Sonos 4+

I see the hate and love relationship here. The transition between the old and new app definitely messed some people up but not for me. I don’t know how people’s speakers were lost during the transition, but I can only think of it being a WiFi issue or user error. As a person who works in people’s homes, I can say most of the tech issues are because they don’t know what they’re doing. I mean, it could be the app but I’m just saying.

I wasn’t able to update to the Gen 2 app because I was still using a ZP80. I had no idea. At first, I thought my whole entire system couldn’t be updated because Sonos called all my equipment old. This made me angry, knowing all my Sonos from barely a year ago is on a decline. Then I noticed that I was able to check the “compatible” equipment, to which is told me my very old connect was the thing holding me back. I removed it and now all my Sonos is under the new app. No issues with the app or speakers of course.

I guess what I’m saying here is Sonos poor communication and stating “anything before May 2020” is considered gen 1 is not only inaccurate it makes people think all the wrong things. ALL my Sonos works with the new app, old and new, just not my Sonos Connect from 2015. It still works with the old app, however. Sonos needs to rectify this with their consumers.

Figure it out gang! So frustrating.

App won’t connect to WiFi, even though every other app on the phone works fine. Won’t allow me to submit diagnostics because of the WiFi problem again. Set alarms sometimes work, which is worse than never working. I’ve been late to work because I was relying on it to wake me up, like it had done consistently for the past year. How do I trust this thing again? Bad lag from the time I pick up my phone to the time I can turn up/down the music or change the song. Sometimes I have to wait a full minute. Website says I can continue to use the S1 app with my old equipment if I prefer, but somebody’s lying. Since I signed on the the new app my equipment is now listed as incompatible. TV sound still connects, and I can manually turn on the last internet radio station I was playing on the app, but I have to use the buttons on the speaker and I can’t change the station.
Update: After several days and repeated attempts to delete and reinstall the app I appear to have regained control. How long will it last? Pins and needles! The excitement is excruciating. What to expect from here is a question I cannot answer.

I seem to be in the minority, but actually feel as though the new app is a step in the right direction. I find the UX thoughtful and intuitive for the most part. It also seems like the app is a bit more responsive to my large Sonos system, previously the app would freeze for several seconds while performing some operation to start music or group speakers now still takes about the same amount of time for the music to begin playing, but the app seems a little bit more responsive, possibly asynchronously loading operations.

There are notable features, though that are not included with this rollout. For example, adding individual tracks or modifying the queue is currently not available. I’ve been able to confirm with customer support that those features are intended to come back to the app, but it sounds like these were simply decisions their team had to make to define their MVP for this initial roll out.

It’s a start in a new direction and I really hope this works out. The old app was terribly dated and clearly the weakest part of the entire Sonos ecosystem. I hope they can quickly begin to layer in missing features and continue to iterate and improve this app rather than putting it on the shelf and letting it sit rotting away again.