Your feedback on the new Sonos App

I have an Arc, Beam, sub, 3 ones and a roam.  Is it possible to “upgrade” these to the old app?  It’s almost one year and still problem after problem with music playing.  My latest being nowhere to press play on my android device it’s just greyed out.  Seems to be for every step forward there’s one back for me.  Yes yes, restarted, rebooted,assigned ips etc etc.  

I just want it to work.  That is all.  Is this too much to expect?

A similar setup is working here for me to play music to the Sonos Home Theatre - I suggest you speak to Sonos Support Staff about the matter. The link below shows how to get in touch with them:

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact

Thanks Ken, I’ve been down that rabbit hole too often now and not once has my particular problem been solved.  Every time there’s an update something gets fixed and something else breaks, hopefully one day….. It does work well with the TVs it’s just when I want music from my YouTube playlists.

Ah right okay. I didn’t realise you just meant the YouTube service. I’ve been using Amazon Music mostly and that’s been okay. A little slow to start playback on the HT after a ‘play button’ is pressed, but at least playlists/albums etc. all work here.

Yep..I use SonoPhone and SonoPad..both work great. Still can’t understand those that have issues and won’t try these apps for Sonos. A whopping $4 one time payment I believe. 

You have to factor in the measly price of buying an iPhone or iPad as well as the whopping $4 for us on Android.  Is this the only way out of this Sonos app mess? Purchase an iPhone or iPad and the $4 app?  Is there an android alternative?  I can’t seem to find one.

Just recently when I contacted Sonos support again, finally there was a person with more knowledge than average.  My surround system, soundbar, sub and two play ones was apparently the cause of not showing the music library. It was reported as a bug but knowing Sonos, it may take a while before they fix it. Then I replaced the two Ones for Threes and guess what, the music library showed up. The joy however didn’t last long, whenever I selected an artist to play all the tracks, it stops every time after a few minutes and have to start over selecting. Aaaaaaaargh! I grabbed my 12 year old iPad again which still has the old app and works flawless…..

works flawless….

It was a fluke...

Still missing a Save button on the IOS app, and every time you exit a playlist, no matter how far down you were, it still doesn’t remember your place and takes you back to the top of the playlist. I guess this is not that important to Sonos, but it really pisses me off!!

I don’t understand the hold up on the playlist save. It was promised months ago…..

A month passes and another Sonos iOS release today which does not appear to address any of the main outstanding functional issues,,,

Still cannot save a playlist

Still cannot revert to playing the loaded queue after listening to the radio or TV

Still cannot delete an alarm

Still does not auto scroll to the currently playing track when viewing the queue

Still no A-Z scrolling through search lists

However, Sonos have given us all an extensive list of the all the changes they have been working on over the last month.  Here is the full list of all the changes to the IOS App in this release:  

• Improvements to usability

Thanks for being so open about what improvements have been made!

Besides the things that RavingDave mentions above, I found something strange. In my playlist there is a blank, greyed out song that I can’t identify. Don’t know what it is and can’t play it. Never seen anything like this before. Great usability. This blank song is in between two sea shanties. When I started playing the first one, it just skipped over it and played the second one, which was the next song in the playlist. But I can’t get rid of it. Maybe I’ll go on my Windows Controller, which is the only real way of editing and saving a playlist and see if I can fix it that way.  To be continued…

Update: I was able to remove that greyed out song using my PC Windows Controller, but the strange thing was that I didn’t save the playlist yet because I wanted to see if I could grab it and swipe left to delete that song, but it was already removed from my iPad’s playlist. That’s strange; I didn’t even save it on my PC and it automatically made the change on my iPad. ? Now I’m not sure if it’s operator error.  Somehow, the changes you make on the PC Controller immediately affect the playlists one my two IOS devices. Maybe this is an undocumented feature. 

In the Sonos world, I often see the term Playlist and Queue (wrongly) used interchangeably when in fact they're quite different things.

Are you talking about a list of songs that you can save and play later (a playlist) or a list of songs currently playing (on a speaker or group of speakers) that can be skipped, added to etc. (the queue)?

Changes in the queue, no matter where they're made ‘should’ be reflected almost instantly on all other devices that are also showing the queue - is this what you're referring to as an undocumented feature?

I say ‘should’ above because that's how it used to work whereas now it often doesn't even show the correct currently playing song unless you ‘bear with it'or restart your controller.

Android 80.17.09

Responsiveness using Music Services and Local Library better. 

Sonos Playlists now have art (previously greyed out on android) because I simply just queued them on Windows laptop and resaved them, three click operation and 50+ playlists. Recently played from local library still does not show art... that's the only 'art' issue. 

Still awaiting to able to do saving on android.

Good point. I’ve used the term Playlist when actually I think I mean the Queue. My (unresolved) issue with the app currently is that I used to be able to go into the queue and move things around, use “play next”, go to an album from a track in the queue etc and can do all of these things currently. Also the alphabetical list on the right hand side still missing, of course and the app not remembering where you were in the queue.

Joined just to say my bit.

I bought last year a Sonos Beam 2, first time I’d bought something like this, and it isn’t cheap.

After the surprise of finding it less than easy to set up with my windows PC, and use via my Android phone, I was getting used to it, despite the limitations that frankly seem ludicrous, like a limit on 48KHz music, for what is supposedly ‘high end’.

The rubbish app was then introduced, supposedly an improvement.

I could still play music from my desktop PC, but it completely tanked doing anything via my phone, which like most in the 21st century, I use for quite a lot of things.

After too much frustration, I gave up and now have it connected via HDMI to my TV. Nothing to mess around with.

I still want to listen to music, but what I haven’t done, is buy another Sonos. Fool me once...

I did mention to the sales guy in the store (Harvey Norman in Ireland) about the Sonos App debacle, and he said in response that Sonos sales had cratered because of it. Few sales now, and a lot of people bringing the product back, and buying something else.

I bought a Bang & Olufsen Beolit 20, which so far seems a heckuva lot better.

At this point, I might even get another one, or another B&O product..what I WON’T do, is buy Sonos again, I can’t afford that kind of expense where I pay over the odds for something the company can ruin without a second thought, and then pay off the klutze who did the damage to the tune of $Millions while others lost their jobs because of him (but without that kind of payoff).

Sorry that should have read “can’t” do all of these things currently 🤦‍♂️

Willy…. Stefan at SonoPhone is very approachable. I’d suggest that you go to his web site (Just search Sonophone) and ask him some questions as they pertain to your Android environment. If he doesn’t have a product that can help, maybe he can direct you to one. PlexAmp? Audirvana?

SonoPhone and SonoPad work 100x better than S2-2!!  They’ve saved the sanity of many in our household.  Odd - Sonos is not 9+ months with a still broken app, yet they can’t even make a simple interface/controller as good as SonoPad.  Very strange. 

True, but only If you are in the Apple bubble. For everyone else, if you have HomeAssistant you can use the Sonos card: 

Thanks SlamDesi, I might just do that.   Maybe there is something for the Android user out there.

Please can you post any information you find out here. Thank you.

Stefan kindly replied to my email, alas there are no plans to do an Android app.  Also no recommendations fir any other app on Android. 

For anyone interested to try.   There's a new app/widget on the playstore that'll be worth a try.   Search for Sonos Widget by Freddroid.  Hopefully it'll do what a multi million dollar company can't.  It's free at the moment. 

Oh thank you ! I missed the widget so much ! 👍