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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

Contributor I
December 29, 2017
I opened a case with Sonos on the difficulty of their new version and the constant complaints from my customers about how hard the interface is to navigate now. Based on the following response I received, they have no plans to improve their system and there is no options to return back to a previous version.

Sonos response is either like what we are giving you or go somewhere else as we are not doing anything to fix it. These threads are packed by a majority vote. Based on what I am reading the majority is frustrated.


Case. 171222-000038

“At this time we do not have any plans to change the interface of the Sonos app.”
jgatie
December 29, 2017
They will never roll back to the previous version. There was a huge hue and cry for it (much larger than the one today) the last time the UI underwent such changes and Sonos never considered reverting then, and still will not now. It simply is not an option.

As to changing it? Well, the CS rep's answer can be interpreted liberally or literally. Liberally, they aren't going to change the overall design of the interface. Literally, of course they are going to change it, they make changes all the time. But as stated in this thread, it will only be changed after input from users. Will there be drastic changes? No. But it will be tweaked, just like 5.0 was tweaked, and the majority claims to love that UI now. If you wish to have input into those tweaks, I suggest you put the notion of ever returning to the former app out of your mind and list a few of the things you would like changed.
Enthusiast II
December 29, 2017
I opened a case with Sonos on the difficulty of their new version and the constant complaints from my customers about how hard the interface is to navigate now. Based on the following response I received, they have no plans to improve their system and there is no options to return back to a previous version.



Interesting post. Considering Sonos release v8 as an 'improvement" over v7 when they do get to v8 improvements will we be happy?
Ryan S
Ryan SAuthor
Retired Sonos Staff
December 29, 2017
Hi everyone, we appreciate the feedback all around.

The team is listening and working to incorporate your feedback into the new app. You'll see some changes coming to the next versions of the app. They're looking into the brightness of the app and working on ways to balance the contrast. They're also looking into ways to improve the general flow of the app, and streamline navigation.

Thanks for sharing and please let us know what you think as the app develops.
Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.
Chris
Lead Maestro
December 29, 2017
Look forward to the upcoming update Ryan. Thanks!
Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
Guy_19
Enthusiast II
December 30, 2017
Hi everyone, we appreciate the feedback all around.

The team is listening and working to incorporate your feedback into the new app. You'll see some changes coming to the next versions of the app. They're looking into the brightness of the app and working on ways to balance the contrast. They're also looking into ways to improve the general flow of the app, and streamline navigation.

Thanks for sharing and please let us know what you think as the app develops.

Thanks Ryan. Does "balance the contrast" mean that you will provide a dark theme option in Settings?
7 rooms: One SL Stereo Pair, One SL x 2, Move, Play:5 Gen2 & Port into Arcam AVR with AE floorstanders, Port into Denon microsystem.
Chris
Lead Maestro
December 30, 2017
I doubt Sonos will allow a dark/light theme user setting. They have always been pretty Ridgid in not allowing user customization and I seriously doubt that will happen now.
Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
geoffking65
Lyricist III
January 3, 2018
SonoApp - the alternative
geoffking65
Lyricist III
January 3, 2018

Guy_19
Enthusiast II
January 3, 2018


What a fantastically dark theme Geoff 🙂 What does it look like in Phone format?
Sadly the Android app of that name is unrelated... https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.danfoss.sonoapp
Where do you find your SonoApp?
I see that the most recent reviews for the Sonos Android app are still mostly 1 star https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sonos.acr&hl=en_GB

EDIT - have just seen your post in the "We want SONOS App dark mode back!" thread and the app in question is caller SonoPAD not SonoAPP
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sonopad/id579984303?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
It seems there is now a SonoPHONE too, but sadly it is iOS only, not Android :(
http://sonopad.de/
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sonophone/id815251931?mt=8&l=de&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
7 rooms: One SL Stereo Pair, One SL x 2, Move, Play:5 Gen2 & Port into Arcam AVR with AE floorstanders, Port into Denon microsystem.