Degradation of Performance

I suspect you may (perhaps) have a local network issue. I have 25 Sonos products here and the iPhone XR Sonos App opens under 10 seconds from a fully closed state - it can control volume on each of the 10 Sonos rooms with no significant delays and that can be ‘grouped rooms’ of four/five, or more. See attached animation made a few moments ago of adjusting volume on 6 rooms (below), selected at random.

• Crows Nest -  Era 100’s (stereo pair)
• Dining Room - Arc, Fives, Sub (Home Theatre)
• Hallway - Sonos One (Gen 2)
• Kitchen - Beam, Era 100s, Sub Mini (Home Theatre)
• Polo - Era 300’s (stereo pair)
• Utility - Sonos One SL’s (stereo pair)

It definitely should not have any significant latency like you describe, which is what makes me think it’s perhaps a networking issue.

Appreciate the response. I have 5 amps, 2 playbars and an Arc. Everything worked beautifully until the day the new app was launched. It feels a bit coincidental that I would have a network issue starting the day the new app dropped. My 1 Gig Google Fiber fully meshed network with 4 ruckus access points has worked seamlessly for years. Not sure what to do.

Not really coincidental, I think. One of the things that occurs when Sonos updates their software is a soft reboot of all speakers, after which they ask for new IP addresses from your router. If the router has gotten into an ‘odd’ state, and hands out a bad/duplicate IP address on request, it can cause issues with the controller and the speakers.

One way to test this, since the vast majority of routers don’t show potential duplicate IP addresses, is to power down al, Sonos devices, by unplugging them from the wall (or, in the case of battery powered Sonos, fully powering them down),then rebooting the router. The router’s speed to the outside world doesn’t really enter in to this at all. Give the router a couple of minutes to finish coming up, then power on/plug in your Sonos devices. This way, you’re reloading the firmware on both your router, and the a Sonos devices, and getting fresh IP addresses. Give the Sonos a couple of minutes to boot up, and reconnect before testing.

If this works, I’d certainly look into setting up reserved IP addresses, for at least your Sonos devices, in the router. Instructions should be in the router’s manual, it will help keep this situation from happening again. 

If this doesn’t work, I’d recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

So familiar. I have 11 zones combined in my home & guest house. Been a strong promoter of Sonos for many years, installed many simple systems, few larger ones. Removed Xantech whole home system in my mom's house, threw it away, replaced with Sonos for its simplicity. As an electrical contractor of 25 years - distributed audio & video, surveillance, and networking is not something I advertise but have a firm understanding of. 

This new update has ruined my positive experience with Sonos. After reading the above, it seems that networking issues are to blame for the latency of this system? My system lags from 10 to 20 seconds or longer from a button press to be executed. The whole app is buggy, but the latency with song selections, volume, room grouping, basically everything live just kills it for me. Now, like above, I need to redesign my internal network to accommodate this update. Was that written somewhere in the fine print that I checked on? I don’t remember reading that this new update would require hours of frustration, trouble shooting, rebooting Sonos equipment, network equipment. Then days later find that you need to redesign your once perfect functional internal network.

Mom calls me asking what happened to Sonos? No longer a simple system. I removed my URC system from my house and was sold on Sonos from day one. I’ve seen AMX & Crestron come and go, then came control4 or Savant. Point is I went to school across the country to learn how to program Lutron Homeworks lighting systems, never went to class to learn how to install Sonos, its plug and play, simple. Not anymore. The evolution of the product integration is not good for us end users. The Era300 paired with a sub mini worked great for a client one day, the next, it is incompatible, and returning to Sonos is also not an easy task. 

The product has always been spot on, no complaints. Awesome gear, when you can control it, like you used to, before the update.