still works 😊

on your side btw

Network= livewire cpe pro 3 +eero 6 pro wireless
B
Userlevel 2

👍

P
Userlevel 1
Badge

So, here’s my take:

I’ve about £3,000 invested in Sonos speakers and over the past couple of years or so I’ve been increasingly dissatisfied in the performance of the app’s - culminating of course in this latest SNAFU.

I’m not going to sell them and give up, but any further purchases are on hold. I would have been looking at the headphones and upgrading several speakers, but not until things change.

What’s gone wrong? In my opinion Sonos have looked across at Apple and are trying to find a model which sells hardware and then generates subscription income. Sorry, but I’m not going to go down that route. I don’t need all the bells and whistles, I just want to play the music of my choice through the speakers of my choice.

It used to be easy, and now it’s not.

If Sonos want to see my money again then they need to sort this out.

S
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

When you are in for north of £900 for a music system, you are entitled to expect longer. My PC is 8 years old and works fine. Sonos is not tech; it is delivery. Nothing different from a television.

 

The real issue is that the reason my investment is unuseable has nothing to do with obsolescence but due to imcomptent managemen and programming.

While it might appear no different to a tv, Sonos hardware has never been a standalone self contained device as far as I’m aware. My first devices were ZP90 + ZP100s and the hardware controller. The hardware devices have always been useless without a separate controller (initially desktop application or Sonos hardware remote). The app/controller didn’t enhance and provide additional features, without it you had a useless box of electronics when you unboxed the hardware and plugged it in. Even its primary core function which is in the firmware inside the hardware for playing music wasn’t possible without the external controller/app.

In contrast, a TVs current core function of choosing inputs and displaying broadcast television is possible out the box. The streaming services and phone/tablet app control are secondary services which will often end up unusable before the TV itself is no longer able to provide its core functions.

It’s not just Sonos that has this issue, HomePods, echo, most standalone music streamers and streaming speakers have the same issue, without a working app they are a box of useless electronics. One of the reasons I’ve moved to Yamaha and replaced my Sonos port + amps with AVRs and Sonos speakers with MusicCast 50s is the MusicCast app and streaming is a secondary service. The core functions such as input selection, volume control, powered speaker work without the app from first unboxing, so I do expect them to work for as long as the electronics work, regardless of what Yamaha do with the MusicCast side.

The blame for the current state of things lies entirely with the senior management and exec team imo, I consider it unlikely anyone in development was saying the app was ready to ship and were over ruled. 

Since the first release, the development team will have been operating in crisis mode, which isn’t good for anyone. I’ve never worked with any dev team in-house or out-sourced who would choose to release knowing they’d be putting themselves immediately into crisis mode.

S
Userlevel 1

I don’t understand why the decision was made to release an obviously unfinished version of the app, instead of waiting until it was finished, stable and all features in place? This was only ever going to annoy faithful customers and potentially lose new ones, who will be taking their kit back to the shop on the grounds that they can’t get the software to work properly.

I would concur with this user’s sentiment. It is really unfathomable that Sonos released such obviously buggy software that clearly wasn’t tested thoroughly. It makes you wonder what the motivation to release it really was. From speakers that sporadically drop off the system and then come back, to the volume on some speakers spontaneously and all on their own going up and then going down, to 1 speaker of every one of my stereo speaker pairs that won’t play, to the music that stops playing all on it’s own sometimes after 3 minutes of play time other times after 40 minutes… it’s a complete disaster. I have 4 Ones (latest generation), 3 arcs, 2 Era 100, 1 Beam, 1 Move, 1 Roam and never had these problems before the latest upgrade. We spent two weeks monitoring our wifi network and absolutely no issues, no channel contentions and yet only system that is completely unreliable now is the Sonos system. To think the amount of money we have spent on these speakers and essentially they are now paperweights. My Apple HomePod Mini plays better than any Sonos speaker now, no issues, ever. We have all but given up and are selling all of the hardware and replacing it with BlueSound, which is even more expensive but I’m assured by friends actually flawlessly.

M
Userlevel 1

I have been a custom home integrator for more than twenty years and sonos was the best thing to happen to the market since the iPod. I have hundreds of sonos systems in the field that I have sold and installed. The simplicity of the user interface was what made the sell simple and end users love it. 
 

The transition between S1 and S2 was pretty seamless besides the fact that sonos tried to push out old equipment and no longer support it. Look… I get it… with software come updates, equipment gets old it the hardware can’t handle anymore updates.  At the end of the day S2 was a great platform and worked well. 
 

The new “update” is absolutely unacceptable.  I don’t understand why or how as one of the leading manufacturers of audio equipment in the world actually looked at this new software and thought yeah it’s great let’s release it. You have to think about end users who are not techy and had something simple and high tech where they “could” play music throughout their home. They now cannot. For a person like myself I can muddle through and eventually get what I want. There’s nothing about this software that is seamless, simple, or user friendly. As for now I have made the decision to move the music platform that I sell to another manufacturer. I’m not happy about it and it’s honestly sad to see a good thing go. In my honest opinion you should have a legacy S2 app that sonos will still support. Us integrators will figure out the new app. but one again think about those less techy people out there that had a good product. 
 

Best,

Michael

Resolution Audio Video

*

*Moderator Note: removed website and email address in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

 

S
Userlevel 2
Badge

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.

Thank you but it is not clear to me you have Sonos Playlist in your scope.  We need to be able to access our current playlist and creat new ones.

There is a very simple solution. Pull this ***** useless app until it is working and re-instate the old app. If you get the new one fit for purpose, it certainly isn’t now, then you can reintroduce it.

 

Old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. But if you do, bring in something that alsi isn’t broke. The new one certainly is.

I doubt it ‘simple’ and the only realistic window to roll back was between the first app launch and the new firmware update. Why? According to the firmware vs app version post the new firmware + old S2 app = Cross-version compatibility mode will block out access to all of Settings and Setup.

Any roll back to the old S2 app will require a firmware downgrade to restore full functionality and I doubt there is a robust client facing process for that.

It can’t even be a global roll back either as that would break more things for Ace and Roam 2 owners.

Sonos made its position clear with the statement from the CEO and the AMA and hasn’t changed its position or given any suggestion it will.

Ultimately it’s core business is shifting boxes of average sounding speakers, so as long as the boxes keep shifting and the board are happy the CEO is fulfilling their requirements things will continue as they are.

Personally I made my decision that the company behaviour, attitude towards its customers and future direction isn’t one I am willing to continue supporting and have found a suitable replacement.

Some people have faith that eventually the software will be fixed and the best thing to do is wait.

The longer people continue to have things that are not working for them, the more likely they are to find alternatives, but to Sonos we aren’t a regular guaranteed income stream anyway.

You need to decide for yourself whether to find alternatives or wait and hope, because I don’t see the old app coming back no matter how many people ask. The point in time for that to happen is long gone.

A suitable replacement  ? Denon by any chance ? 

S
Userlevel 1

I have been a custom home integrator for more than twenty years and sonos was the best thing to happen to the market since the iPod. I have hundreds of sonos systems in the field that I have sold and installed. The simplicity of the user interface was what made the sell simple and end users love it. 
 

The transition between S1 and S2 was pretty seamless besides the fact that sonos tried to push out old equipment and no longer support it. Look… I get it… with software come updates, equipment gets old it the hardware can’t handle anymore updates.  At the end of the day S2 was a great platform and worked well. 
 

The new “update” is absolutely unacceptable.  I don’t understand why or how as one of the leading manufacturers of audio equipment in the world actually looked at this new software and thought yeah it’s great let’s release it. You have to think about end users who are not techy and had something simple and high tech where they “could” play music throughout their home. They now cannot. For a person like myself I can muddle through and eventually get what I want. There’s nothing about this software that is seamless, simple, or user friendly. As for now I have made the decision to move the music platform that I sell to another manufacturer. I’m not happy about it and it’s honestly sad to see a good thing go. In my honest opinion you should have a legacy S2 app that sonos will still support. Us integrators will figure out the new app. but one again think about those less techy people out there that had a good product. 
 

Best,

Michael

Resolution Audio Video

*

*Moderator Note: removed website and email address in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

 

Spot on Michael. If I may ask, what system will you install instead of Sonos? Thanks, Sherwood

B
Userlevel 2
Badge

The home webpage for Sonos continues to proclaim, “Effortless Listening.”  That has not been the case for me since the app update. I have worked now with three different Level 2 techs and 1 engineer from Level 3, and we still can’t get my speakers all working. Also, the techs are contradicting each other in two ways so far. One has me connect a speaker via Ethernet, and the next says no, that is not how we want it to run. A second example is that one Level 2 tech had me connect to only 2.4, and then the engineer says no, and we reconnect to 5G. 
 

I have made it to Level 3 support.  What else can I do to achieve “Effortless Listening?”  This all started with the new app. The problem is that we can get all the speakers going, and then lose one of the stereo paired ones in one or all 3 rooms. 

 

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. 
 

Brian
 

 

M
Userlevel 1

I have been a custom home integrator for more than twenty years and sonos was the best thing to happen to the market since the iPod. I have hundreds of sonos systems in the field that I have sold and installed. The simplicity of the user interface was what made the sell simple and end users love it. 
 

The transition between S1 and S2 was pretty seamless besides the fact that sonos tried to push out old equipment and no longer support it. Look… I get it… with software come updates, equipment gets old it the hardware can’t handle anymore updates.  At the end of the day S2 was a great platform and worked well. 
 

The new “update” is absolutely unacceptable.  I don’t understand why or how as one of the leading manufacturers of audio equipment in the world actually looked at this new software and thought yeah it’s great let’s release it. You have to think about end users who are not techy and had something simple and high tech where they “could” play music throughout their home. They now cannot. For a person like myself I can muddle through and eventually get what I want. There’s nothing about this software that is seamless, simple, or user friendly. As for now I have made the decision to move the music platform that I sell to another manufacturer. I’m not happy about it and it’s honestly sad to see a good thing go. In my honest opinion you should have a legacy S2 app that sonos will still support. Us integrators will figure out the new app. but one again think about those less techy people out there that had a good product. 
 

Best,

Michael

Resolution Audio Video

*

*Moderator Note: removed website and email address in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

 

Spot on Michael. If I may ask, what system will you install instead of Sonos? Thanks, Sherwood

Thank you, 

I should also say that the last thing I would ever do is complain about a service or write a bad google review. I’m no keyboard warrior. Just thought I’d put my two cents in since I’ve been married to sonos for more than 10 years. To answer your question I am going to move to Bluesound. I was introduced to it last year at CEDIA. I personally have not installed any yet but they have something for every application and seems to be fairly priced and has great reviews. Pull them up on YouTube. 

S
Userlevel 2
Badge

FOR SALE

*

Nuff said 👍

 

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

M
Userlevel 1

I have been a custom home integrator for more than twenty years and sonos was the best thing to happen to the market since the iPod. I have hundreds of sonos systems in the field that I have sold and installed. The simplicity of the user interface was what made the sell simple and end users love it. 
 

The transition between S1 and S2 was pretty seamless besides the fact that sonos tried to push out old equipment and no longer support it. Look… I get it… with software come updates, equipment gets old it the hardware can’t handle anymore updates.  At the end of the day S2 was a great platform and worked well. 
 

The new “update” is absolutely unacceptable.  I don’t understand why or how as one of the leading manufacturers of audio equipment in the world actually looked at this new software and thought yeah it’s great let’s release it. You have to think about end users who are not techy and had something simple and high tech where they “could” play music throughout their home. They now cannot. For a person like myself I can muddle through and eventually get what I want. There’s nothing about this software that is seamless, simple, or user friendly. As for now I have made the decision to move the music platform that I sell to another manufacturer. I’m not happy about it and it’s honestly sad to see a good thing go. In my honest opinion you should have a legacy S2 app that sonos will still support. Us integrators will figure out the new app. but one again think about those less techy people out there that had a good product. 
 

Best,

Michael

Resolution Audio Video

*

*Moderator Note: removed website and email address in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.*

 

Spot on Michael. If I may ask, what system will you install instead of Sonos? Thanks, Sherwood

Thank you, 

I should also say that the last thing I would ever do is complain about a service or write a bad google review. I’m no keyboard warrior. Just thought I’d put my two cents in since I’ve been married to sonos for more than 10 years. To answer your question I am going to move to Bluesound. I was introduced to it last year at CEDIA. I personally have not installed any yet but they have something for every application and seems to be fairly priced and has great reviews. Pull them up on YouTube. 

Thanks, I’ll have a look at Bluesound, too. It’s amazing that there’s no statement from Sonos given all the feedback. Alone from a shareholder perspective this is a pure desaster.

U
Userlevel 3
Badge

Oh no…

Updated speakers to new firmware via PC desktop and confirmed with new android app…

Grouping is now dropping out on grouped speakers, i.e. speaker B grouped to speaker A and speaker B is patchy. This is regardless of app version responsible for grouping and regardless of wifi frequency (2.4 or 5). Pre-firmware = no issues!

​​​​​​Reverted app to 16.1, can't revert firmware ☹️

(actually any grouping A->B with a source other than a stream - TV, Play/Five line in etc.) causes speaker(s) B to be patchy...)

C

WHY THE F would you publish an app with REDUCED functionality?   What kind of mikey mouse operation are you running?

C

So what I am reading here is, screw your users, let’s release a half-baked app.  After all, everyone has invested $$$$ in our system and won’t want to leave.

Yeah...ok well guys you can look for my equipment on Ebay.  Luckily I haven’t heavily invested yet.  Four SL speakers.    

Blue Sound looks pretty darn cool and actually seem to want to let you play YOUR music...

P

Rather than repeat the complaints that have been made so far, I’ll focus on my biggest problem, the missing Sonos playlist. I’ve spent hours building a dozen different Sonos playlists. Once the new update was installed, those playlists disappeared. Best I could find online said that playlists are stored in the various Sonos speakers. If so, where are these playlists and how do I access them?

Peter Z

jgatie

Rather than repeat the complaints that have been made so far, I’ll focus on my biggest problem, the missing Sonos playlist. I’ve spent hours building a dozen different Sonos playlists. Once the new update was installed, those playlists disappeared. Best I could find online said that playlists are stored in the various Sonos speakers. If so, where are these playlists and how do I access them?

Peter Z

 

Playlists are still accessible from the PC or Mac app.

buzz

It's Hard for me to blame voice sync issues on any specific device. I've been in TV station control rooms and the audio was already out of sync. When I brought this up the staff gave me that “you don't get it” look. I'll mention that the movie industry had their voice sync under exact control by the early 1940's. The video industry seems unable or uncaring about fixing voice sync. Movie channels seem to have better voice sync. I also notice that fewer EU posters complain about poor voice sync than US users. I'm in the US.

B

In my case the original app release was not too bad, could not access my uploads to YouTube. But with every subsequent update something else breaks, Move2 loses connection if not at full strength WiFi and now my beam 2 intermittently just mutes itself. So not too convinced their development team can sort this out.  

S
Userlevel 3
Badge +1

Any roll back to the old S2 app will require a firmware downgrade to restore full functionality and I doubt there is a robust client facing process for that.

…

You need to decide for yourself whether to find alternatives or wait and hope, because I don’t see the old app coming back no matter how many people ask. The point in time for that to happen is long gone.

A suitable replacement  ? Denon by any chance ? 

Yamaha MusicCast. Wasn’t something I’d previously been looking at, but I already had an A6A Avr for video and gaming duties and found the only time I used actually used the Port I had plugged into it was for Multi-Room, the rest of the time for music listening I was using the A6A itself.

S

Ugh! Absolutely despise the new Sonos app. Not friendly at all, slow, hard to find things, searches seem to struggle. Just awful!!  Why change what was working well? 

Ken_Griffiths

Ugh! Absolutely despise the new Sonos app. Not friendly at all, slow, hard to find things, searches seem to struggle. Just awful!!  Why change what was working well? 

I don’t find the new Sonos search slow, even when searching well-over a dozen Sonos music services in one fell swoop.

1 Attachment
X

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.

 

Why does the new app take so long (1-2 minutes) to find the devices on your system?

Why does it lag so badly when trying to switch to a new playlist? e.g. press shuffle favourite tracks,
nothing happens so you press it again, still nothing so try again. Finally, the music switches but then over the course of the next five minutes, the playlist restarts again, and again, and again.

Why do tracks abrubtly end, seconds short of the end of the track as if it was a badly conceived crossfade, when crossfade is turned off?

As many have commented, the new sonos app is ruining what was always an exceptional audio experience.

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