Sonos Staff

A fresh coat of paint and some new features coming to the Community Forums

Forum|Forum|21 days ago
September 18, 2026
99 replies
1249 views

👋🏼 Hey everyone!

Along with the new brand campaign that was launched earlier this month, I’ve been working behind the scenes to bring a fresh coat of paint and a few new features to the Community Forums. There's a lot changing and nearly all of it is focused on one thing: bringing the community together and giving this space the care and attention it deserves, in a way that's actually felt and sustainable.

The current targeted date for these changes is October 6th. You should not see any downtime while I make these changes, but I will be around - so please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly or mention me in a topic/comment should something go sideways.

Here are the details:

Threaded Replies 💬

Just like Reddit. You'll be able to reply directly to each other and have side conversations within topics instead of everything living in one long flat thread. This one has been a long time coming and I think it's going to change the feel of conversations here in the best way. It also opens the platform up to new style of posts and content. (We can actually do proper AMA’s!)

A Refreshed Front Page 📰

We're simplifying the front page so that anyone who walks through the front door, gets value and direction right away. Less clutter, clearer paths to the good stuff.

Community Rituals 🎙

Regular platform events and content made specifically for this community. Office Hours (think AMAs) are coming to the Community, along with regular "state of the business" style posts from our CEO, Tom Conrad. You've asked for more direct lines to the people building at Sonos. This is the start of that.

Global Translations 🌐

One of my personal favorites. The entire site will translate into your local language automatically (based on your IP address), and you can switch it to any other language on the site whenever you want.

One important note here: Global Translations will make the separate German and Dutch Communities redundant. We're working with Gainsight to solidify the plan to merge those communities into the new Global Community instance without losing any content. That history matters and we're treating it as such. This isn’t an overnight thing and will likely take some time to complete. My current target for everything to be merged and in one global community is Jan 2027. As this develops, I will be sure to post in those respective communities and here as well.

Location-Based Groups 🗣

With everything coming together under one global roof, we're revamping Groups to be location based. There will be groups for the US, UK, Australia, Germany, Netherlands and Mexico. That's where all the location-specific stuff lives: local finds, sales, concerts, whatever's happening in your corner of the world. While we’re bringing everyone together, we still want to give space for local, neighborhood style conversation.

Request Line is Open 📬

Have a good idea or feature request? Want to share it with the team? On the request line, you will be able to make your case and have the community vote for it. Top voted requests will be shared directly with the team here at Sonos and followed up with in our Community Rituals.

Looking Ahead 👀

Beyond October, a few more things I'm working on:

More Sonos folks on the platform. I'll be bringing people from across Sonos (software, hardware, and more) into the Community so you're hearing directly from the teams doing the work.
More helping hands. We're planning to add a couple of people focused on engagement here on the Community Forums.
The moderation team stays. To be clear, the mod team isn't going anywhere. Absolutely needed, absolutely staying.

As always, I want to hear what you think. Questions, concerns, things you're excited about, things you're skeptical of. Drop ‘em below 👇🏼

Show previous replies

MoPac

Headliner III

How do i get to the latest post. I don't want to have to scroll past posts I already read to see what the latest reply is.

Found it. "Newest First” from dropdown.

C

craigski

Local Superstar

Some more info here on threaded replies feature:

https://support.gainsight.com/cc/Release_Notes/Current_Release_Notes_-_2026/Q2_2026_Release_Notes_for_Customer_Communities_(CC)#Release_Date:_July_29.2C_2026

Note:

Threaded replies (up to three levels)
Users can reply directly to any L1 or L2 reply, up to a maximum depth of three levels.
Replying to an L3 reply adds an @mention and posts as an L2 reply.

Fixed sort order for nested replies L2 and L3 replies always display oldest first. Users can change the L1 sort order.

kdowling

Some more info here on threaded replies feature:

https://support.gainsight.com/cc/Release_Notes/Current_Release_Notes_-_2026/Q2_2026_Release_Notes_for_Customer_Communities_(CC)#Release_Date:_July_29.2C_2026

Note:

Threaded replies (up to three levels)
Users can reply directly to any L1 or L2 reply, up to a maximum depth of three levels.

Replying to an L3 reply adds an @mention and posts as an L2 reply.

Fixed sort order for nested replies L2 and L3 replies always display oldest first. Users can change the L1 sort order.

That explains why I get @ sometimes, but not all the time. It also explains why replies don’t show up under/tied to the post I’m replying to. Replying to an L3 reply adds an @mention and posts as an L2 reply.

That’s messed up.

Stanley_4

Grand Maestro

This explains several notifications I could not figure out.

Can we please have a disable toggle on these notifications, they add clutter I do not want to the notifications I do want.

Airgetlam

I’m also finding that in threads such as these , I have to ‘go back’ to the recent active threads a second time, then again click on the name of the most recent poster to be shown the actual most recent post, rather than the first OP. And it certainly doesn’t seem to be saving the ‘newest/oldest post’ setting, either.

Bruce

melvimbe

I think newest/oldest post setting is only going to apply to posts that reply directly the original post. A new reply to a post (against the original post) that was done in the middle of the timeline are going to be tied to the post you’re replying to...and thus also in the middle of the timeline.

It does make it more difficult to read new posts on a topic you’ve been following, but I do think it makes things a little easier to read a pre-existing topic for the first time.

Danny

kdowling

If I'm looking at the last post in this thread with “Oldest First" order, and then go and change to “Newest First”, it doesn't show the newest first. I have to click on “Show previous replies” 6 times to get to the newest reply first.

If I change it back to “Oldest First”, now to get back to the bottom/last post, you have to scroll to the bottom and click “Show more replies” 6 times. scroll, click, scroll, click, scroll, click, scroll, click, scroll, click, scroll click, scroll.

Not to mention, you can’t see all the replies without clicking + to expand all the nested replies.

There has to be a better way.

jgatie

Once again, while I appreciate people may be used to threaded replies on reddit, they really, really don’t work on a forum like this. Too many posts are missed, and if support (in all forms - purchasing, technical, troubleshooting) is what you are here for, the last thing you want is your post not appearing to anybody who clicks on a thread to see the latest postings. On top of that, frequently people who come here are not familiar with reddit, and it’s seriously intimidating to see all the circles and arrows and plusses and minuses pointing to ‘expand here’, ‘contract there’, ‘6 replies’, and ‘Show previous’ just to see what others had to say. reddit is for conversations, not replies to people just looking for help. JMHO.

Will I get used to it? Hmmm, maybe. But I’ve tried reddit a dozen times over the years, and I never stuck to it. Perhaps Sonos will also see me leave. I’m sure some will be pleased to hear that, but I like to think my good outweighs the bad. 😁

And PS, no offense to Gainsight or the decision makers, but they took the worst forum software that there is, and instead of improving on the things people have been asking about for a decade, they added something nobody asked for, and (IMHO) made it even worse. Am I surprised?

Sadly, no.