Now Available, the New Sonos App

It seems like most people like the new Android app....
Michael
Er, have you read the reviews since the update?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sonos.acr#details-reviews
Most people give it 1 star (presumably because there is no 0).

The new app is much less user friendly that the previous iteration. After a month of use and trying to pin down why, I think it comes down to the multiple systems the app employs for navigation.

In some areas, you can click on an item to move further into that function. As an example, you can hit "browse" then "apple music" then "new" and keep going deeper and deeper "vertically." In other areas, like "rooms," you are basically prohibited from moving vertically and you are forced to move horizontally. You select a room or group, then you must move horizontally (search, browse, or my Sonos) to then move vertically through those menus.

If you select a room, it comes up in a card. From this card, you have no option to select music for that room/group or move horizontally. All you can do is group, pause/play, and adjust the volume. Perplexingly, you must swipe down to close that screen, then move horizontally to another area to play music in the room/group you selected. It's inconsistent with the rest of the app. Another glaring inconsistency is that you can group on the "rooms" screen AND in card view, but you can only choose music when you are looking at the "rooms" screen (or elsewhere where the menu bar is present).

This is confusing, because instead of a unified logical progression through the app (i.e. select speaker/group, then select music), you have various competing systems. You have vertical and horizontal movement through icons as well as one seemingly random instance of a card interface with gesture-based movement.

The result is a system that is much less intuitive. You're not always quite sure which of the three systems to use to get to where you want to go.

Another big issue is that once more than a few rooms are grouped, this is annotated as “+1” or “+2” on the rooms screen. Here's a real-world example of this: “Living Room + Dining Room +1” and “Master Bathroom + Master Bedroom +1” showing on the rooms screen. If I want to play music in my office or garage, which should I choose?

The real-world effect of this app is that my fiancée and I listen to music less at home. We had an issue where she was trying to play music in the master bath and she unknowingly blasted music almost full volume in the living room. I tried to fix it, but basically just managed to blast my music in the bathroom, and we went back and forth until we just stopped the music. Since then, she won’t even use Sonos. She just plays music on her iPhone and leaves it on the counter while she does her makeup, despite the $380 worth of Sonos products in the master bath.

Sonos, I love your company. I’ve been a brand ambassador for you and sold friends and relatives on your products over Bose and others due to your company’s focus on simplicity and ease-of-use. Please focus on simplifying the user experience and making it at least as intuitive as it used to be.

“I strongly advise those who really hate the new app (for reasons only known to themselves) to NEVER buy a new TV. You will absolutely hate it.”
Most of the people complaining here didn’t buy anything new. They were forced to use an app they don’t like with something they already had.

Forced to use a remote they might not like. Same difference. Forced to use a completely different “SMART” set up. Forced to to rescan channels. Have to do this that and anything else. What happens. Silence. People just get on with it.
These changes are infrequent but that, according to the complaints on here, should present even greater hate.

People can whinge away, or people can try constructive feedback. Which one do you think will get things changed?

Hi, my sixth post here which I hoped I didn't have to be doing just after my first one. I would like to share my experience and hopefully other people may find some value in it.

From five years to some time ago: very happy Sonos user with three devices, buying a Connect, Play:5 (gen1) and Play:1 (Bluenote edition), leading to installing the Sonos system in our business as well. Then got disappointed with the introduction of the Sonos Account to the app (no explanation and no opt out), then got even more disappointed with the changed privacy regulations (no opt out) and finally got the bang of the new UI introduced in 8.0 app, which also introduced all kind of network issues in our business set-up which is being used by quite a number of people. This stopped my family from using the Sonos. In our business we need it, so it's different, but until today mistakes in rooms and playlists are daily leading to awkward and disruptive situations with our clients . The learning curve for the app is steep it seems.

Sounds familiar I think since I do read a lot comments along the same line here in the forum since the 8.0 update. To share the disappointment I opened an account to add my complaint to the list. Then frustration: no sign whatsoever about a roll-back or movement towards an UI that is based on 7.x. Instead I read responses from Sonos representatives that all feedback is forwarded to the dev team and asking for patience, "this is just the start of a new UI". That reads to me as arrogant and ignorant. We are beta audience, forced to ditch a excellent working app without warning and being enrolled in a beta program, that looks different, feels different and IS different.

Thankfully frustration also helps opening your eyes. I don't expect Sonos to take a different path. This must have been a well thought through decision, leaving me one option: look elsewhere, which I did.

So I looked around for an alternative multi-room set-up for our home which also could give me a small upgrade in functionality and sound. Based on reviews and talks with friends I decided to look further into the Bluesound offering. More expensive but hi-res and bluetooth possibility, and a dark UI environment. My family agreed to giving that a try. I consulted the Bluesound support crew asking for their future plans with the software sharing my experience with the Sonos decisions lately. Unfortunately no guarantees were given but I did get a statement that all changes in the app are developed in close loop with the customers and "audiophiles" somehow connected to the community. Being an "audiophile brand" might dampen some of the enthusiastic (but disruptive) plans of the software developer(s) and forcing a more conservative software development path.

I now have a Node 2 that replaces a Connect and a pulse flex replacing the Bluenote play:1. Why did this decision make such a big impact for me?

First, I could not be unhappy, even frustrated any more about my Sonos experience, since it was just "gone", at least in our home. And secondly because the Bluesound set-up surpassed my expectations. It is a Sonos alternative, but far more refined than I expected or was looking for. The goods after a three days use: Dark interface! OMG, how I missed such a simple thing when looking around through music at night at my iPad. Simpe navigation, basically swipe left or right gives you access to all functions or rooms and an extremely nice layout on the iPad. No account, not even an e-mail address required to set-up the system! Just plugin and go. Even without internet, I tried the bluetooth connection and the pulse flex is an excellent music box on the go (even accepts a USB drive with music). And for the node 2: OMG, that actually is in a complete different league sound wise than the connect, even when playing 192kHz radio stations, but that's a different story, we're talking software here. The bad after three days: software is a bit glitch y at times and sometime behaves unpredictable, and on a iPhone SE some screens become a bit too crowded with information. Searching on Deezer is a bit slower than on the Sonos, when adding a room to a stream the stream briefly pauses. I truly hope the Bluesound dev team is controlled by the users to not radically change the app layout, just tweak some functions and stability.

The Bluesound system is way over the top for our business needs. That just needs to be simple, I will continue my search for an alternative there. Or maybe Sonos can stay if the required login (when adding players) is abandoned and the UI will somehow become more intuitive shortly. The white interface has not been such an issue for our purpose.

Hopefully sharing this can make it more bearable for some people complaining. There is a life outside the Sonos eco-system, not just your family but also more than capable alternatives. It's not worth spending your valuable time banging on Sonos's door requesting a roll-back or whatever. As said by a lot, that's not going to happen. What will happen to the Sonos ecosystem, time will tell. But from now on I don't have to care that much anymore and just enjoy exploring music with family and friends.

And to the Sonos moderators here, I'm not advertising here, not related to Bluesound or just sold all my Sonos shares, my intention is to help people that are not so happy with the current direction of Sonos. By showing a path elsewhere is not that difficult. Unless you have so heavily invested in Sonos players that replacing them would introduce a whole new league of stress triggers. :)

In case I said something here that is in violation with the community/forum rules, please pinpoint them and I will change my words.

Cheers,

Sonos,

Another user here who has owned multiple Sonos products for many years who simply thinks you’ve got this one totally wrong.

The thing I loved about Sonos is ‘it just works’ and is extremely intuitive. The new app is simply awful. It is no longer intuitive and is rediculously slow!

I fully understand your need to modernise and keep the app fresh but you’ve really got this one wrong! It is so clunky and just not enjoyable to use.

Please give users the opportunity to downgrade to the previous version whilst you sort the glitches out. The app is such an important part of the Sonos experience and at the moment it is ruining the use of my system. (It’s that bad).

I sincerely hope you listen to your customer base on this one.

Thank you.

Hi,

Thank you for the helpful info on Bluesound. I've been using Sonos since 2010. The queue management is the best feature in Sonos for me. I tried using an alternative in the past but I have not yet found a product that would have a queue management as good as Sonos - maybe there is? A system relying on Spotify Connect does not do it for me. The alternative I tried did not have a usable queue management so I didn't switch to it. I will study Bluesounds.

I've learnt the new navigation and don't mind it at all when the errors are fixed. The need to swipe down to reveal the tab area in unfortunate but not a big deal for me as it's just swiping down instead of right/left in the 7.4 (can't remember which way you needed to swipe to show the side menu). The new app is also slower than the previous version for me. That's unfortunate. I understand that the UI for people with multiple Sonos components may look way more crowded. Hopefully the zone area view in the Rooms tab is more compressed to prevent the need for lot of scrolling.

I would like to see a list of Known Errors for the 8.2.1 software. Is there a list available? Would save a lot of time contacting support and reading the community threads.

I am sad to see the huge white background on 8.x. That is my #1 gripe with the new 8.2.1 app. Slowness is #2.

I'm hoping that the error with moving music to another room from the Now Playing (card) UI gets fixed soon. Also hope the error with Search result list ordering gets fixed on the Android app. I also hope the icons are made much smaller in My Sonos, and the big album graphic in Now Playing UI made smaller to make better use of the screen estate, by e.g. showing the control tabs all the time. I'd like to see if it was usable or resulted in more accidental touches on e.g. my android phone's navigation buttons. It would make the sw more complex but an option for the user to make the tabs visible all the time vs. hiding them could be one way (similar to Windows' auto-hide task bar). I'd keep it visible if it did not result to wrong accidental touches.

I see the support articles have not been updated with the latest app. It would have been pretty easy to make screen capture videos showing how the new features work. Maybe the Sonos team has not yet had time to make them, or I'm not seeing them. They could help a lot of users who have usability issues with the new app. I see and hear from my colleagues that they are increasingly experiencing drop outs in music after the latest Sonos software update. Hopefully those get resolved.

Just out of interest - maybe you mentioned this somewhere - how much feedback, and from how many users, did you get in the real beta program phase for the white UI and the new layout? I'd really like to know how many users find the white UI better than the darker UI.

I hope the Sonos team is successful in quickly fixing the errors and making the app work much faster. Godspeed.

Maybe a suggestion to Sonos that has some sense making and bridging the gap between new and old: Start a second BETA software testing and development program, maybe even an ALPHA program which takes a look at a further future version of the software. That future version is started with a copy of 7.x (without the account-login requirement), renamed to version 10.0 and conservatively further developed. This ALPHA program can only be accessed by users that are not interested in voice control and and don't have any player newer than the 2nd gen Play:5. At a later stage that might change and newer players and services can be added to this ALPHA program. It's unknown when this program will leave the ALPHA status.

I'm curios how many Sonos users will instantly enroll in this upcoming ALPHA testing and development program. 🙂

After update to the latest Sonos app (8.2.1), my iPhone app is unable to find and connect to my system - is there anyway to fix this other than do a complete reset of everything? I had to do that at our beach house upon updating the app, and now back home I am experiencing the same problem?

Still very unhappy with the app. The Rooms view is just confusing, with no obvious delineation, and it is just so inefficient. I have 5 rooms and a 5.5" phone, but I can only see 2.5 rooms without scrolling. And it goes without saying that there is too much white. This morning Kitchen had disappeared completely. I clicked on Group for a different Room, and Kitchen was there! I selected Kitchen, deselected the original Room, and then I had control of Kitchen! How nuts is that?

My daughters and I were in favour of getting multiple Sonos units, but my wife was reluctant - but with the previous app, we got her up to speed. With the current app, she is in her words "dis-empowered" and hardly ever uses it. That's sad.

I notice that we no longer get responses from Sonos in what still seems to be a very active topic. I guess that says it all.

Let me start by saying that I rarely submit app reviews. If I don’t like an app, I delete it. In the case of Sonos, I hardly have a choice since Sonos hardware is app driven. I have 8 Sonos devices and a lot of money invested. I started buying Sonos 6 or so years ago. I was very happy with it hence my additional purchases.

The app upgrade is poor. The UI is not intuitive at all. It takes so much thought and staring at the app just to figure out how to control basic room and volume functions.