You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
After the catastrophically crap update they rolled out a year or so ago all my sonos speakers pretty much stopped working.
Have they rolled out any useful updates or fixes yet?
All works now. Even the really old connect box is working fine.
Well when I say working fine, the connect is fine as long as you don't touch any of the buttons on it. Control it from a phone/ spotify and it's good. I have stuck a post-it with 'no' over the buttons.
I find playing through the App very poor so just use Spotify and connect on Bluetooth
Awful. Laggy, pretty non-intuitive... Also connect direct through Spotify and control it there.
Not noticed any issues for a long time with my system, it’s predominantly used as a surround system though and when playing music we use the inbuilt Alexa.
I use the S1 app because I have an old piece of hardware, and it works fine. Is this update to the S2 app?
Also connect direct through Spotify and control it there
Better still, don't even bother opening any app, just talk to the Sonos and tell it what to play!
I'm not sure if only s2, my stuff is s2 I'm pretty sure.
I stream to my sonos speakers normally via mixcloud or BBC sounds app, which still normally works fine.
But the update killed Alexa, she wouldn't listen to "play radio station" at all and over tone both speakers would fall out of stereo sink with each other and now one won't work at all no matter how many times I reset or sign out and in to the system.
It all worked gloriously perfect before they messed around with it and now it's just pony
Interesting reading this. The big gamble is that if you upgrade from S2 (the gold-coloured app) to the new Sonos app, you can't roll back to S2.
I'm still using S2 for my system (Play:1s, Play:3s, Beam) and it's kinda OK. A bit laggy with things like volume control, but no worse than it ever was, and eventually always works.
The new app was an absolute binfire, and apparently was using huge amounts of internet bandwidth (every request, even to change volume, was being sent to the internet and then the instruction being sent back to the speakers from there). Has that improved?
Its usable.
The overall UX design is poor - i struggle to remember how to group devices and switch between services and they've still got a lot of work to do to get back to feature parity, but the performance is much improved.
https://support.sonos.com/en-gb/article/the-new-sonos-app-and-future-feature-updates
Mine is still very laggy through the app, takes an ages to change volume or pause/stop anything. You end up pressing the bottoms a few times, it then cancels the action you tried to enact etc. it's much better than it was a few months ago but nowhere near functioning how it used to. They keep sending me emails trying to get me to buy more stuff, there is no way they are getting any more of my money anytime soon as I still find it a frustrating piece of kit to use.
I'll have to get mine back out to have a look at.
How do you cast / stream from the BBC sounds app.
I find the sounds app within Sonos to be crap. I can never seem to find out which podcast in the series I'm listening to
The lag is still terrible and frequently even just changing volume fails to work until it gruel catches up with itself. They’re gradually improving it but I think they should make the old S2 available for now.
Why was it so bad? I know nothing about electronics/SW, was there a firmware update or something built in?
It's sems monumentally bad for just a normal update? Like I'd done it, then released without any testing whatsoever
Mine still feels a bit buggy, I mostly listen to radio through Tunein, the best bit was where it'd never change station, seems better now but nowhere near where I'd hoped it'd be after a major update
Playing local files from my android phone via the app seems to be impossible now :-/
Am I missing something ?
How do you cast / stream from the BBC sounds app.
Alexa?
Are they trying to fold the company? I had a Sonos and it was terrible, I had to go through lengthy reconnection process every time I wanted to use it. I assumed this was me being thick but it sounds like things have got even worse
Sonos has always been an excellent system, and the sound quality especially if you use the separate amps is excellent. Mostly it has always worked (for me at least) really well as long as internet is working. It’s only the latest update where they have monumentally screwed up, and even now after a few fixes the new app appears to just take up too much processing power and bandwidth, and as a result is laggy and slow.
Sonos seem reluctant to admit it is rubbish and instead are gradually trying to improve it rather than just admitting defeat and going back to the old one. Even now several months down the line you still can’t create or edit Playlists, which is infuriating.
How do you cast / stream from the BBC sounds app
I
Bottom right corner in the app when something is playing is the airplay/stream button
Got it throughout the house. Works fine.
Mine has been fixed by getting one of their network box things. Was only about £30 and now it is bullet proof. Before then I was about to throw it out the window.
If my wife plays music on the beam through the Sonos app, Alexa decides she won't play anything from Amazon music.she says she will, but just silence. I have to force close the sonos app and it's good again.
No dramas with tv etc
Still not loving it. Cocks up the playing order of episodes on sounds random stopping of audio. All hardwired
Our Sonos speaker lives in the hall cupboard. It’s been replaced by a small Google speaker. I have ordered a new bigger Google speaker. While looking for a replacement I noticed John Lewis were still selling Sonos speakers. Can’t believe anyone would buy one nowadays. Shame because they are good speakers just a crap system.
S2 app is better than it was. Generally problem free. Sometimes I get devices not appearing on the app. Apart from that buch better experience. They really could have sorted that as part of a beta program.
The usability of the app is still not great, especially podcasts. As above it can be easier to use Spotify and tell it to tell Sonos to play the thing you want.
I don't want a voice interface.
I had to delete the app and reinstall, the windows controller still did everything.
I never use the Sonos app beyond initial setup, and just AirPlay everything. All works for me.
Yep v laggy and hard ot navigate on the latest app. Almost as if there's a wifi chanel conflict.
I do drive music from Spotify half the time but that's missing easy linking to multiple rooms etc and the Sonos app SHOULD work - their kit wasn't cheap! I can't use airplay/bluetooth as a couple of my Sonos 1's just predate bluetooth visibility.
Why was it so bad? I know nothing about electronics/SW, was there a firmware update or something built in?
It’s sems monumentally bad for just a normal update? Like I’d done it, then released without any testing whatsoever
Mine still feels a bit buggy, I mostly listen to radio through Tunein, the best bit was where it’d never change station, seems better now but nowhere near where I’d hoped it’d be after a major update
The old S2 app was based loosely on the original software foundations from back in the day. It's never worked too well with mesh wifi systems, and apparently other aspects are becoming outdated. Sonos's answer to "this isn't working on my pretty average network" was always "oh, it's your network, nothing wrong with our app", btw.
This year, under pressure to show revenue growth, Sonos's big launch was the headphones, in May/ June. They don't work with the old S2 app, and the app had to be rebuilt from the ground up - ripping up all the old basic stuff and starting from scratch with a cloud-first app. To hit the hardware launch date they rushed the app rollout, didn't test it properly, didn't fix the bugs, and it was an absolute car crash - it lacked basic functionality like being able to play your own library, Spotify integration, volume control that worked, being able to recognise your speakers etc. To compound the issue, a few weeks after the new app was rolled out, it automatically updated the firmware on your Sonos speakers, so that they would no longer work (at all) with the old S2 app, so everyone was stuck with this hellhole of a new app.
Since then they've been desperately trying to bring its performance back to the (still imperfect) performance of the old S2 app. The r/sonos subreddit tells the story in full!
Apparently even aside from the software, the headphones are also buggy, but hey ho. And Sonos I think expects to lose $20m this year (and lost significant market value) due to this complete cluster
The underlying issue is that Sonos makes money from selling expensive (and very good) speakers; but they rely utterly on the (free) app. The CEO is an absolute clown and clearly forgot the second part of that equation
is there a simple way to get Airplay to recognise the speakers relatively quickly to play via Spotify App ? I have a Sonos 1 and a 5 and it can take 45 seconds plus for the Sonos speakers to show up, and sometimes they don't at all. I never use the Sonos app to play music
Thanks Nicko that’s a very lucid explanation. I feel lucky to have such old Sonos speakers that I have to use the S1 app.
As a matter of interest, does anyone have any experience of good alternatives to Sonos, if I’m thinking of upgrading in the future?
It's improved but still feels like an age from app opening to actually being able to control a speaker. I mostly Airplay to them now or just ask Alexa to play a radio station.
Been playing with Homepods and proper Alexa speakers, I just need to work out how to let a kids profile use Plex, where all our audiobooks and music are stored.
As a matter of interest, does anyone have any experience of good alternatives to Sonos, if I’m thinking of upgrading in the future
I threw my sonos speakers out, I actually left them on the front garden wall for any passer-by to take (I do feel a tad sorry to have dumped such shite on anyone else) and bought edifier speakers. They work first time, every time and I have yet to be enraged by them. Sound good too.
Odd to hear such ardent handwringing.
The app is not great a bit laggy at times, and I wish apps like audible and bbc sounds connected directly rather than having to do it through the app. But I've never (touch wood) experienced the outages or network issues other have.
Quite an old system now - a Play 1 in three rooms and an original soundbar, sub and couple of play 1s in the main living space.
does anyone have any experience of good alternatives to Sonos, if I’m thinking of upgrading in the future?
+1
Odd to hear such ardent handwringing
You obviously didn’t read the Trustpilot review linked to then, 86% giving it one star out of over five thousand review.
You obviously didn’t read the Trustpilot review linked to then, 86% giving it one star out of over five thousand review.
That's exactly what I was referring to.
Obviously aware that people tend to be a lot more vocal when they have a problem....but it really isn't my experience.
I do hope they survive as a company...which sounds like a lot of reputational damage needs addressing.....from the purely selfish perspective that I don't want what is working just fine for me (or a good 8/10 kind of fine) bricked.
I'm this:
I never use the Sonos app beyond initial setup, and just AirPlay everything. All works for me.
and Alexa for Radio Stations or sometimes Apple Music if I can remember how to correctly ask Alexa to play stuff...
I read about people having lots of issues on the FB group, but its tough to tell if its user, hardware or software...
I do find the app and Sonos voice control to be shite...
I’ve been cursing the Sonos app since it was updated a while ago (12 months?). It was only just usable. Horribly slow.
Prompted by this thread I decided to look into it. It seems that IP address conflicts are common and a way to fix this is to power off all Sonos devices, reboot router and then turn on all Sonos devices.
It did the trick for me. The Sonos app is now far more responsive. Much much better. I still don’t find it intuitive, but at least it’s now usable.
I've found it is at least usable by assigning static IP addresses to each Sonos unit. Prior to that the Android connection was very variable and iPhone unusable. It is now reasonably quick to connect and operate radio functions via the App though Spotify is still significantly better connected directly rather than through Sonos.
Thinking back the best my various iterations of Sonos systems ever worked was through the CR100 controller. Over the years we have had many of the connectivity issues which are widely reported.
If I was starting again I wouldn't buy Sonos.
I never use the Sonos app beyond initial setup, and just AirPlay everything. All works for me.
Yep, me too. I go into the app now and then to turn on/off Night Mode depending if I think the film I'm watching is going to be waking up the neighbours.
is there a simple way to get Airplay to recognise the speakers relatively quickly to play via Spotify App ? I have a Sonos 1 and a 5 and it can take 45 seconds plus for the Sonos speakers to show up, and sometimes they don’t at all. I never use the Sonos app to play music
My Sonos speakers show up quicker than my Apple Homepod speakers do, though both are not far off instant.
My Sonos speakers show up quicker than my Apple Homepod speakers
Any opinion which is better: for app and for sound quality?
Any opinion which is better: for app and for sound quality?
App; Well there isn't really an app for Apple speakers as such you just send the audio from whatever app you are using to them, which is exactly how I use my Sonos ones.
Sound Quality; Really hard to say as they actually don't really have direct equivalents to each other. If you take the Homepod at £299, I'd say that is the best sound quality at that price compared to anything from Sonos. But the Sonos Era 300 at £359 or Five at £399 would both sound better than the Homepod. At less than than £299, the Sonos Era 100 (£199) is the winner as the Homepod Mini (£99) is not going to compete. I'd say you pretty much get waht you pay for on the sound quality front.
All of the speakers listed really benefit from being paired which obviously doubles the price. I don't know what used prices are like but would guess a pair of used Homepods or Sonos Fives would give the best bang for buck.
Other consideration is voice assistant. I have zero interest in using Alexa, but make use of Siri a lot, so that skews me towards Apple stuff.
Up until recently, I’ve been pro-Sonos, now not so much. The S1 app no longer works with my Sonos Connect, and no amount of faffing will solve it. Hard reset, plug in Ethernet, don’t plug in Ethernet, etc etc, it will start the setup process then the app seems to screw everything up… I either have to fork out £400 to replace it or go for a Bluetooth pre-amp instead.
Recently the Spotify App has stopped being able to find our Sonuses. Before this, they've been pretty decent, had one die after a few years (5 maybe) but all the others still work when we can get Spotify to connect to them...
Ours had been behaving recently but the last couple of days it's been totally random if the app has worked or not.
Christmas morning it was asking me to search for the system and set everything up from scratch again.
Two hours later it was all working fine again.
This morning it connected almost instantly.
This afternoon it did the system not found thing again for half an hour the worked again.
Mine's working well enough at the moment. Still a bit slow to initially fully load the app but once you've used it stays responsive for a good while.
What I have done recently is switch off the wifi on my wired units and connected the other 2 speakers to my home wifi rather that using Sonosnet - this seemed to improve things. Likely because the 2 other speakers are now connected to 5GHz wifi?
I've just bought an Era 100 to go in the bedroom once renovations are complete and I set it up the other day, the setup was flawless and was up and running in no time.
I hope that they do make the app snappier at some point but otherwise it's not too bad for me. If I use the Sonos app on the computer it works better than ever and is super snappy - shame it's not the same on the phone.
It still needs some work, but it's stable at least and snappier again, but I still miss the old Zone Controller and still think there's a market for one with physical buttons and always on status (an iPad/iPod on guided access isn't the same)...
I wish they'd just leave a Home icon on the top left, move the search so it's always on the top of the app in the middle , and stick the speaker selection icon next to search on the top bar tool.
When searching Qoboz, they still list single songs or EPs as albums when you search, even though the Qobuz app doesn't. That is really irritating, especially if I'm looking for new things to listen to and don't know the albums...
Sonos boss stepping down due to the app issues
Will take them 20-30 million dollars to fix.
Sonos boss stepping down due to the app issues<br style="box-sizing: border-box; --tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji';" />Will take them 20-30 million dollars to fix.
Just roll back to the old app, admit you were wrong and carry on. I don't recall having any issues with the old app - used to use it all the time. Since the update I've attempted to use it a handful of times and given up and used Spotify instead and selected to play via the Sonos speakers - works as well as Sonos' own app should.
Weirdly (or not given how shite it is), every Sonos speaker in my network disappeared for a couple of weeks recently. Couldn't see any of them. Tried all sorts - powering off the router, doing a full reset/re-acquire on the speakers etc and nothing worked. They all just reappeared randomly the other day just as I was thinking about killing them with fire.
Love the speakers themselves but the user experience has fallen to absolute rock bottom...
MikkelFree Member
Sonos boss stepping down due to the app issues
Will take them 20-30 million dollars to fix.
Just read this - schadenfraude isn't a wonderful emotion, but in this case (as a loyal sonos user) feels very justified.
Worth pointing out that it may cost them much more than $20-30m; that figure was his (Spence, former CEO's) original estimate. And given how badly wrong he was on various other things, it could well be wrong.
Also not stepping down so much as "gone by mutual consent" (ie ditched), I though?
Having lost the ability to play music from my NAS I’m never going to buy Sonos again. Will eBay my two speakers so I don’t grind my teeth every time I look at them. Muppets
Having lost the ability to play music from my NAS I’m never going to buy Sonos again. Will eBay my two speakers so I don’t grind my teeth every time I look at them. Muppets
I can play from my (admittedly home-rolled) NAS via a SAMBA share. I don't remember if it re-appeared or I had to sort it out via the desktop app, but it's there now. Probably worth another look before getting shafted by Ebay too.
Having lost the ability to play music from my NAS I’m never going to buy Sonos again
This features shows on the IOS sonos app, if you scroll down on the main screen past "your favourites" to "your sources" and music library is there
It was a terribly managed process and frustrated me along with the others. My NAS drive is back, however. As, finally, is all the artwork from my 500+ albums I carefully ripped to FLAC, tagged and added art to. Luckily that's all back and working.
The app, and workflow, on the other hand, remains hard to use to achieve simple tasks. I have multiroom and rely on the app to group rooms, play music in various locations etc and it's a nightmare.
As for a roll back, they are now in a pickle after pushing a firmware update that forced users onto the new app. So new app works on new firmware, and old app on old firmware, but old app would need a downgrade process in place to also roll back firmware in parallel (or in advance, I guess). Sounds messy and fraught with failure points.
I have 3 sonos players of different kind and age, had just got them all connected after having issues with connecting to my NAS, but that was user error on my behalf to do with the address i was using to map it.
But they soon disapeared from the app.
Also having problems with windows failing to connect to my NAS, an old WD mybook live, so haven't bothered to try get it working again, will try again once i get a new nas setup.
As for a roll back, they are now in a pickle after pushing a firmware update that forced users onto the new app. So new app works on new firmware, and old app on old firmware, but old app would need a downgrade process in place to also roll back firmware in parallel (or in advance, I guess). Sounds messy and fraught with failure points.
Do you think it's that the new firmware can't play nice with the old app, or simply that they locked it in so it won't do so? I had thought it was the latter, but that's probably uncharitable!
And you missed a point, which is that while the old f/w works with the old app, you can't actually do a bunch of stuff with it - like adding a new speaker to your system, indexing your local NAS (although there's a workaround), or some EQ options either.
I can't comment specifically on the can't / won't in SONOS case but I have been product manager on digital connected product launches. There have been phases in the development process where a firmware and app update have gone hand in hand, and there's no going back after the update. I am not a firmware engineer so can't say exactly why not, but we had definite decision points in the development phase. Luckily this was all on tightly controlled pre-production samples to a limited number of devs and test users. Not a captive audience of paying customers with auto-update enabled on devices forcing them down a one way street.
So decided to start the app and it connected to my existing system without any problems, updated the speaker and even commected to my NAS.
Nothing as confusing as tech 🙂
Interestingly, the Chief Product Officer has also been eased out the door marked "Do One" - and it's been pointed out that he was also significantly responsible for the sh*t show last year.
Shame they didn't do anything about this at the time, rather than wiping millions off the company value then getting rid of people, but hey ho
Selfishly, my main concern is that as a company they survive for the foreseeable. All my kit is >10 years old, bought at a time when I can the kind of disposable cash I no longer have, but works pretty much fine. If the company went pop and that in turn bricked everything I currently have I'd be non plussed.
I just reconnected my NAS, that i used to store all my old burnt CD's, last night and all was fine. Better sound than spotify.
but I still miss the old Zone Controller
I had a couple of the 100, the big brick controller.
Have replaced with Lutron Pico remotes, limited controls, volume stop/start of present favourites, but I have it in each room wall mounted by the light switch so you can easily stop/start when enter/leaving the room
convertFull Member
Selfishly, my main concern is that as a company they survive for the foreseeable. All my kit is >10 years old, bought at a time when I can the kind of disposable cash I no longer have, but works pretty much fine. If the company went pop and that in turn bricked everything I currently have I’d be non plussed.
Fair point! As I understand it the new Sonos app would be much more exposed as it interacts much more with the Sonos servers. The S1 app in theory could continue to run happily enough - and I guess the APIs to drive it from other apps (eg Spotify) would still exist.
But despite their recent kicking and financial hit, Sonos seems to be doing pretty well. They're even apparently working with The Trade Desk (an online ad platform) to create a new TV OS. Why after all this Sonos was deemed the ideal partner for creating an OS, who knows... 😀
For those having issues with local / NAS libraries - are the folders you are trying to share under OneDrive's control? Sonos doesn't seem to be able to access these even if they are set to keep a local copy (may be Sonos, may be MS presenting the folder in a non-standard way). If you copy the files to another folder and then share that it seems to work, for me at least.
It's a pain to have to do it, but at least it's a workaround...
What I have done recently is switch off the wifi on my wired units and connected the other 2 speakers to my home wifi rather that using Sonosnet - this seemed to improve things. Likely because the 2 other speakers are now connected to 5GHz wifi?
I've just bought an Era 100 to go in the bedroom once renovations are complete and I set it up the other day, the setup was flawless and was up and running in no time.
My comment hasn't aged well...
The Era keeps disconnecting and can't be found in the app or says "No Content" whilst it's playing. It doesn't cut out once it's started but I can't always find it to start something playing and once something is playing can't always change the volume.
I'm debating what to do with my Sonos system and wanted to get opinions.
I have a bunch of Sonoses in various rooms: a Play 3, 4 Play 1s and a Beam, all running on the old S2 app (the gold one). It's not perrfect, but it's predictable enough. I also used to have a Connect, to play through my Arcam amp in one room. The Connect died, but I still want to hook my Arcam up to the Sonos system. Unfortunately adding a new Sonos device into the system means updating the app to the latest version so I really have two options:
- Option 1: buy a Port (£400 or so), upgrade everything to the latest Sonos app so it's all integrated and works together. It's a serious chunk of change, and I still have little confidence the new app actually works consistently as it should.
- Option 2: buy an old Connect (£50), downgrade virtually everything to the Sonos S1 app so it's all integrated and works together. The Beam couldn't be downgraded, so would run on the new app on its own, but that's not really a problem. It's less money, but obviously means having 2 apps on the go, and S1 isn't great by any means with things like a mesh wifi network.
Thoughts?
There are third party Sonos apps that I'm told work very well. My S2 system has been fine since the update, the only thing i still cannot do is edit playlists.
I didn't think you could downgrade to the s1 app once using the s2 app
Only just caught this thread. My Sonos 5/3/Amp refused to work with my NAS about a year ago. Due to age of most of it, was on the S1 app. Tried everything to get it working, but gave up in the end. Don't know whether I can be bothered to try again unless I know it is working properly.
You can waste too many hours trying to debug something that used to be plug and play when I started on my Sonos journey about 15 or so years ago.
There are third party Sonos apps that I'm told work very well.
I’ve got SonoPhone which does work quickly but isn’t a particularly great experience to use, maybe that would change if I used it more - I don’t find it very intuitive
" Option 2: buy an old Connect (£50), downgrade virtually everything to the Sonos S1 app"
This is what we did. We have 2 play 1's and a connect. Got to be honest it's worked fine. never really had any issues. Hope they do continue to support it
I didn't think you could downgrade to the s1 app once using the s2 app
You can! Late last year the 'new' app finally had the feature reintegrated that allows you to downgrade compatible devices to the old S1 app. Compatibility list here: https://support.sonos.com/en-ie/article/sonos-app-version-compatibility
" Option 2: buy an old Connect (£50), downgrade virtually everything to the Sonos S1 app"This is what we did. We have 2 play 1's and a connect. Got to be honest it's worked fine. never really had any issues. Hope they do continue to support it
Out of interest, what's your home/ Sonos network setup like? Do you have one hardwired, for example; and is your Wifi mesh?
I don't have an iPhone, so the third party SonoPhone is out, I think.
For a few weeks everything looked like it was working again but as of yesterday the app can't see my devices anymore. If they do eventually connect then you can't control them. Two old Play 1s.
Anything new else having issues again?
Do any Sonos users use the IKEA remote? Will it change the volume in 1% increments?
Quite a specific request I know!
I use the Lutron remotes and they work in 1% and they work the same way, but can't say for sure