The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App

I'm very disappointed in the new Sonos app. I've had to sign in several times which I've never had to do before. I have one system at my house and another system at a place I rent and it won't automatically find the system without me choosing to join whereas previously it would just join the system because it recognized it. Now there are apply buttons to initiate an action like volume change. In some instances it seems you can do it without hitting the apply button, but in others you can't. I don't recall there ever being an apply button before. Managing the different room setups I have has become more cumbersome as well. Previously it was easy to select. Now it is not. I'm amazed at all the things that are not good in the new app. Very disappointed. Would love it if I could get a hold of the old app.

It’s a feature that’s apparently coming later - see this link from Sonos Staff for further details…

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-and-music-services-228995/the-new-sonos-app-and-future-feature-updates-6892942?postid=16723302#post16723302

I posted here 17 minutes ago, and it says I have 5 replies but I can’t see them and the “5 replies” is grey and not clickable.  Eh?  If anybody knows the secret, please don't reply - I won’t be able to see it!  Add a new reply to the thread. The one below mine has 2 replies, can’t see them either, have tried 4 different desktop browsers.

Those are just replies that you have made on the Sonos forum. Anytime you post something it goes up one.

This new app is a joke! unfortunately for me all my devices are on auto update.. DOH! 

So far for me, I have a brand new ARC paperweight as the wonderful new app that nobody needed or asked for will not let me add this new unit to my setup despite multiple attempts on different devices, which yield me different results each time I tried to add it.

And the trueplay tuning does not work now either, after having to reinstall my old beam. 

WTF! is going on here

I tremendously dislike the new app. Where it was 2 taps to change my playlist, now it takes 5 and my playlist wont even play. Where there are radio stations, you can select tap play and they play. My playlist should be just as simple. I had better success with the old app. Not progress in my opinion

Would absolutely love to peruse the Sonos agile dev team Features and User Stories to understand what features were in this release and what dropped off the list.  Plus to see the interpretation of the stories would be a neat read. 
 

I’ve read most of the posts in this thread over the last few days and was threatened with a ban by one of the mods for an intemperate outburst to another user that was trying to tell us all to calm down. 
 

One thing that does cross my mind would be to advise everyone to disable automatic firmware updates on their systems. I wouldn’t put it past Sonos to push out an update to the devices that makes them not work with the last versions of the S2 apps. Then they would have the perfect excuse to say that they cannot re-publish the old versions in the app stores. 
 

I have zero trust in Sonos execs since this debacle started. 

I’ve read most of the posts in this thread over the last few days and was threatened with a ban by one of the mods for an intemperate outburst to another user that was trying to tell us all to calm down. 
 

One thing that does cross my mind would be to advise everyone to disable automatic firmware updates on their systems. I wouldn’t put it past Sonos to push out an update to the devices that makes them not work with the last versions of the S2 apps. Then they would have the perfect excuse to say that they cannot re-publish the old versions in the app stores. 
 

I have zero trust in Sonos execs since this debacle started. 

Of all the things to do, pushing an update to lock in the new app would be … I don’t know, perhaps someone facing consequences would try, but responsible release managers would sooner quit than double down on a bad bet. 

Sorry to say it but this new app is not good. Its missing some key features like an ALARM and the dark mode but to boot its just nasty looking. If it were a car it would be the horrid bubble looking Nissan Micra. The app wasn’t broken but they decided to try fix it anyway and have done a very poor job at that. I used to praise Sonos and recommend it to my friends but not  any more.  

I’ve read most of the posts in this thread over the last few days and was threatened with a ban by one of the mods for an intemperate outburst to another user that was trying to tell us all to calm down. 
 

One thing that does cross my mind would be to advise everyone to disable automatic firmware updates on their systems. I wouldn’t put it past Sonos to push out an update to the devices that makes them not work with the last versions of the S2 apps. Then they would have the perfect excuse to say that they cannot re-publish the old versions in the app stores. 
 

I have zero trust in Sonos execs since this debacle started. 

Of all the things to do, pushing an update to lock in the new app would be … I don’t know, perhaps someone facing consequences would try, but responsible release managers would sooner quit than double down on a bad bet. 

Release Manager - what a ridiculous job title.  Sort of like a glorified check-out clerk but probably does less actual work and little grace. 😜

Has an official rollback to the previous stable version of the app been discussed within Sonos?   

It completely fails to start on some of my devices, and is missing critical functionality on others.

Sonos would be well advised to withdraw the current version and restore the previous one ASAP until the significant regressions can be addressed and fixed.

Honestly, none of the features you published are any use to me or my family and the functionality is a step backwards.

Sure you want to simplify your codebase and make a fancy webapp where you can switch on and off features in real time. But all i want is to listen to music through streaming, from my NAS and have an alarm where i can wake up to my favorite music.

It is very disappointing having to switch back to my annoying alarm clock, just because you decided to remove this useful feature for a ton of useless stuff.

I always thought that it can't get worse than New MS Teams and New MS Outlook. I was wrong!

Downloaded the new app over the last two days.  Not a fan.  We have over 1500 albums stored on a NAS.  With the new app browsing the music library is a major pain.  If you go to an area like Artists there is no longer an alphabet column where you can jump to a specific letter.  Am I supposed to scroll through 1,500 albums worth of artists?  Same problem on the Albums menu.

The search function is not as useful as it used to be.  Previously, if you searched for an artist it would search your music library as well as your services.  How is dropping the music library from the search results an improvement.

Finally, the old app allowed you to go to the different sets of speakers from anywhere in the app.  This was very useful if someone was listening in one part of the house and you want to listen to something else in a different part.  This no longer seems possible, or at least it is not easy.  Every time we have gotten to a list of the different speakers it seems the only option is to add those speakers to the ones you are already listening to.  

This new app is a mess.

Where is the alarm feature? 

As a Sonos user since 2011 and the owner of 65+ Sonos speakers, I’ve been through plenty of Sonos software, firmware, and hardware updates over the years. As for the recent Sonos app update….it’s an epic fail. Poorly designed and poorly executed. There is no excuse for this in today’s age; the knowledge, talent, design, and development and test tools today are available, well-known, and very mature. Epic fail Sonos! It’s so poor I wouldn’t know where to begin. Luckily, so many others feel similarly and have pointed out the deficiencies. Yet, my gosh Sonos, you screwed up something so basic as the volume control!  WTF

Seems like they are being review-bombed on trust-pilot

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/sonos.co.uk

Why do so many Sonos users rate Bose as an alternative?  

Bose wouldn’t be my go to. Mind you I don’t know much about their products. I would be looking at HEOS (I already have a denon amp and it’s alright) or bluesound network player and pair it with an amp/speakers.

The current benefit of Sonos other the others for me (ignoring the current situation with the app) is that you can access the api’s via a Python utility called soco. 

HEOS is the route I'm going down.  Already sold 50% of my Sonos kit. 

Is there anyone else that simply likes to shuffle all of the songs in their library? Sit back and listen to all the music you’ve collected and digitally stored. A nice and simple way to enjoy your library. What happened to the ability to do that??! After you navigate to Songs, there is neither a play button nor a no ‘shuffle all’ button. The buttons are there is you select an Album, Artist->All, or Genre->All. Please put the play/shuffle functionality back into the Songs section as well. 

It is sad that after we invested hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars into our music ecosystems, the rug is just pulled out from under us. And now that this update has just sent us ten steps backwards, are we all supposed to help you fix what really should have been a Beta test release? It was very deceptive to encourage that we update our apps, suggesting that the new app would be a welcome user experience improvement, with all the existing features and functionality intact. They are not intact at all. Boo.

Bluesound node (plus reasonable speakers) will cost at least Euro 700 per unit.  Better value would be Wiim Minis (Euro 250) 😁

OG Sonos user here (6 rooms, 2 home theater setups). Even upgraded everything during the S1/S2 transition because I was a loyal fan. Ease if use and consistent updates kept me wanting more but now when it becomes upgrade time I may have to consider other brands. If there is an option to I will consider even voting out the CEO as a shareholder!

This update? 🗑️. No timers, alarms, couldn't even connect. Rolled back my Android app & rebooted everything.

One good review for every 199 bad ones? Yikes, Sonos. Obvious this wasn't tested enough. Even accessibility (supposedly priority #1) failed my blind friend.

Do better, Sonos. You're disappointing your loyal fans.

Please, please, please go back to the previous version of the app. This update is ugly and a terrible user experience. It seems like you have taken all the ease of use and features you had and decided you should avoid including these in the new release.

There are significant features missing. How do I change or cancel my alarm now? I can't go to sleep to music and it turn itself off after a period of time any longer. I can't add my Sonos devices to Apple HomeKit. I feel like I have only half the system I bought, you have hobbled it.

Please make this right. You should probably just admit you made a mistake and backtrack to the previous app version until you have done proper testing before releasing this one again. I’d also suggest that before dumping this on us again you maybe do some user testing beforehand also.

Being in software & product myself I appreciate the complexity of rolling out a big update but not as much as I appreciate the importance of extensive QA and listening to the users and, I’m sorry to say, this update is a major fail.

Was it rolled out just to meet a deadline?! Surely this cannot have been properly tested, the core/basic feature set completed and user interviews done to gather feedback before rolling out such a poor “upgrade”! Smells like shiny object syndrome to me, focusing on a UI update at the expense of UX and actual core functionality.

I’m not sure if this has been mentioned by other users, but further to some of the issues people mentioned here my Google Assistant is bricked on my Sonos devices. They’re trying to push their new Sonos Voice Assistant, which they’re entitled to offer, but since the update my Google Assistant stopped working. No matter what I try (setting it up again, unlinking Sonos/Google, rebooting, you name it) I have not been able to get it back whatsoever.

I’ve loved our Sonos products over the years and was considering buying a few more recently but this single update has made me think of selling them all and looking for an alternative instead. What a disaster…

I really hope they roll this back asap before their users start jumping ship and I truly feel bad for the good people at Sonos who built amazing speakers that are not involved in their software who will suffer from this.