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Ryan S
Retired Sonos Staff
October 2, 2017

Now Available, the New Sonos App

Related content:Software



Sonos version 8.0 is introducing a brand new controller for iOS and Android. The new Sonos app makes it even easier to navigate, access, and control your music throughout your home. This new app comes side by side with voice control through Alexa devices, more about that here.

Check out our blog for the Remastered Sonos App. Full details on the new apps can be found here on their respective product guide pages. Let’s take a look at the new app:



Introducing Navigation with Tabs:


The Sonos app now has five tabs visible at the bottom when not in the full playing screen. The tabs are My Sonos, Browse, Rooms, Search, and More. See here:



Now your most used options are available with just one click, and Now Playing is always just one tap away.

My Sonos
We’ve consolidated all your personally curated Sonos Playlists, music service playlists, and Sonos Favorites into one, easy to use page on the Sonos app. You can edit fields to move around the order, or delete them entirely. You can now have up to 40 favorites total, up from 32.

Browse
Browsing your music is even easier as it no longer hides your other options. You can browse and move to different rooms all while keeping your place in the browsing menu. There’s also a dock on the bottom of the app that gives you easy access to the navigation tabs. You can swipe it up to reveal it at any time, then back down. We’ve separated browsing your music and the menu for Settings, so it’s even easier to find what you’re looking for.

Rooms
The menu starts highlighted on the active room, featured right on the app so that it’s even easier to see what’s playing in each room. There’s now an icon on that screen to show you where the music is coming from too. That includes if it was started by Alexa. The active room has a Group button to have it add others to the party.

Search
It hasn’t changed, just moved to an easy to find spot.

More...
All the settings and options are in here. You can add services, make alarms, get some help, and access all your settings. We think this will make it a lot easier to find what you’re looking for. And speaking of settings…


Explicit Language Filtering


Within Settings > Parental Controls, you can set a system-wide setting to filter songs with explicit content. Right now, this is working for Apple Music, and we’re hoping to add it for more services soon. Once the setting is on, Apple Music songs with the explicit tag will no longer play on your system.

Long Press to Group


Making it even easier to play music. With 8.0, you can press and hold the Play/Pause button (or mute on older players) to have your player join the most recently active player as a group. First, you have to start playing music on a player, (it can be from an alarm or any other source), and then just hold the button for a few seconds on another player. That second player will join the first one’s group and start playing the same music in sync.

There's another function of the long press, and that's being able to move recently stopped music to another room. First, stop playing music in any of your rooms. Then, press and hold the play/pause on another player for a few seconds. (Make sure that you don't start playing music anywhere else.) The queue or source will move to the unit you held the button for and start playing. The players won't group together and any existing queue will get whiped out in place of the new one.

iOS 11 and Android O Support


Lastly, version 8.0 has support for the latest operating systems from Android and iOS. This includes iOS 11 support for Trueplay on Sonos. Trueplay isn’t available on Android at this time.
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527 replies

BarryM
October 15, 2017
I don't like everything about the new app either, but I wouldn't want to go back to the previous version ... The "long press" to add to, or remove from, a group, without need to find a controller, is the most useful feature that they have added for some time IMO.
Enthusiast II
October 15, 2017
That is simply not true.

Of course it's true. Otherwise I wouldn't have written it.

I have no idea how it works on your device but on my phone V8 goes straight back to the browse page when I step back, and then I have to navigate through all my folders again. V7.4 just returns to the folder I was on before, which is what you describe and what I want.

Anyway, it's not an important issue as until they sort out the awful white screen I certainly wont be installing V8 again.
Enthusiast II
October 15, 2017
I would say Sonos forced me to upgrade, if I wanted to use my Sonos system my only option was to upgrade to new app before it would allow me to play anything with it.

For me the update was requested on my phone and I had the option of not doing it. I did actually update, didnt like it, and have gone back the previous version which does everything I need without blinding me at night.

So at no point did my system insist on the update in order to keep working. Maybe there is something different about your equipment?
Ken_Griffiths
October 15, 2017
I came in this evening and in less than ten seconds of opening the app had my music library playing in the Living Room. How disastrous is that?

The disaster is that when you want to return to your music folders in order to play more music there doesnt appear to be any way of getting directly back to the folder you were in. You have to navigate all the way through the folder structure again starting from the browse screen. I have better things to do with my time.

I got round this by going back to the 7.4 version which does not have this feature/bug.
That is simply not true. Or I am misunderstanding what you mean. I just played some music from my library, swiped down the Now Playing screen, and there I am in the folder structure, not back at the top. Tapped another album by same artist. 7.4 is becoming a distant memory for me now, but I think that is just the same as it was. Even if I switch rooms and hit Browse I still end up in the folder structure. Just as before, as far as I recall.


Yes, I agree with John B. If you 'browse' your music library folders and then decide to navigate away from that tab, by either going to the now playing screen, or any other tab like 'My Sonos' or 'Rooms' or 'More' tab etc. and then return to the browse tab, I find that I am still at the exact same place I had navigated to in the music library structure. To get back to the 'beginning' of the browse tab, a user can click or tap the browse tab twice ... and then you can start from scratch and begin the browse tab navigation again.

So my thoughts are that Darrel must somehow be double clicking his browse tab and that means he is having to navigate things all over again.

Well that’s what I think appears to be happening in this case.
Enthusiast II
October 15, 2017
Sorry but every version since the awesome tri sectional blue screen has made accessing music etc worse...this is no exception....multiple clicks sub menus and weird placing of menus just makes you want to use another app...such as Sonopad..

The basic concept of Sonos is a multi room music system..so what better view would you want when you open the app to see than A your players or rooms?....B the source of music stored or streaming service and C what’s playing now...

instead opening the app now starts part way in..its like opening a book at page 73 and wondering who these people are and what’s happening....

It’s ironic Sonos have created a sort of floating bar at the bottom which shows they know people want the overall view ....it’s far more logical to select room music play ....why would you have to constantly have to guess where things are?...

And why the hideous glaring white screen..it’s far to big there’s so much space it’s a waste...

Want to see your stored music?..right let’s make the icons so big it takes endless scrolling to find them....

Now the Alexa skill.....why?..i know it’s a beta but what exactly does it do for anyone not signed up to Amazon prime?...it won’t play stored music....asking it to play bob fm on sonos in the living room results in it being barely audible even with the player turned up to 10 so that’s useless...any other function?..errr no....
Enthusiast II
October 15, 2017

So my thoughts are that Darrel must somehow be double clicking his browse tab and that means he is having to navigate things all over again.


I do know the difference between a single and double click and on my phone it is almost impossible to do the latter by accident. So whatever is happening is surely not due to a double-click.

I have no intention of installing V8 again until they fix the horrible white screen issue so I cant actually test the navigation problem at the moment. I just know that it is there on my phone.
Prodigy II
October 15, 2017
I was just forced to upgrade to your new ios app a few days ago and I hate it. Now ther's more steps to change music in individual rooms and other headaches. And it's much more confusing to navigate. I have no use for Alexa or Siri navigation as I use neither. I just want the old app back. i wish you didn't force unwanted changes on us. Not to mention I recently bought my 87 year old Mom a Sonos speaker that she quite liked and was able to navigate the old app quite well. She now tells me she no longer wants the Sonos after it forced her to upgrade, it's too complicated for her now and she's very disappointed. I'm no longer very happy like I was with my Sonos system, I may have to go with something else now.

Don’t buy her a new tv. She will never be able to use the remote.
Prodigy II
October 15, 2017
Sorry but every version since the awesome tri sectional blue screen has made accessing music etc worse...this is no exception....multiple clicks sub menus and weird placing of menus just makes you want to use another app...such as Sonopad..

The basic concept of Sonos is a multi room music system..so what better view would you want when you open the app to see than A your players or rooms?....B the source of music stored or streaming service and C what’s playing now...

instead opening the app now starts part way in..its like opening a book at page 73 and wondering who these people are and what’s happening....

It’s ironic Sonos have created a sort of floating bar at the bottom which shows they know people want the overall view ....it’s far more logical to select room music play ....why would you have to constantly have to guess where things are?...

And why the hideous glaring white screen..it’s far to big there’s so much space it’s a waste...

Want to see your stored music?..right let’s make the icons so big it takes endless scrolling to find them....

Now the Alexa skill.....why?..i know it’s a beta but what exactly does it do for anyone not signed up to Amazon prime?...it won’t play stored music....asking it to play bob fm on sonos in the living room results in it being barely audible even with the player turned up to 10 so that’s useless...any other function?..errr no....


Skip track, volume and...go on, give it a go. You know you want to. Maybe start with the instructions...volume is relative. It depends what volume you start at. Give it a try. Experiment. Be brave.
Enthusiast II
October 15, 2017
Yes i have experimented..the volume is nil...nothing negative nada...with alexa turns up full and the play 5 it’s connected too turned up to FULL...it’s in audible....with an ear placed ON the player it’s just about noticeable so no it’s not relative...

Skip tracks?..on what?,,,the radio?...errr no you can’t do that in the real world...skip track s on your stored music?...errr no it does play stored music...

Despite being a man i do follow instructions...and enabling the skill after several abortive attempts gives no function that’s any better than pressing the radio station on. tunein on the sonos app.....

Next?...
Lyricist I
October 16, 2017
Created a community account just to add my +1 for increasing the available slots inside My Sonos. The My Sonos tab has so much awesome potential for creating the "ultimate library" - albums and playlists that span across the many music services - all collected into a single hub. Would love to see this happen!