Retired Sonos Staff

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The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App

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Today we are introducing the most extensive app redesign ever, creating an unprecedented streaming experience that allows listeners to organize their favorite playlists, stations, albums and more from over 100 services on one customizable Home screen.

The new Home screen provides faster access to Sonos system controls with one easy swipe up, making tab to tab jumping a thing of the past. As a leader in sound experience that’s focused on creating a better way to listen, Sonos intentionally redesigned the app on a modern software platform for an easier, faster and better experience that can support more rapid innovation.

The reimagined app supports all existing S2 products and will be available globally through a software update for the S2 mobile app.

100+ streaming services, one Home screen

The redesigned Sonos app prioritizes a listening experience that’s human - allowing you to bring your true favorites front and center and giving you more control to make your streaming experience your own.

Get into your music (and off the app) faster: No need to tap between tabs — the new Home screen serves up all your favorite content and controls, all in one place. Quickly jump back into your recently played, browse libraries and recommendations from your preferred services, and fill your home with music and all the sounds you love.
Customize and curate: Enjoy unparalleled curation by designing your Home screen to reflect how you listen. Pin rows of your favorite content and services; then move, edit, or rearrange them to your liking.
Search every streaming library: Look for an artist, song, podcast, or audiobook across all your preferred streaming apps at once via an easy-to-use search bar that’s always available right on your Home screen.
Elevated system control: Swipe up from the bottom of your Home screen to seamlessly control your entire system and access a visual overview of what’s playing on each of your products, quickly group speakers, and dial in on the perfect volume from anywhere in the app.

Accessible from any modern web browser, a brand new web app allows listeners the same seamless system control as the mobile app.

The Web App will be available alongside the redesigned mobile app on May 7, 2024.

Want to find out more about the new Sonos App? Have a look at the Info Hub section of the community for a complete rundown of the new user interface.

Here you can find the full press release.

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Show previous replies

melvimbe

The Sonos app upgrade (from the screenshots I’ve seen) doesn't seem like it’s that much more user friendly to me, as a lot of the placement seems the same (favorites up front), except for a few minor things (i.e. search). But perhaps when I actually get to play with it, I’ll change my mind. I want to see more improvements in functionality though. So things like different bass / treble settings for each service and different bass / treble settings for the TV input. This is something that Wiim has.

I don’t think you can make any real judgement on the UI based on screenshots alone. Understood that you want feature improvements, but a UI improvement is not related, and has little impact on what features may or may not be in the pipeline.

In terms of SVC, I find it completely and utterly useless in launching music (due to horrifically poor and hilariously bad voice detection), compared to Amazon Alexa. The only time I use it is when grouping (as you noted) and when activating or deactivating the speech enhancement. That’s it. With massive improvements coming to local on-device AI engines, I seriously hope Sonos invests in upgrading the SVC to something actually usable in the future.

I have no issues launching music. That said, I’m usually requesting radio stations or specific artists, so I’m not pushing the limits. I have not experienced Alexa to be better by any means, and don’t really care for an AI improvements at this stage.

Danny

melvimbe

Playing local files was dropped from the Android app a while ago and I doubt it will be coming back in the new update. Take the local library reassurances with a grain of salt.

While I get that you might see the two features are similar, they are rather different. The ability to play files stored on Android and Apple had to do with those two companies changing the OS and making the existing functionality break. That is not the case with local libraries.

Danny

R

RJSUK

Enthusiast II

Thanks. To be clear then, after updating from S2 to the new version (I'm not calling it an upgrade), users can still play from a local library but will have no ability whatsoever to search from it?

For now that is correct. There is an alternative though. You can use Plex, most NAS also support it. Universal Search does support Plex.

No, don't call it an upgrade, call it for what it is - a downgrade. When I bought my Sonos speakers being able to easily access my music stored on my NAS was the big selling point. Now it's all work arounds and alternative "solutions". Extremely disappointing.

R

RJSUK

Enthusiast II

Hi @Nollind

To be honest, I was stunned that they’re going to remove local access to music files by phasing out the Sonos desktop app.

We are not removing access to local files. At launch, the new app will not have the settings needed to manage your local library shares, but this will be added later. Any existing share(s) set up prior to the app update will still work.

I hope this helps.

Why are you launching the app if it's clearly NOT ready? Absolutely bonkers.

K

Kumar

There is another question to be asked about this update/upgrade. A recent release of S2 broke a deal of Connect Amps and Play 3 units because their memory cards could take no more software bloat. These were products that were sold not long before the introduction of S2 in 2020 and these products were S2 compatible at the time. Users were given no warning of this issue probably because Sonos was not aware it would happen till it did.

The issue I refer to was said by Sonos to being worked on with the “highest priority”, a couple of months ago, which is clearly not quite honest seeing that there is no fix yet, while upgrades of this kind are being catered to.

The question to be asked is how many more products will break because now they cannot take in all the code that must be in this upgrade, without breaking down.

K

Kumar

@Nollind , regarding lossy and lossless differences, I’d be interested to see/hear how you get on with this test. I hear no difference personally, never mind a noticeable one. Use your headphones too.

I will close out this observation on a digression that I started on this thread, by this comment: it is well established that people will hear what they are predisposed to hear. This is a part of psychoacoustics, and has been relied on by the audio hardware and music industries to sell redundant products for decades now.

K

Kumar

Why are you launching the app if it's clearly NOT ready? Absolutely bonkers.

Phrases that abound in software development/marketing like “Great is the enemy of the good”, or “ Timing is everything so get it out there first and start working on version 2” come to mind.

However releasing an upgrade that removes existing functionality, even temporarily as claimed, is odd. Looks like a marketing decision based on number crunching of how many users now use local libraries while getting music from their Sonos kit. I believe that is now a low single digit percentage of the user base, trending further down.

J

JohnG666

Enthusiast II

Re the new Home Screen - is this fully customisable? I currently have to keep rejecting the prompt asking me to include “recently played” on the My Sonos tab because I just don’t want or need it. Is this going to be compulsory to have on the Home Screen?

I also didn’t like the My Sonos tab because it forced me to have my playlists on there which were my playlists for my FLAC music on my NAS drive. Because I had these playlists, the only place where I could access them was on the My Sonos tab and the Sonos app woke up my NAS drive from sleep every time I viewed the My Sonos tab even if I only wanted to play radio stations. I eneded up having to delete all my NAS playlists because of this behaviour. I hope the new apps aren’t as badly designed as this!

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @Adam

@Corry P Are you able to confirm if search for local libraries will also be added later, or should we assume once classic search is gone we won’t be able to search local libraries again without running Plex?

At present, I can only say that this feature will not be present at launch and we don’t know if that will change or not.

I wish I had more info to give you, but it’s not available to me right now.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @JohnG666

The home screen is customisable, though the Recently Played section is not removeable - but you can certainly move it out of the way to the bottom of the Home Screen, should you wish.

I hope this helps.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

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