Retired Sonos Staff

News

The new Sonos Mobile App & Web App

Related content:Software

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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.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

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Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @JohnG666

So does this mean that the Trending section can’t be removed?

As far as I can make out, the Trending section to which you refer is a sub-section of Sonos Radio, therefore you would need to add it manually to your Home Screen. So, not only is it removable, it’s not there by default in the first place.

I already have that “personalisation” setting disabled and yet it still prompts me now and again to include the recently played on the my sonos tab

This is relating to the S2 app, which is not the topic of this discussion. If you need help with this, please start a new topic.

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

J

JohnG666

Enthusiast II

Hi @JohnG666

So does this mean that the Trending section can’t be removed?

As far as I can make out, the Trending section to which you refer is a sub-section of Sonos Radio, therefore you would need to add it manually to your Home Screen. So, not only is it removable, it’s not there by default in the first place.

I already have that “personalisation” setting disabled and yet it still prompts me now and again to include the recently played on the my sonos tab

This is relating to the S2 app, which is not the topic of this discussion. If you need help with this, please start a new topic.

I was just thinking that if this new version is just a reskin of the existing app then the bugs from S2 will carry forward to this version.

R

RJSUK

Enthusiast II

I don’t see why you would receive anything from any music services you have not subscribed to and added to Sonos. There are 100’s of services available on your Sonos system - to include content from sources you have not added would be highly impractical, and somewhat pointless.

I’ve never subscribed to or added the Sonos Radio service, I had it foisted on me some time after I bought my Sonos speakers. I find it highly impractical, and somewhat pointless that results for a service I’ve never used are front and centre in search results. Will there be an option to remove Sonos Radio in the new app, much like I can do wiith any other service?

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @RJSUK

I don’t see why you would receive anything from any music services you have not subscribed to and added to Sonos. There are 100’s of services available on your Sonos system - to include content from sources you have not added would be highly impractical, and somewhat pointless.

I’ve never subscribed to or added the Sonos Radio service, I had it foisted on me some time after I bought my Sonos speakers. I find it highly impractical, and somewhat pointless that results for a service I’ve never used are front and centre in search results. Will there be an option to remove Sonos Radio in the new app, much like I can do wiith any other service?

I don’t have that information at present. My assumption would be that there won’t be any change. However, search results are already sorted by the most commonly used service, so if you are seeing Sonos Radio at the top of your search results, then you are either using Classic Search - which will not be available in the new app anyway - or you have been listening to Sonos Radio more than to other services.

While I take your point about never having added Sonos Radio yourself, it is a service that you have on your system nonetheless. The earlier query about the “Trending” section to which I was responding in your quote of my reply was related to services not even installed.

I hope this helps.

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

T

Timboslice

Lyricist I

Any possibilities to solve the “problem” of the ERA300 with the new app?
We have these as surround speakers with a subwoofer and the Sonos ARC. It works quite well for movies and 3D music.
However, if I now only want to listen to stereo music in combination with the two Era300s and the subwoofer, this is not possible without breaking up the combination.
I think this is one of the most frequently requested features from the community. Will it be possible to switch quickly between such scenarios with the new app?

Cheers Tim

melvimbe

That’s going to require Sonos to develop the concept of having user profiles to start with. It feels like this is becoming more and more necessary. Besides showing different favorites to different users, the web app requires a log in since it can be used off network, or perhaps on your guest network. It would be ideal to be able to setup a guest user account that has no admin privileges for these situations.

I’m quite surprised that Sonos hasn’t used the opportunity of an app refresh to introduce user profiles. It’s something I have felt is needed ever since I purchased my first Sonos product around 8-10 years ago, and I don’t really understand why Sonos doesn’t seem to care much about the notion that different people in a household have different musical preferences.

I am generally not a fan of trying to introduce too many changes at one time. So in that regard, I’m not disappointed that Sonos isn’t creating user profiles at the same time they are doing UI changes, not to mention the likely release of new product in the next couple months. I’m not really expecting Sonos to create user profiles, since there has never been a hint that they would. Just because I like the idea doesn’t mean I know the amount of effort and cost it would take to do that, nor all the unintended consequences I have not considered.

The way I’ve envisaged it could work doesn’t require each person in the household to have a Sonos account. I’ve always envisaged something like how user profiles work within streaming services where there’s a single owner account for the house, and within this sits different profiles for different family member). In a similar fashion, I imagine only a single Sonos account would be attached to a single Sonos system (same as current situation) but within that system the system owner could create different user profiles (stored on the Sonos hardware). User profiles can then be accessed from Sonos apps connected to that system even when app is not signed into Sonos account associated with the system (which would also keep system admin rights away from users who don’t need them).

FYI, you can already do basic controls to use a Sonos system without being logged into the Sonos account, as long as you’re on the WiFi network. If you try and do an admin function, you will need to log in. So having user profiles, or sub accounts, wouldn’t impact administration in that regard. Perhaps they can exist without requiring any authentication, but I have seen plenty of request for such a thing to be password protected...so brother doesn’t mess with sister’s playlists.

I guess to provide user profiles in an app that does require sign (i.e. web app) may be more challenging since like you say it would undesirable for everyone to have system admin rights. It may require each person to have their own Sonos account and system owner would then control which other Sonos account can access the system and which have admin rights. That’s how my Ring doorbell/security system works and it works well but I guess it would be more work for Sonos to setup than profiles stored on the system itself.

That sort of thing would need to be maintained on a cloud server, which Sonos already has, but perhaps is hesitant to expand the footprint of. I would not want it to work like the Ring system though as Ring doesn’t really accommodate multiple users in the same household, as far as I can tell. Each Ring user has their own separate system. If you don’t have your own system, there is no need for a separate account. But admittedly, this is how I use Ring, so perhaps I’m only using part of the functionality. Regardless, with Sonos, there should be no need to create and maintain a full separate Sonos account just because you want to create a profile for a family member or guest.

And this is probably more of a nice to have for me personally. Probably a dozen other features I would elect to be implemented first.

Danny

Corry P

Sonos Staff

Hi @Timboslice

Any possibilities to solve the “problem” of the ERA300 with the new app?
We have these as surround speakers with a subwoofer and the Sonos ARC. It works quite well for movies and 3D music.
However, if I now only want to listen to stereo music in combination with the two Era300s and the subwoofer, this is not possible without breaking up the combination.
I think this is one of the most frequently requested features from the community. Will it be possible to switch quickly between such scenarios with the new app?

Cheers Tim

The app update will not include any changes to the speaker firmware, which would be required for the change you mention. At present, it remains a feature request.

I hope this helps.

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

jgatie

Any possibilities to solve the “problem” of the ERA300 with the new app?
We have these as surround speakers with a subwoofer and the Sonos ARC. It works quite well for movies and 3D music.
However, if I now only want to listen to stereo music in combination with the two Era300s and the subwoofer, this is not possible without breaking up the combination.
I think this is one of the most frequently requested features from the community. Will it be possible to switch quickly between such scenarios with the new app?

Cheers Tim

This is a question for another thread, but I’ll answer it here. It is highly improbable that you will ever be able to switch quickly between a surround and stereo setup for your surrounds and sub(s). They are two completely different configurations. One is a one-way private network from the soundbar to the surrounds/sub required for the low latency needed to sync with video, the other is regular Sonos, which is higher latency, buffered and uses a more reliable radio band that can penetrate walls and floors to sync audio between rooms. Each requires a reconfiguration of the radios and a series of handshakes, which is why adding/deleting surrounds/subs takes the time it does. So a quick toggling in the future is probably not possible.

O

osm

FYI, you can already do basic controls to use a Sonos system without being logged into the Sonos account, as long as you’re on the WiFi network. If you try and do an admin function, you will need to log in. So having user profiles, or sub accounts, wouldn’t impact administration in that regard.

Yes, that was partly my point. Profiles stored at system-level could be provided without having to be integrated into system admin rights management.

Perhaps they can exist without requiring any authentication, but I have seen plenty of request for such a thing to be password protected...so brother doesn’t mess with sister’s playlists.

True, but even without password protection it would be better than current setup and would be in line with how Sonos currently supports multiple instances of same streaming service (there is currently nothing to prevent me accessing the streaming service accounts of others in house via Sonos).

That sort of thing would need to be maintained on a cloud server, which Sonos already has, but perhaps is hesitant to expand the footprint of. I would not want it to work like the Ring system though as Ring doesn’t really accommodate multiple users in the same household, as far as I can tell. Each Ring user has their own separate system. If you don’t have your own system, there is no need for a separate account. But admittedly, this is how I use Ring, so perhaps I’m only using part of the functionality. Regardless, with Sonos, there should be no need to create and maintain a full separate Sonos account just because you want to create a profile for a family member or guest.

Ring does support use of multiple Ring accounts in a single household. It’s why I used it as an example (and actually the main reason I purchased Ring in the first place). The system owner/admin invites other Ring accounts to the system (settings > shared access) and each account can set their own preferences (such as what events they want to receive notifications for, and notification snooze settings). Device admin tasks can only be performed by the admin account.

melvimbe

Any possibilities to solve the “problem” of the ERA300 with the new app?
We have these as surround speakers with a subwoofer and the Sonos ARC. It works quite well for movies and 3D music.
However, if I now only want to listen to stereo music in combination with the two Era300s and the subwoofer, this is not possible without breaking up the combination.
I think this is one of the most frequently requested features from the community. Will it be possible to switch quickly between such scenarios with the new app?

Cheers Tim

This is a question for another thread, but I’ll answer it here. It is highly improbable that you will ever be able to switch quickly between a surround and stereo setup for your surrounds and sub(s). They are two completely different configurations. One is a one-way private network from the soundbar to the surrounds/sub required for the low latency needed to sync with video, the other is regular Sonos, which is higher latency, buffered and uses a more reliable radio band that can penetrate walls and floors to sync audio between rooms. Each requires a reconfiguration of the radios and a series of handshakes, which is why adding/deleting surrounds/subs takes the time it does. So a quick toggling in the future is probably not possible.

While I agree that it’s offtopic, and that network reconfiguration can’t simply be toggled on/off, this particular feature would not need a network change to be implemented. Currently, you have the option to play non-TV stereo sources with the front speakers only or front and rear playing stereo. This would be a 3rd option to play rear only. Essentially, your Arc would still receive the audio and distributing to the other speakers in the room, it would simply play no audio itself.

This is really a corollary of the more comment request to be able to move sub to a different room, use portables as surrounds, etc...but a corallary that can be resolved without network changes.

I suspect maybe the issues with this though is that the room is likely not tuned well for this, and many users would expect that they can move the surround speakers to a different room, etc in this mode without issue. In the case of the Era 300, you definitely would not be able to play atmos audio soley through the surrounds, as another issue.

Danny

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