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Retired Sonos Staff
October 28, 2024
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Update on the New Sonos App and Future Features - October 28, 2024

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Update on the New Sonos App and Future Features - October 28, 2024

The latest on the Sonos App from Nick Millington

 

Please also see the latest statement from Nick Millington regarding the app updates.

 

October 28, 2024

 

This is Nick Millington, Chief Innovation Officer, with an update on the Sonos app.

As our CEO Patrick Spence has said, we know that too many of you have experienced significant problems with the new app we introduced in May. Over the past several months, I, together with hundreds of Sonos engineers, have been focused on a singular objective: to improve the Sonos app and overall software experience such that it not only meets, but exceeds the experience of our previous app.

We built the new app to improve our ability to drive innovation and make future updates and improvements when needed. Since its May launch, we have rolled out ongoing updates, and while we will never stop improving our software experience, today I am pleased to share that our new app now surpasses the old one across several important performance metrics: 

 

Issue

Equal to or better than the old app?

“Add Product”/Setup Success rate

✓

“System not found” and “Products not found” errors

✓

Configuring stereo pairs and home theater

✓

App responsiveness

✓

Crash-free sessions

✓

 

The items above correspond to the top issues we heard from you upon release of the new app, as measured by the volume of customer support contacts driven by each. For new customers, the experience of setting up your Sonos system or a new product for the first time is critical, and I’m pleased to share that our success rate here is now the highest we have ever measured, significantly exceeding the previous app. 

Other quality benchmarks – such as eliminating incidents prompting a “something went wrong” message– were not measurable in our previous app yet are today, thanks to improved monitoring capabilities. This means we can now better ensure we’ve not only reached, but will maintain a high quality experience. (Currently, fewer than one percent of app sessions result in a “something went wrong” message.)

Although we are working with urgency to improve the app, we are also mindful of our commitment to roll out change more gradually, and apply more stringent testing. For this reason, moving forward we’ll alternate between major and minor releases, maintaining our momentum of making improvements while also ensuring adequate beta testing.

For example, today’s update is a major one, including significant improvements to system setup and reliability of adding new products, as well as improvements to volume control and responsiveness, and Local Music Library search, sharing and stability. At the same time, some features are still missing. We know that these have devoted users as well, and we are eager to restore them. In November, we’ll roll out performance improvements to Trueplay, Add Product, and general system reliability, at the same time that we beta test missing features targeted for restoration in December. These include:

  • Improved volume control & responsiveness (Android)
  • Playlist editing
  • Album art for music library (Android) 
  • Support for Android users moving between multiple systems 
  • Improved music playback error handling
  • Snooze Alarms

As always, you can also view detailed updates on each new release, including today’s release as well as previous ones, on our Release Notes page. 

Even with improvements made to date, we know that customers will at times still run into issues. That is why we have expanded our Customer Support capacity, adding dozens of trained agents as well as weekend support. If you are still experiencing issues with our app, know that we have a team standing by to help debug or troubleshoot any challenge you are currently facing.

Having recently marked my 21st anniversary at Sonos, I want to express my deep gratitude to you for being a Sonos customer, whether you’re a first-time or long-standing one, and personally commit to you that the next 20 years hold so much more. The ease, reliability, and magic of our products is the most important thing to me and everyone else at Sonos, and the best is yet to come.

You can expect to hear from me again soon with another update on our progress.

 

Looking for the original update on the Sonos app from CEO Patrick Spence? You can find this archived on the Sonos blog.

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.

127 replies

Ken_Griffiths
December 4, 2024

​@Ken_Griffiths My Music Library works fine, only Sonos has removed functionality from the "Folders” section, where you cannot play a Folder+Subfolders anymore, or add Folders (+subfolder) to the queue… (opposed to searching on Artist or Album, where this is working...)

Oh I see, that’s my mistake, I thought you were inferring that the playback was working via Windows App and not via the Sonos mobile App. Admittedly I rarely use the folder area of the local library and tend to browse via Artist, Albums, or will use my own *.m3u playlists - some of which play an Artists entire music collection. I don’t think the Sonos developers have finished with local libraries yet in the new Sonos App, so I’m guessing the features you mention will be included at some point going forward. Meanwhile some simple playlists might be able to resolve the issues you mention until those features are perhaps included.

Ken_Griffiths
December 4, 2024

This Sonos-Alexa issue is pure insanity!!!!  Sonos has a problem.  I’m left with a very expensive system that can tell me what time it is. 

What issue is that ​@Sharla🤔 - Alexa seems to be working okay here on Sonos. "Alexa play some music” for example, auto groups my designated speakers and will begin playback from the set default music service (Amazon UHD in my case).

Lyricist II
December 4, 2024

Swallow your pride and roll out the old one!
Be nice to have some music to listen to with out having to spend a morning reconnecting and messing about. 

Ken_Griffiths
December 4, 2024

Swallow your pride and roll out the old one!
Be nice to have some music to listen to with out having to spend a morning reconnecting and messing about. 

If you’re perhaps having to regularly reconnect your Sonos devices, my thoughts here are that anyone with the type of issue ‘perhaps’ could have a multicast ‘device discovery’ issue across their network that’s preventing the controller device from communicating with their Sonos speakers. See attached re: SSDP/mDNS.

Such communication failure can occur across networks that use WiFi extenders, EoP adapters, or if managed switches are misconfigured. It can also happen if some settings on a local router are incorrect, or there’s software running on the mobile device that is getting in the way of the multicast communication, such as security software, VPN client, firewall, site blockers etc.

I’d perhaps investigate further in the areas mentioned and if still no luck, then it maybe best to reproduce the issue(s) seen and then immediately submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to help you to resolve the matter.

Attachment: 

 

Enthusiast I
December 4, 2024

​@Ken_Griffiths 
Your assertion that “! . . local libraries using that later sharing method do all work perfectly fine with the ‘secure’ sharing method,  . . “ is not accurate for all users.  On my iPhone and iPAD the Music Library option just does not appear even though it is housed on a NAS which is running the later, secure, versions of SMB.  It appears on the windows app, and any music launched from there can be controlled (Skip back/Jump forward/Pause/Resume) from either of the mobile devices but it cannot be initiated from them becasue the option to do so just does not exist.

I have spoken with Sonos Support who have confirmed that this is a “known issue” and that they are investigating it.  They suggest that as a workaround, any time I wish to use my portable speaker(s) to play music in the garden, I retire inside, fire up the PC open the Windows and select it from there.  I shudder to think what they will suggest when the Windows app is deprecated.

This may seem trivial to some who have more pressing issues of connection/reconnection etc, but it really is a major annoyance to me.

 

Ken_Griffiths
December 4, 2024

​@Ken_Griffiths 
Your assertion that “! . . local libraries using that later sharing method do all work perfectly fine with the ‘secure’ sharing method,  . . “ is not accurate for all users.  On my iPhone and iPAD the Music Library option just does not appear even though it is housed on a NAS which is running the later, secure, versions of SMB.  It appears on the windows app, and any music launched from there can be controlled (Skip back/Jump forward/Pause/Resume) from either of the mobile devices but it cannot be initiated from them becasue the option to do so just does not exist.

I have spoken with Sonos Support who have confirmed that this is a “known issue” and that they are investigating it.  They suggest that as a workaround, any time I wish to use my portable speaker(s) to play music in the garden, I retire inside, fire up the PC open the Windows and select it from there.  I shudder to think what they will suggest when the Windows app is deprecated.

This may seem trivial to some who have more pressing issues of connection/reconnection etc, but it really is a major annoyance to me.

Ah okay, I guess there can be exceptions to the rule, but just curious, which NAS (make/model) are you using and what SMB version is it using? - if the SMB interface has advanced features can you perhaps comment too on what settings you perhaps have in place for the following SMB options; 

  • Min/Max SMB version
  • Oplocks

Write Options:

  • Preallocate
  • Strict Sync

Security:

  • Restrict Anonymous
  • SMB Encrypt
  • SMB Signing
Enthusiast II
December 4, 2024

Re: Local Library/ android app

Since 80.12.04 adding individual tracks/album to a queue is hit and miss - it's alway been very reliable and rock solid before May and since. Still cannot see all my Sonos Favorites... so Windows app is still my first port of call for queuing my listening... hoping it will all be over by Christmas... 

Contributor I
December 6, 2024

I now officially HATE Sonos. 

My generation 1 PLAY:5 sits in the box because I'd have to run a separate Sonos network for it (S1). 

Every time I go to play something using the Sonos app, ONE of the following things WILL happen:

  • Require an update (takes forever)
  • Room(s) not found
  • Move not connecting to WiFi - thus cannot Airplay
  • Endless spinning (loading) wheel
  • Now playing display in Sonos app shows incorrect song
  • Hitting next track, volume, or any other button, is followed by a long delay - the Sonos speaker may react to the command. 

THIS COMPANY HAS BECOME A SCAM.

All the early adopters got screwed.

There are endless threads about all the issues and how they keep getting worse. 

Want some advice, SONOS ?

Rework the whole app and be damn sure to include all the S1 speakers in it too. We all know it's possible. If you turned it off, figure out a way to turn it back on. I believe that 80% of your efforts should be directed at this. No more company parties, no more salad bar, none of that crap. You need to go Elon Musk Twitter take over - fire everyone who does not see themselves aggressively working towards fixing the APP. This is top priority!

Use the other 20% for continued R&D, advertising...whatever. But you won’t need to design more products if the APP still sucks and you alienate the CORE customers, but focussing on NEW acquisitions. I know that is what you are doing and I’ve had enough!

Who the heck am I?

I’m the owner of 15 SONOS speakers and 1 junk app. 

Ken_Griffiths
December 6, 2024

I now officially HATE Sonos. 

My generation 1 PLAY:5 sits in the box because I'd have to run a separate Sonos network for it (S1). 

Every time I go to play something using the Sonos app, ONE of the following things WILL happen:

  • Require an update (takes forever)
  • Room(s) not found
  • Move not connecting to WiFi - thus cannot Airplay
  • Endless spinning (loading) wheel
  • Now playing display in Sonos app shows incorrect song
  • Hitting next track, volume, or any other button, is followed by a long delay - the Sonos speaker may react to the command. 

THIS COMPANY HAS BECOME A SCAM.

All the early adopters got screwed.

There are endless threads about all the issues and how they keep getting worse. 

Want some advice, SONOS ?

Rework the whole app and be damn sure to include all the S1 speakers in it too. We all know it's possible. If you turned it off, figure out a way to turn it back on. I believe that 80% of your efforts should be directed at this. No more company parties, no more salad bar, none of that crap. You need to go Elon Musk Twitter take over - fire everyone who does not see themselves aggressively working towards fixing the APP. This is top priority!

Use the other 20% for continued R&D, advertising...whatever. But you won’t need to design more products if the APP still sucks and you alienate the CORE customers, but focussing on NEW acquisitions. I know that is what you are doing and I’ve had enough!

Who the heck am I?

I’m the owner of 15 SONOS speakers and 1 junk app. 

I don’t see why you have your S1 speaker in a box - it will happily run on the same WiFi network as an S2 system - simply have it use a different HouseholdID. I’ve run both systems side-by-side since the S1/S2 split in Nov 2020 and never had any issues with either Household - both run on the same WiFi SSID.

If your Sonos devices are not being discovered then I ‘suspect’ that you might have an mDNS/SSDP ‘device discovery’ issue over the LAN segments, which maybe preventing the controller device from communicating with the Sonos speakers.

Such communication failure can occur across networks that use WiFi extenders, EoP adapters, or if managed switches are misconfigured. It can also happen if some settings on a local router are incorrect, or there’s software running on the mobile device that is getting in the way of the multicast communication, such as security software, VPN client, firewall, site blockers etc.

I’d perhaps investigate further in the areas mentioned and if still no luck, then it maybe best to reproduce the issue(s) seen and then immediately submit a Sonos system diagnostic report from within the Sonos App, note it’s reference and contact/chat with Sonos Support Staff via this LINK and see what the Staff can perhaps suggest to help you to resolve the matter.

Trending Lyricist I
December 6, 2024

Honestly I am losing faith, I just read your statement, I don't feel the same way as you do, I am your customer.

 

So I just thought I'd take a look at the android app and just try something simple, not techie, not specific, just try and play some music. 

 

This is what happened, 

 

Entered the app, unusually it showed almost immediately the last music playing on one set of my speakers, good start. 

Searched for a playlist on deezer, Found it fairly easily, all good. 

Pressed play, within a second it so the first track started, all good. 

 

Pressed track fwd button, waited 2-3 seconds, not goo d, eventually skipped fwd. Not good

 

Pressed again, nothing, no indication that anything was happening, waited 5-6 seconds, skipped onto next track, not good.

Eventually it skipped fwd, then added two other speakers, delay of 5 or so seconds, one came in, then the other, then the other, took 10 seconds or so to get them together. Not good

Tried to pause the music, no response  not good

Wanted to alter the global volume from the play screen, am o daft? Can't see how to do that. Not good

After 10 seconds or so of play, app switched to Can't find your system screen, 3 speakers shut down, two stayed live but much lower volume, app can't see any music playing on any of those speakers, so no I can't stop it or control it all. Very not good!

 

Gave up at this point.

 

Just to be clear, I don't have any fancy or specific requirements, just want to choose and control the music I am playing, not complicated.  IT DOES NOT WORK!  IT DID BEFORE.....