Sonos App Reviews

S2 Sonos app is buggy and unresponsive. In general, I am a big fan of my Sonos speaker system, and I found the previous iteration of the app to work consistently and well. I only had to replace one piece of hardware in order to switch to S2, which I did relatively happily since I’d gotten years of use out of the system and understand that companies can’t support hardware forever. However, I’ve been really disappointed by the new app and/or S2 platform. When I try add or remove speakers to/from groups in the app, I get frequent error messages. Restarting the app sometimes helps, but usually I have to keep trying 5-6 times before I am successful. The app also freezes periodically. Probably not an app issue, but streaming overall is less reliable, with much more frequent drops. I haven’t changed any other aspects of my home network, so I attribute these issues to the new S2 platform. Unfortunate and frustrating given my large investment in the Sonos ecosystem and excellent experience with the previous generation of the platform. Hopeful that the new platform improves over time, but irritating that it wasn’t more stable when released.

So Many Problems with S2 app. I have had 13 sonos devices sense gen 2 came out, like 3 plus years. Everything worked perfectly never a problem. It was easy to add a new product. Perfect. I even had it on the 5G of my dual band network. Then S2 upgrade happened. I have speakers disappearing. I have some of my speakers showing up on different networks. To add a new device forget it. It is such a non friendly user process. I read that sonos does not support 5g. Ok so I tried to change networks to my mesh network. I thought I got it. No I can’t get my play 5, playbar or sub to work with the rest of the system. I have restarted my system, reconfigured my router. Nothing had worked. And depending on the phone I use different devices show up on different networks. I hope there is some improvement to the app, because this has taken way to much time to try figure out. I just want my perfect sonos system back to enjoy all over the house and backyard. Update Ok I am going to give it another star. After discussing my issues with a friend he recommended using my orbi router only. Once I went from 3 networks to one the devices went to one. After a day it seems to have smoothed out. Updates can still be a problem takes a while. I am still not convinced of the stability but we will see. At least I have everything set up like it was.

App is lacking. First, I have had Sonos products for several years and have found them to be excellent. Second, I am a software architect by trade so understand technology very well. But the app that supports the hardware needs work. I can often find work around s in the community but that shouldn’t be needed. An example of this is that with the new generation of speakers you apparently must purchase the ‘connect’ hardware or go through a reinstall of your speakers almost daily. Since this is the case they should offer this at a huge discount, and make note of this need on website. Second, if one or more speakers was ‘dropped’ due to wifi and you inadvertently start playing music you won’t easily be able play including the dropped speaker, even when it had been re-added, the app restarted, etc. the option to select speakers doesn’t pop up. Any help has to be through a search on website or google. As I said the user community has workarounds for several issues but this should not be needed.

Feeling cheated. DO NOT BUY SONOS. I have Sonos throughout my entire house (and back yard, and front porch) … every room. I started small and added over time And I loved it! Speakers sound great, like functionality of the interface, versatility, etc. But now Sonos is telling me that half of my system (the oldest half) must be replaced. The hardware is in perfect working order but Sonos refuses to upgrade the software for the older units. Which will be thousands of dollars for me to replace. To replace a perfectly good working system of speakers and amps. I’ve been hacking my way for over a year by using Sonos 1 and Sonos 2 apps but now even those don’t work. This was clearly an intentional - and highly flawed - business strategy. In Europe this is an illegal business practice under their “right to repair” act … but I should emphasize that my system doesn’t even need repair. The hardware is in perfect working order - Sonos has simply decided to force its existing customers to spend more money because they don’t want to keep using the original software. That I paid for. Outrageous. Don’t buy from a company that treats its customers this way.

Average Sound, Frustrating User Experience. I really want to like this system, the concept behind it is convenient and easy, however the execution falls far short. The sound is not bad, but the enjoyment ends there. Like everyone else, they endlessly try to get you into a subscription, and if you don’t do that, your faced with 30-second commercials whenever you turn it on. I own lots of music, but this stupid system won’t let me play 80% of my songs, even ones that were purchased within the last two years from iTunes. What it chooses to play and not play seems very random, and is done under the guise of licensing and copyright law etc. These types of systems are built for residential home use, so I’m not sure why it gets so draconian in this area. But wait, there is more. The network routinely loses or forgets speakers in the network. I am constantly having to re-setup individual speakers within the system, because it fails to recognize them. Sometimes, this is a quick 60-second fix, using prompts from the app, but just as frequently, the situation is only resolved by restarting the router, or actually having to walk the speaker over to the router and connect it with an analog cable, a chore which can take five or six minutes. For a system that touts being plug and play and super convenient, it is rare that I can actually turn it on and just have music play. There is almost always some sort of troubleshooting I have to do, or workaround I have to perform.

Doesn’t work as the system ages. I have a system that apparently has one or more products from the original system that are not compatible. I have not been able to ever get S2 to work with my system. It won’t set up a new system after “deleting” it from my old network, it says it can’t find any of the products. But when I set them up again on S1 and try to find them on S2 it briefly finds them, says there is one issue, but then brings me immediately to a black screen that says I need to repeat the two steps I’ve just described in order to use S2 (delete system on S1 and set up new system on S2, or take off product that’s not compatible and use s2, well it doesn’t tel me which item isn’t compatible, so how do I move forward?) Sonos customer support has VERY limited support hours so over the last three months I haven’t had the luck of being able to get someone on support when I do have the time to call in. It’s insane that I have no other option and cannot move forward with this app, I tried multiple angles like taking one speaker off of my Sonos at a time and then trying to connect the s2 app and it still says that it has an issue, or that it can’t find the system. At this point I don’t see myself staying loyal to the brand anymore and am tired of trying to get this fixed, which has been an issue since the s2 app launched 😩

Terrible app, great beam!. Too bad Sonos has to have an app(like everything else!) like we need more apps? Ugh! Anyway, the app is terrible. I just got my beam. My first sound bar recommended by my brother. The beam, great! Can’t say enough about it! The app? Terrible! I’ve only had it a few hours and the app has disconnected itself from the beam already four to five times! It does this every time I close out the app totally. I don’t need an app on constantly in the background! 🙄 Sheesh!! Plus don’t set your pair your remote (at least from dish) up with it. Otherwise you can’t turn the tv off n on!!?? Setting it back up, takes several steps! This is ridiculous! I mean, really, Sonos? This is the best you can do? Plus, Sonos wants access, if you add your music services to take away or change as they please? WTH?!! And what happened to trueplay? I know others are complaining online, there has been no news on that. I got two recommendations for the beam. My brother and a tech. But they forgot to mention the app issues!! So right now, I’m still on the fence about keeping this expensive (yet cheaper version of the arc) just because of a stupid, clunky app! This app, keeps getting less stars from me all in one day! Get it together Sonos! I’m using this on new iPad Air 4 if that matters. Not that they read reviews apparently. Since I see no reviewers have gotten a response yet! Enough said!

Seamless So Far.... This has been a seamless upgrade for me. Took about three minutes to upgrade. All you had to do was download the App and it detects your system on the network. The rest is history, including the old S1 App. Also, I don’t get the clamoring about all the new features and that this is just lipstick on a pig. The upgrade here is intended to manage a lot of the things in the background and enable all the new products with the next generation software. If you’re having issues connecting then perhaps it’s your network or internet. Overall it just worked when I downloaded. All my speakers work great still and it was glitch free so far. I think people take for granted how hard this stuff is with their 1 and 2 star ratings? How can you rate an App one star if you haven’t even tried to use it? (There are several reviews that give one star but then go on to say they haven’t installed it yet).

New App is AWFUL. I admit I tend to default to new versions of apps, so shame on me for not researching S2. But MUCH bigger shame on Sonos for putting this app out in the world - especially when people are at home more than usual due to an international pandemic - when it has so many shortcomings. I chose Sonos years ago and have loved it because it’s not Bluetooth and my music doesn’t get interrupted every time I receive a text or phone call. But this new app is about to make me rethink things. I CONSTANTLY have to refresh the app, unplug my speakers to test everything or both. And even that doesn’t fix the problems. It will literally disconnect mid-song with no explanation. And tries to blame it on my WiFi. I worked from home even before COVID, so my internet/WiFi is NOT the problem. And now, when I try to go back to the old app, it tells me my system isn’t compatible. I’m beyond infuriated....

Sonos more trouble than it’s worth. I was initially quite impressed with the sound quality of SONOS and the ability to manage multiple speaker locations throughout various rooms in the the home. It also seemed to link up well with Apple Music for a while, but have more recently been quite disappointed due to frequent unexpected downtime and poor reliability of anticipated use due to frequent notifications to “need to re-authorize Apple Music”. I get these notifications quite often despite my Apple Music subscription being paid and consistently up-to-date. To magnify the frustration with this system further it seems to require these authorizations usually when I have friends over and the system fails to respond unless I take an inordinate amount of time away from my guests to get up and running again. While I could expand the number of speakers, subwoofers, etc. in my home, the frequent service disruptions are a huge disincentive to invest any further in this system. There truly are many other options available that deliver greater reliability, more predictable availability with blue tooth compatibility and high end sound quality.

Read before u buy. I have had Sonos since 2012, which I believe was the year after the company started. At the beginning I absolutely loved this entire system. So much so, that I spent close to $45,000 to have it installed throughout my entire property & my home. Everything worked beautifully until they introduced the S2 app. I won’t go into extensive detail here, but upgrading to the S2 app has rendered my entire system completely useless. It cuts out all the time & I can’t play any of my playlists anymore . To top it all off, they have completely off-shored their customer service. So if you have a problem, your left to speak to somebody in the Philippines, who basically troubleshoots from a script. Good luck trying to get a hold of anybody in the US for customer service. They make it completely impossible! They could care less about their loyal customers. I have spent the last five months trying to get this system to work again, even hiring technicians to troubleshoot, all at great expense. Extremely disappointed in this company and how they’ve screwed their older customers . Completely wasted $45k+.

Good speaker BAD app. I don’t use my speaker a lot, but I’ve had it since 2017. I believe it is 8/10 I go to use the speaker and the app, I have to update AND reauthorize. A few times it makes me do the whole walk around the room beeping thing. I am such a casual user that I really feel impeded by this. I just want to listen to some music now while I paint, instead I’m standing at my speaker once again trouble shooting to make it work. Almost every single time I want to use it. THATS what is trusting to me. If I didn’t have to update it and authorize it on a near constant basis, I would give 5 stars. But all I want to do is open and play. I don’t understand why that’s so hard, that’s how speakers and music players of any kind worked before. On, play. This is a 20 minute tech support quest almost every time, sometimes I’m like “f* it, I’ll turn on the TVs music channels instead because they just play” Otherwise I love it. The sound is good and I’m really happy, except when I use it. 🤦‍♀️ The next time I purchase one of these speakers I’ll be looking at these reviews first, because I wouldn’t buy another one that does this. I do not understand how anyone rates this app above 1 star.

Transferring Ownership. Overall good app minus one important feature/setting…transferring ownership. There is no way to transfer ownership of the Sonos system without I’m putting the new owner’s credentials. Why in the world would a new owner of the system want to give me their password??? You should be able to transfer ownership by only having to type in their email address, and then they should be able to achieve ownership themselves without giving out their passwords. On the Sonos support pages, it does indicate you can do this by logging out first, but it doesn’t work. When you attempt, the app only guides you to log back in and then starts over with requiring the password of the account you are trying to transfer to. I even tried resetting the app and also deleted and re-installed the app. In disbelief, I contacted Sonos phone support only to have them repeat the same processes I had already done on my own and taking up 45 minutes of my time with no solution. This needs to be fixed!

Slow, buggy, annoying. Where’s this “better product” we were promised?. Been a Sonos owner for about as long as they’ve been around. Was one of those negatively affected by the switch to S2 and felt, as long as we were supposed to be getting a better experience, maybe I would wait and see. Well, here we are years later and the app takes longer than ever connecting to my system, that’s if it even does. Bugs are a constant issue, my playbar often forgets how to respond to my Apple TV remote adjusting volume, music between rooms often clips and cuts out, IR repeater turns annoyingly turns itself back on any time there’s an update or one of the far too often hard restarts (unplugging everything) required, despite having a very fast router, small home, and keeping things updated. Really disappointed that Sonos has failed to keep their promise of better performance and new features. Pretty lame that I lost use (essentially) of a $500 speaker for… this. A worse experience with a slightly better looking app that takes way longer to accomplish my tasks than it should. Not to mention we never even got Siri integration. Weak.

The app bugs will cost you hours. I have four brand new Era 100 speakers. I just updated this app and still have so many problems with speakers disappearing. If you have an Xfi Gateway router connected to Erro or other extenders don’t waste you time (me 3 hours). You have to call Xfinity and say, “Turn off DHCP Mode on each of every access point.” to even have a chance for your speakers to connect. BUT! even after that they will still disappear from the Sonos app. You physically have to touch a button on each speaker to MAYBE have them appear on the app. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to restore the speakers to factory and have heard the annoying syncing chime for them to not show up in the app. Ohhh let’s not forget how music from previous playlists that aren’t even playing on your phone will play, sometimes different songs on different speakers! Again, you have to physically turn it off on the speaker itself because it doesn’t show in the app. I really am thinking of returning all of the speakers and going with the older version. WTH were they thinking to release this and their customers the product testers? Even if all the speakers show up the app is so confusing and not user friendly.

Best portable speaker ever. I love using the Move outside in our front yard, on our patio, and in the house, too. The sound is great, the app is wonderful, and the connectivity is better than I’ve ever used. Being able to use the app through wifi is such a relief when people are over or you just want music. No phone call interruptions, no alerts from apps on the phone - just music. And such a great way to do it. I put the app on my wife’s phone, too, and she can now change the music whenever she wants. She has never used a music app with less frustration. Whereas she is not technologically inclined, the app is easy enough for her navigate and find exactly what she wants. So, less stress for me, too. Honestly, we haven’t even used the Move far enough away from the house to need the Bluetooth, but I know it will sound good when we do. We are already thinking about getting another Move for the house. Highly recommended, especially when using through wifi and the Sonos app.

Roam Continually Skips. I have a love/hate relationship with my Sonos Roam. My system consists of Sonos Beam+Sub and the Roam. When the system works it is amazing. I love to have music streaming and take the Roam outside while the same music is playing inside. The Beam+Sub has worked for the most part flawlessly since I purchased in late 2019. I bought my first Roam in mid 2021 and it seemed to work fine until out of warranty about a year later. It stopped connecting to my system. Okay I thought, I love it that much, I’ll buy another. So I bought another in late 2022. Guess what? It stopped working, just loud screeching noise around mid 2022. Still under warranty, they sent me a new one. Worked fine until mid 2023 (out of warranty now I presume)…now drops from my system over and over. They suggest a fix, works for 3 days, then disappears from my system. I reboot the router, the Roam returns and the beam goes out. Of course it’s the weekend and no support availability, so no music tonight…except on my other brand Bluetooth. When my Sonos system doesn’t work I hate it, and it’s super embarrassing when I have company, not to mention their opinion of the Sonos brand.

App updates should be tested better prior to release. I love the sound of my Sonos system (Beam, 2 x One and Sub). I bought it two years ago when the Beam first came out, while I love the system, I have a long term, ongoing love/hate relationship with the app. EVERY time an update is pushed to the app, I have connectivity issues for weeks, sometimes months. I am a tech savvy person, I fix my parents and friends electronic issues regularly, but the issues with the system and app are app specific. This latest update has asked me to “find” my system (unplug each device and reset the router), I have, it worked and the next day, it’s magically gone again. I have received emails from Sonos asking if I wanted to beta test and I didn’t respond for this very reason, if I have ongoing issues when they update the app when they think it’s good, why would I want to experience issues more frequently. Sonos, you have wonderful equipment, get a better software development team, your app is entirely too buggy on a long term basis. Thanks.

For my nosy neighbors. I live in New York and the walls are paper thin in all apartments. So I originally had a beats beatbox speaker . it was loud enough but if I maxed out the speaker you’d hear the bass more than anything . I wanted something that I could hear the music clearly . I was tired of my neighbors listening to my every conversation and then repeating my business to any who would listen . so my brother got me sonos 1 speaker (not sold anymore) but when I tell you my neighbors hated me !!! I loved it . I played music all day and night . then I got a sonos second generation for my bedroom because they could still hear my conversation from the back of the apartment when I found out the speakers sync to each other and I think I almost cried .BEST INVESTMENT EVER !!!!!! And the music sound amazing ! So clear and it’s so loud and if I have both speakers on at the same time it sounds like I’m at a concert .

Dumbest interface on the planet. I have spent equal time listening to our Sonos Move and trying to set it up…over and over again. Why? Because you can’t just move your portable Sonos device from room to room. You lose the signal when you do. What does this have to do with the app? Everything. The app is your lifeline to the device. You’ll bounce back and forth between inane instructions: “connect to the new router then return to the Sonos app” and FAQ on the Sonos website. And even when you place the speaker next to the only router it knows, you still can’t connect to it. Why? Because there is a new version of the app! Or maybe not. I updated to Sonos 2, then updated that. Intermittent wifi signal still. Can’t connect to Sonos. And round and round you go. Want to use Bluetooth because Move loses the wifi signal over and over again? Well, good luck with that, too. Which button do you push on the back to pair? The infinity one? The one with two symbols on each end? And why isn’t it pairing automatically, anyway? It did yesterday. Yes, the app is the key to using your $400 speaker, but no, it won’t tell you how to use that speaker.

The glitch never ends. After 8 or so years of using my Sonos system, it’s just time to put it out there that this system, for the price, is just not worth it. For years now, it’ll work fine for a while, then some mystery update or something happens and it becomes the glitchiest thing ever. Right now, as I type this, sound is randomly dropping in and out, songs play for a minute then skip ahead, the system is (trying to) play one song but the app shows a different song, volume randomly and inexplicably cranks way up. When it works, the sound is great but honestly these days you don’t have to pay this much for good sound. So, the reason to buy Sonos is for the WiFi setup and ease of use which, as previously mentioned in this review, comes and goes. And really, here’s the thing…all this glitch has been going on ever since I bought my first Sonos speaker several years ago. It’s never gotten better. I mean, you’d think the company would figure this out over time! I won’t be investing any more in Sonos products and I guess I’ll keep dealing with the glitch until it just becomes completely unworkable.

Really poorly thought out integrations, no backwards compatibility, bizzare config steps. I was so psyched when I first started buying and setting up Sonos products. I wish I knew then what I know now. Sonos at its best is a really great thing - excellent sound broadcast anywhere across the house from any device. Sonos at its worst is a mystifying string of committee decisions that manifest in the form of really essential and basic performance requirements that are, for no apparent reason, complex and treated almost as afterthoughts. Why does S2’s automated configuration walkthrough recognize one of the brand new Sonos one modules I bought from Costco and not the other? A great mystery… Why does the manual setup process fail four times in a row? Another great mystery…. Why do I need to undergo some dance of the button pressing fairies to add the Sonos app to other mobile devices that are already authenticated on my protected WiFi network? I can’t really think of a good reason, and certainly no other smart home technology I use is quite so convoluted and awkward at the most essential of out of the box tasks. Part II - I can’t remember when the last time something I bought in a product series from a consumer facing company was not backwards compatible over at least a decade. Sonos? Forget about devices they sold you two Christmas’ past…. Might as well be from another planet. Some decisions made here that consumer protection regulators ought to be keen on, if you ask me.

Can’t handle the bugs. When the app works, it’s the same as the previous version. When it doesn’t and speakers disappear mid listening session or suddenly you are “Unable to Connect,” it’s infuriating. God forbid you want to switch stations or songs... you’ll undo anything you fixed the previous day. There can literally be sound coming out of a speaker and the app will be unable to see it. The issues are resolvable (you basically end up re-adding the speaker... sometimes 3-4 times), but it can take minutes to up to 30 minutes depending on the situation-it was a 20-minute fix session that prompted me to finally review. That wouldn’t be so bad, but it happens EVERY SINGLE DAY. Only the days that I only listened to one thing on one speaker have I NOT had an issue I had to fix. I don’t buy the user-error arguments here. I never had issues like this with the previous app/firmware, and my WiFi config is exactly the same. If there’s a universal cause that is my fault, great, tell me what it is, and I’ll fix it. This app was not ready for prime time. The number one development rule in every software company I’ve worked for is you can’t break your existing customers. I love SONOS, but I feel like I’m driving a Ferrari with two flat tires at the moment.

Who is giving this garbage 5 stars…. …They must be paid for the review or something. I have been an owner for over 10 years and have 9 speakers. Several original play 1s and several 5’s (2nd edition), a Move and the original sound bar. Constant delays with the app…songs suddenly “not encoded properly” when they were never an issue before, or they played fine today, but an issue yesterday. I’ve tried all the usual trouble shooting including changing the network channel. I also have 2 “Boosts” from Sonos which clearly must be for decoration as they don’t seem to help. And who doesn’t want to clear their calendar for hours calling Sonos to troubleshoot? One suggestion is to run around unplugging all of them for 30 seconds and plug them all back in. I’m sorry but for a system that costs an exorbitant amount of money it should, I don’t know, just work??? I am seriously considering selling all of them and starting over. I’m not sure if Bose or Apple are any better but at least if it’s Apple I know their music will play on it. And I get inundated with “upgrade” adds. If the answer to your problems are to buy up to a new speaker every few years, I’ll pass. Unbelievable.

Great Sound when it works….. We have a sound bar, sub and 4 play 1 speakers. The sound quality is excellent. However every time I get into the app in can’t connect or find the speakers, the only thing that works is the sounds bar I guess because it’s connected directly to the tv. I follow the instructions to try and find the system, but it NEVER works. The only thing I can do is factory reset everything and start all over. Again, every single time. Could reset it today then have to do it again tomorrow. Every other device in the house connects to the internet with no issues, so this is 100% a Sonos thing. Their customer service is a joke, couldn’t be more rude if they tried. You’d think they’d at least be marginally understanding given the amount of $$ we’ve spent, but no. We’ve stopped using the play 1 speakers (google nest, works great), and will be replacing the sound bar and sub as well. I know some people have had success with Sonos, but think long and hard before buying their stuff. They are not cheap, and there are a lot of reviews similar to mine. Your money may be better spent elsewhere.

No sweat upgrade. I had my reservations about upgrading after reading through the reviews. So I did the research, confirmed compatibility of the products I have; Sonos one, play 5, connect, boost. All were purchased in the last few years and were compatible. I downloaded the app and ran the update. It took less that 5 minutes and my system was back online. The app upgrade left the S1 app installed, not sure why since it no longer works after a successful upgrade. I’m also not a fan of the interface color but maybe in a future version we’ll get the option to change. I did have one issue with the app. I ran the update from my iPhone X with no issues. When I tried to install S2 directly from the App Store on my old iPhone 6 that I use as a dedicated controller it froze at the splash screen. I realized you have to accept the terms of agreement but direct install did not offer that step. I had to remove it and install from the S1 controller. Only then did I get to accept the terms of agreement and app loaded normally. Overall, an easy upgrade.

Should’ve Listened to the Reviews. I disregarded all the bad reviews and thought I’d take a chance, now my devices are in a perpetual state of ‘updating’ 😡 ... I’ve usually been able to get the previous Sonos updates to go through, but not sure what’s going on this time, not happy with their upgrade attempt and having to put up with all the ads in the recent releases. I gave their new music service a try as well for which I was hopeful, but it left me very unimpressed. I’ve always liked the Sonos devices, but not happy how they force you to upgrade leaving their older devices useless! I’ve been a faithful Sonos user from the beginning, but now I’m considering other options! UPDATE - Cancelling and cycling the devices that were paired with subs and surrounds seemed to allow me to finally update all the devices, so adding a few stars, still had to add each device separately one by one. The new look feels a little better with the colors, but overall don’t notice much difference in the layout, feels like they just want to make sure you log into your account so they can keep an eye on ur devices and music habits so they can push their own service, which isn’t bad, but doesn’t let you skip songs which just about every other service does.

Sonos...thank you. I did a lot of going and back and forth before I bought my first Sonos speaker (and now the owner of many) because I had always been a Bose person but after reading more on how far Sonos was ahead on WiFi connection speakers I decided to buy the Sonos (not to mention the aesthetics of the Sonos are nicer) - later I started becoming so disappointed in the compatibility of “old” speakers that I had paid a lot of money on with my new speakers and the app with the new ios updates with all of the extra steps that I now had to go through - I called Sonos and was advised this was not going to change - then one day out of nowhere it did change and it was as easy as before - now with this new update to the app it is even better and just has even a nicer look to the screens - thank you Sonos for doing the extras to continue to make the experience perfect - love my Sonos!

Frustration. I have an extensive Sonia system: 2 Sonos Ones; 2 Sonos 3; 2 Sonos amps and 1 Sonos connector. I have an endless problems. I play them all together with the dream of having music throughout my house; however, at any one time two will randomly quit playing. I have called countless times and they always blame the WiFi. I have 7 Wi-Fi spots in my house (which is not that big) and best internet package - and my Sonos devices sit proximate to the Wi-Fi devices. Sonos is good because (in theory), it’s a connected wireless system - and the only one I know of. But it’s connected yet goes it and out that if you’re a music lover and went to the effort to set this up, it’s totally maddening. And I talk to my friends that have the same experience. And to add to the madness, Sonos won’t support older generation devices - when will they decide to quit supporting mine? Would you ever knowingly buy with the threat of (minimal) support? So now I routinely have to go unplug all the Sonos and wait like 20 minutes, plug them back in and hope they’ll work for a while. Bottom line: it’s a frustrating system although I don’t know of another way to do it wirelessly.

Sonos needs to kick up their game. I’ve had an old Sonos port and now a new one with 4 Sonos 1 speakers and 8 ceiling non Sonos speakers. The sound is great but for years I’ve had issues with my Sonos 1 speakers cutting out. I thought it was my wifi to the point of buying 3 google routers none of it helped. I reached out to Sonos but they just told me it was the wifi. I remember the days when they used to care and had great service. Now they just care about what new electronics they release. Which brings me to nothing is new about their app. It drives me freakin crazy that I can’t transfer most of my Apple Music to the app because I get a notification that I’ve taken up too much space. If I use my music to control from my iPhone it crashes at times. I have an iPhone 12. The app is nothing special and honestly if get it together by at least mimicking the music app from iTunes it would make life easier. The latest issue is that every time I open the app now my playlists never show up. I have to close and open the app twice for them to show up. There is a list of negative things about Sonos that I’ve just kept quiet about but now I’m over it. Improve the app and make it worth getting your expensive equipment. Can’t run them when your app stinks

New app is very buggy. There are so many problems with the new app that I don’t know where to begin. 1. The app doesn’t see the TV sound bar reliably. 2. Frequently you can’t play any sources other than Sonos radio 3. Sonos radio has people talking between tracks, very annoying even if they were to be clever 4. Sometimes the app just spins when you open it. 5. The app often forget stereo pairs and I need to set them up again. 6. The support self service just takes you to a page with all the information they think you need but it is never there. It would be better to have a workflow that would progress based on answers to questions around problems like the ones above. Update: The above comments hold and now I updated to a Sonos port to add a Pro-ject 1 turn table which needs to be grounded. The port doesn’t have a ground which puts my very expensive and high quality speakers at risk. As alway great idea with fatal flaws. If you do go Sonos maybe don’t have a system as large as mine (port, bridge, move, roam, 5.1 surround plat bar, two other stereo pairs, a play3 and a play5. When the whole system works, it sounds great.

DON’T UPGRADE!. First of all, I’m a Sonos fan. Have used their products for about 8 years and like what they have to offer. Sat down to watch a movie with the family and thought hey, there is an upgrade, let’s go for it before we start. Then spent two hours trying to fix what the upgrade caused and now have a worthless Play 5 first gen. First downloaded the app and then none of my products worked. Did a hard factory reset on one and got it to work. Then did a hard reset on my Sonos 5 first gen and was told it wasn’t compatible with the new ap. Tried to go back to the old Sonos 1 app but because my products updated, was told they were no longer eligible for that either. I deleted my current system and tried to start fresh but still couldn’t use Sonos 1 and the products wouldn’t work with Sonos 2. Had to perform a hard factory reset on all my products (10) and start again with the Sonos 2 app. And now my Play 5 is basically a brick because it isn’t compatible with the new system. I think when I bought the Play 5 it was like $400 and the only way I could get an input AV jack. I’m glad some folks were able to give it 5 stars and it worked for them. I wasn’t so lucky and now after reading the reviews, others may also be having issues.

A great experience. Paired with a phenomenal sound system, this app gives you access to numerous different music apps, your TV and much more, making it work seamlessly with all voice assistants and with its very own assistant (which in my opinion is the best way to control the sound system, with a very reassuring and calming masculine voice). The app has very elegant graphics and does not crash at all (in my experience). There are many options for personalizing your sound system both as a group and individually, speaker by speaker and for different uses too, such as for watching movies or listening to music. This is without a doubt the best option out there for those who care about sound quality and interoperability. Sonos knows what it’s doing and just keeps on improving on it. Five stars for sure, I abandoned all my HomePods (I had many throughout the house) but one (which I use as a home hub) and replaced them all with Sonos speakers. No-brainer.

Frustrating to use!. The Sonos app is incredibly unstable and frustrating. We have three speakers: an Arc connected to the TV in the living room, and a Sonos One in a bedroom and another Sonos One in the kitchen. On any given day the app will drop one or both of the Sonos One speakers, for no apparent reason, when all the speakers had worked fine earlier in the day and appeared in the system in the app. And then … poof! One or both of the speakers disappear from the app … Unplugging the speaker(s) and rebooting it sometimes helps, sometimes not. Unplugging the wifi router (which is a pain to have to do) sometimes helps, sometimes not. And other times the app will simply be greyed out with nothing visible. You get the picture. Very frustrating … When things work as they should, the sound is a joy, particularly from the Arc. But man, oh man, the product interface and user experience is anything but friendly or reliable. I finally called customer support today and spent 45 minutes on the phone, but no joy: got the three speakers working and then 20 minutes later the two Sonos One speakers disappeared and the app was greyed out on my phone … Very disappointed and frustrated!

None compare. This is hands down the best whole house system money can buy. Not only is the system set up room to room probably the easiest plug and play system I’ve ever installed, but the sound is incomparable. Over the years I have built this system with every product offered, Stereo paired Ones in each room, the garage and the porch, the Arc and Sub with Ones as surround in the living room, stereo paired Fives in the sunroom, and a Move for the deck and yard. My house sounds like a concert hall I kid you not. I absolutely love walking room to room and outside with music following me. That has always been a pet peave of mine with traditional stereo systems, listening to a really good song, have to leave the room and not being able to continue listening to the same song. Sonos has made that ancient history. The really blow you away thing is they are all controlled by the super simple to use app. Not only can you control the entire system with a finger tip, you can individually control each room. Just incomparable, these guys have figured it out. There is nothing on the market that even comes close.

Spectacularly Bad. This is one of the worst apps I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. It’s unfortunate that Sonos, more than Apple ever did, holds you hostage to their ecosystem if you want to use their product. I enjoy their speakers quite a bit; however, this app makes the listening experience incredibly frustrating. It constantly disconnects and forgets where your system is, cuts out intermittently, and the interface is extremely clunky and time-consuming. For instance, while using Audible in the app, there is no search bar, which means you have to scroll through your entire library to find the book you want. Same goes for Pocket Casts. I scroll through dozens and dozens of podcasts to find what I’m looking for. Yes, there is a very hit or miss search bar for your connected apps collectively, but it just seems lazy not to have such a basic feature for individual apps. I don’t understand how anybody could rate this above a couple of stars at most. I know some people will say the alternative is to simply use airplay, but that never seems to connect well either. Recently, Sonos has been advertising a forum for listeners to give feedback on their new speaker line, which they seem to have put much time and energy in to. If only they would do the same for their garbage app, we might get something better.

Can’t set it up. Won’t connect!!. First of all, I am a HUGE SONOS fan. I have had Sonos products for almost a decade and have never had any issues with any of them. I preordered the new ARC sound bar and got it delivered on June 11th. Today was the first day I was able to get to it to set it up. I converted to the S2 app and the upgrading of my old system went very simple and smooth. Then it went downhill from there. My ARC will not complete the set up process. I start with adding a product. The app recognizes the new sound bar. It tells me to press the connect button and listen to for the sound. The sound plays....and then the app just hangs up and doesn’t finish the process. It comes up with an error and then says it can’t find the product and blames it on my network. Super frustrating. I have 10 other speakers and they are all working fine on the new app. What is really frustrating is when you realize you just spent over $900 on a new sound bar and have several thousand dollars worth of SONOS gear and they don’t have 24/7 customer service. It is Saturday and now I have to wait until Monday before I can make a call to customer service to try and get this working. I believe it is the new app that is to blame. I have never had this issue in the past with any of my SONOS products. Very Frustrating.

Wasted $2000. Purchased a Sonos ARC, Gen 3 Subwoofer, and 2 Sonos One speakers to use as surround sound. Owner then for about 6 months and loved them but then I moved to an apartment where the provide very fast internet. I routinely get 600mbps upload and download, and they are using Ruckus access points. Unfortunately they also use ip isolation and because Sonos insists on only being setup on a network that has an active internet connection I can not use my Sonos speakers for surround. Luckily I can get the ARC it’s self to connect to my tv but the app can’t find it so I can’t tune it or use any network features. If Sonos would enable an offline mode and allow me to connect it to a local network without internet then I could use my $2000 sound system the way I want, but it’s typical big tech forcing an online connection because they think they know how I want to use something. Probably making sure they have access to your data so they can sell it. Before this experience I’ve sold several thousands of dollars worth of Sonos products through the retailer I have worked at for 15 years. I now try and push Sony products for sound bars.

Simply the Best. Does it seem hyperbolic to say SONOS is one of the best investments I’ve ever made? Maybe. But is it true? Heck yeah! I use all my speakers every day, and the SONOS app makes it all possible. Using the SONOS app, I can seamlessly play different music for different people in different rooms using different accounts like Apple Music, SoundCloud and Sonos Radio; I can unite the speakers to play the same in all rooms; I can use voice control when cooking or other activities make fidgeting with my phone a challenge; and I can switch from music to movie watching, giving my den theater-quality audio. I can even take my waterproof SONOS Roam into the shower with me for a much needed wake-up jam session (or to get the morning news OR to continue the Audible book that kept me awake too late the night before). For mediaphiles of almost any sort, SONOS speakers — and the app that makes the magic of SONOS all possible — are indispensable.

Sound Quality seems better. After reading many of the reviews I decided to upgrade to S2 when I had some time to spend troubleshooting. The process went super smoothly and took less then five minutes. I did make sure before upgrading that all my equipment was compatible with S2 because using 2 apps to control only some speakers on a particular app would be a showstopper for me. My home network being quite good might have contributed greatly to my success, I have all ubiquiti UniFi equipment running my network basically commercial equipment, App seems to have a quicker response with the speakers and sound quality has improved. I would like for Sonos to have a dark theme option for the app but the white background is not a dead breaker. If you choose to upgrade I hope that you have the same results as I did and not deal with some of the nightmare stories in some reviews that were posted for this app. Good luck!

Sonos speakers are expensive but you get what you pay for. Since I was a kid I always wanted a nice stereo speaker system. I never got one until I started out buying Sonos products. I start with two sonos play speakers which sounded amazing but eventually I wanted more bass. So I got the sub. Amazing room filling sound. Then I wanted surround in my home so I got the sound bar, not the arc but the lower one.(though I still want to buy the arc). Then I needed some speakers for my garage to work out… I got 2 play 5’s. Then I wanted some outdoor sound so I got 3 more play speakers. ( I never leave them out. I bring them in after every use). I am not rich. I bought these over the course of many years and loves them every step of the way. I can wait to get the arc once I save up enough for it. They are definitely pricey but if you love music the price is well worth it. I’ll never buy anything else.

Sonos the only way.. I sell Sonos to my clients. In a smart package with Lutron, Ring, and either Emtek or Level for their smart locks. I used to sell Control 4 for all of those, and it is twice to three times more expensive than all of the above mentioned vendors combined. And Sonos just always works if you have good Wi-Fi. Which is true of all the smart products I integrate for customers. I know the forums that have a few people with issues that don’t get resolved. Buy in my experience of 10 years with Sonos, it almost always is Wi-Fi issues or how the network they have is set up. So, I rely on Sonos so that I don’t have to get calls or service issues. And above all my customers love the App. Usually it is their favorite or at least top 3. At home, I have an Arc, rear Ones, Sonos Sub, and it sounds as good to me (I know I’m not an expert on sound) as some of my clients $200,000 media rooms. For $1900. Until I see something better on the market, and that makes sense for my customers, which I haven’t in over a decade. I support and love Sonos!

I regret my decisions. First, the only reason I have Sonos is because the former owner of my house decided to install a home speaker system using Sonos. The app is a strong hit or miss and even when it hits, it’s clunky, difficult to navigate and not extremely user friend. Against my better judgement, I purchased additional Sonos products, knowing I would once again still rely upon the app functionality. Well, I can say I stand behind the quality of the product, but the difficulties of this app make me regret my decision to ever continue with the Sonos product. Currently, I am locked out of anything on my account as every time I try to access, factory reset or do anything with my Sonos products or account on the app, nothing works. My account, system and services options are all greyed out and I cannot do anything to remedy it, even after calling Sonos and scouring the internet for solutions. Once again, I regret the decisions I make and would strongly urge anyone looking to purchase Sonos products to question if they are willing to deal with an unreliable and useless app to properly utilize your expensive product.

New app has destroyed Sonos System. Completely unreliable! Sometimes it works sometimes not. Sound drops from some speakers randomly. Went for there days not being able to choose music so the system simply could not be used. If you don't choose music it won’t work. My wife and I could control the old system flawlessly from either of our phones. Now, the phones conflict. If one is using the other can’t make any changes. The thousands of dollars invested in this system is essentially lost on a totally unreliable sound system. My frustration is quickly becoming anger. Soon I’ll be demanding my money back for all ten of my speakers! The problems started a few months before the new release. I suspect that they were affecting the old app while working on the new one. This is a serious problem. Would rate it less than one atar if I could.

Sonos still Sonos. 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.

Buggy, buggy, buggy. 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.

Stand by the devices that have trouble.. Everything went smoothly for me. I checked the hardware comparability list which clearly listed the play5: gen1 and a few others that wouldn’t be compatible, no problem I just have the playbase and bunch of play1s. Downloaded the app and proceeded to push the updates with several notices of errors however I waited about 5-8 minutes and most of them finished updating on their own. Two play1s failed and when I tried them again only the ones I was immediately next to would finish. I don’t know if its that they are using our phone’s Bluetooth but I did get a notice asking if it could use it prior to the update. So that’s my advice check the compatibility list, stand next to the trouble speakers while attempting the update and you may have to try several times. 4 stars only for the update process but as far as functionality almost identical to Sonos S1 so far.

Great sound, headaches along the way. Sound is awesome. Setup a bit troublesome due to confusing app verbiage and app goes in circles during setup (for me anyhow) asking for the same thing over and over even after it says your good...so you’re never sure it’s set up....until it just works. When connection is sketchy for whatever reason, then you may have to plug and unplug it to get it going again...and also rebooting the WiFi router may be required after an interruption of the connection. That is quite annoying. With a solid WiFi connection and once set up it’s great. If you move it around to differing networks or have sketchy WiFi, you may experience confusion with the setup UI. I love the hardware, not a fan of the UI on the phone though. I’ll probably buy another though as the active amp and network configurability of combinations are quite solid features. Oh, and I couldnt submit this review without a nickname. I tried “nicknamenottaken”....and guess what? It was taken. The first 7 names I tried were taken....such is the annoyance of Sonos. I almost didn’t write this because of it.

Either a buggy app or a bait and switch tactic from SONOS. So I have been happily using the old SONOS app since we got our system. We have an old gen 1 speaker 5, 1 sound bar, two speaker 3’s, 2 boosts and 2 moves. When I went to upgrade the original SONOS apps looked at my system and told me the ONLY piece of equipment that was not compatible with the new app was the old speaker 5. So I removed it from the system exactly as directed, downloaded the new app and when I fired it up it told me my 2 boosts and my 2 speaker 3’s were not compatible (so only my 2 moves and the sound bar are compatible) which is NOT what the original SONOS app told me. So either the new SONOS app is wrong or I have to update virtually all my hardware to use the new app (which sounds very much like bait and switch to me). Back to the original app. Very disappointed that the the new and old app don’t agree as to which of my components are compatible. For what I pay for SONOS components I expect MUCH better than this.

How can anyone at Sonos take pride in this awful app???. Even though I have been dumb enough to keep buying Sonos speakers for the past eight years, the app continues to only get worse and worse. How can anyone on the Sonos team take pride in this end result? This app can’t do the most simple of tasks on a consistent basis. I’m referring to simply connecting to speakers on the system, adjusting the volume, stop or start playing, let alone more meaningful tasks. The Sonos team seems to be more concerned about tracking my location and activity, as well as notifying me on worthless information, and trying to build their own streaming service. Yeah, as if I would ever give them additional business when they came and get their stupid app correct. I’ve had multiple homes in multiple locations with lots of smart home tech. This is by far the worst of smart smart home app and technology on the market today. It’s the only one that I cannot connect to when not in my house. I can adjust my front door locks, my lights, my thermostat, security cameras, all from remote locations but I can’t turn off my freaking speakers when I’m not home. this is an absolute train wreck of an app. It’s so bad I am literally embarrassed for the Sonos team.

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New update is a mess. Firstly, all previously saved Sonos stations have become inaccessible, necessitating manual re-adding and disrupting users' listening experiences. Additionally, the volume control interface no longer displays numerical values, requiring users to adjust levels through trial and error. Previously convenient shortcuts to treble, bass, and loudness adjustments have been replaced with a more cumbersome navigation process through multiple submenus. Furthermore, the consolidation of saved playlists and stations into a single section has resulted in a disorganized interface lacking alphabetical order. These changes collectively contribute to a less user-friendly and more frustrating experience for Sonos users.

A Once Great Experience, Now Marred by Frustration. I've been a loyal Sonos user for quite some time, enjoying seamless integration and excellent sound quality—until the release of the S2 app many months ago. Since then, the experience has been a constant source of frustration. The latest version of the S2 app is plagued with issues that show no signs of improvement. The most recent update has now logged me out of my Apple account, and no matter what I try—whether it’s reauthorising from different devices or reinstalling the app—Sonos refuses to accept my music subscription. This is not just a minor inconvenience; it's a complete disruption to my listening experience. Sonos, why can’t you get this app working properly? Every update seems to break more than it fixes, and as a user, I’m left with an unusable system that should never have been released in this state. After six months of ongoing issues, I’ve lost confidence that Sonos will ever address these problems. As we’re in the midst of a full house renovation, I’ve made the difficult decision to switch to the Heos system to stream music across the house's levels and each room. I never thought I’d be looking at alternatives, but Sonos's failings in recent months leave me with no other choice. I genuinely can’t recommend Sonos to anyone until these issues are resolved—if they ever are.

Continues to delight. I’ve been using Sonos for years . I am bemused by the people who complain. And the ones who think Sonos should run off Bluetooth or integrate with Bluetooth need to go use another system because they totally do not get what Sonos is all about and don t deserve to use it let alone then complain because it doesn’t ‘work’ I have three original sonos first generation (1s), a play 3, a smart ONE and a boost. So I’m very ‘old school’. I’ve just moved cities and set up with a new WiFi. I was having problems connecting so I just deleted the app, unplugged everything and restarted (I always plug the One into the modem router) and this was the fastest set up either. Love the app interface too (and the new colouring - no more baby %# brown ;). Turned it on and sublime coordinated sound in every room - and I haven’t tuned yet. Almost 10 years I would say and still going strong. Thanks Sonos. (Nope I was t paid for this - I purchased every piece separately when I had spare cash or with Qantas points)..

Shout out to the Sonos Customer Service Team. The most recent Sonos updates are hugely disappointing. No question about it. Thoughts are with the customer service team who take all the calls and questions on problems that they most certainly did not cause. In my case, I had Sonos Move stop working on my WIFI network. The customer service contact walked me various solutions, none of which worked. They patiently answered all my silly questions until eventually we found a way to fix the problem. Thank you and hope these troubles are soon behind you!

Weird. So just bought new Sonos products, trying to set these up which was seamless with Era 100 (s) until…We tried to set the beam and mini sub.. it weirdly says it’s not compatible with current app. Which is odd cause we have the latest version according to the app and app store.. so like this means the hardware is out of date and not compatible with the latest software? Odd. Please fix this cause I can’t set this up and use them and I love your products. Note: Work around with beam was just to use straight from the TV.. the mini sub doesn’t seem to have a work around so we currently can’t use it at all..

Updated app continues to be horrendous. Sonos still have a lot of work to do to fix these problem. This app is still totally useless when trying to control the speakers (I have 5 ) features are still missing. This version doesn’t even even support Playlist. How can you launch a new updated app and you don’t even have the basic functions in here you can see hundreds of reviews here saying how bad this version is nothing is coming from Sonos and the updates are so slow. I struggle to even use my Sonos properly The interface is so slow. Can’t even do basic things like adjust volume levels easily. I know my network set up is okay because nothings changed except for the new version app doesn’t matter if the device is plugged in by cable or on Wi-Fi they just do not respond. Never had a problem with the old version. I wish I did not upgrade. I’ve had a Sonos for over 15 years now. I’ve always recommended them. Please Sonos, can you do something to bring back the basic functionality of the app and make it perform properly? This version was never fit for deployment.

It’s terrible. The Sonos app was a great product but it’s truly is terrible with their last major release. It’s ultra slow and sluggish. It’s like it needs to connect back to a server in a particular country to access their internet link. Basically when ever you open or click on anything in the app you have to wait at least three seconds for it to a show result. They have also ruined the search algorithm. To find that a song now, you now need to know the artist and then find it through artists albums. To top it all off Sonos management’s egotistic attitude to the feedback shows they don’t care about the end user experience. So as their product ages, many people will most likely move away from the Sonos Ecosystem.

No wifi....no use.. I am disappointed that I have purchased a premium stereo product which only allows use if you have wifi at home in setting up. I only require prepay via my iPhone to attend to my internet needs prior to this product. I could have purchased something else at less than half the price which would immediately connect via Bluetooth. Surely this is a basic function that needs to be addressed which is standard across all other competitor’s product! Frustrated. :(

Disappointment since dropping play direct from iPhone option. I am totally disappointed with constant drop outs of audio which makes it so frustrating to listen to music that, in anger, I switch the whole system off. Whether I use wifi or sonosnet, the situation doesn’t improve. Given that the 2.4Ghz band is very crowed and only 3 channel options are available to sonosnet, it is beggars belief that there are not more options made available. I never had issues when I could play music directly off my iPhone direct to the speakers. Please Sonos bring this feature back, leave it up to us to decide if we want to use it or not, but it worked. As for the app updates, pretty looking albums don’t cut when you can’t listen the uninterrupted music. Are we here to look at pretty pictures or listen to awesome music? Concentrate on making the streaming options the best they can be, not making album covers the main topic. We want our music streaming back and we deserve it now. I’ve spent thousands of dollars putting Sonos throughout my home and my better half thinks it was all a big waste of money. All I ask is bring back the play direct from iPhone option for us to decide if we want to use it, not tell us it didn’t work when it did.

Oh Sonos you used to be so easy….. It’s just so darn complicated now. It used to be my favourite tech. Now? Just a mess. Nothing works like it used to. The app has a lag to load every time you open. And the app is overloaded. Just want to play music from the Deezer app- but it would need to connect airplay every time. Music stopping and starting. Having to reset speakers to get them to connect. Some speakers work with 5g, some don’t. Surround sound - sorry no more using the back two as a pair…. On and on bit the overall is it’s just not easy anymore. If I could start over I would with a different system. Unrelated to the app, I just took the upgrade offer (yep, can’t escape) and recycling is optional. So they brick very new speakers, rely on the consumer to send back…. Shame on you Sonos.

Not Great. I hate to say this but my god . One of the worst apps. Wish I didn’t have more than 1 Sonos speaker because half the time they are useless because the time it takes for the app to respond to any commands is ridiculous. Can’t even turn the volume up or down without at least a minute delay and then it just decides the previous volume will do. Same for trying to play another song, skip a song or do anything really that would make listening any joy. Really waste if money for having so many speakers to play music on. Definitely do not rate it much at all. So much for an upgrade. It’s worse than it was before and that says something!

New app only looks nice, many errors and poor feature. The new Sonos app is another example of pushing out a major app update too early. This should have been released as an entirely different app so users had the option of continuing to use the old app. The look of the app is better. But it’s riddled with errors, functional issues and reduced features (for example you can’t edit an existing alarm setup in the old app, and you can’t setup a new alarm). The issues extend to setting up your system on a new wifi network which gets you stuck in a ‘sign in as system owner’ loop - when you are the system owner. As a result you cannot use your system at all unless you switch to the desktop app and bypass using the mobile app entirely. This issue appears to affect all users changing wifi networks. Sonos has provided zero troubleshooting support for the issue. After many years of having one of the worst app experiences of any speaker system on the market, Sonos maintains its crown with this terrible version update. Highly recommend that you DO NOT download the ‘new’ version off the app.

Rubbish App Update Pushed Out Prematurely. What has come to light now is that thus Rubbish App Update was Pushed Out Prematurely by an Incompetent CEO to support Sonos’ new headphones which incidentally have been slammed because of their indifferent audio quality. So in other words their out of touch CEO Patrick Spence has compromised Sonos’ entire product line (old & new) by pushing out a update to the critical Sonos App - which is used by the entire Sonos product line - before it was ready to support a product that isn’t fit for purpose & nobody wants. Sonos is slashing staff because of this stuff-up & yet Spence is still there. Why? My advice & I have many Sonos products including the Arc & Era 300s is DO NOT UPDATE THIS APP if you still have the original ‘old’ Sonos App, as there is no way back & you risk bricking your entire Sonos network. If you are considering purchasing new Sonos products my advice is DO NOT PURCHASE NEW SONOS PRODUCTS until Sonos has moved to open source software, as the risk under Sonos’ current closed software development strategy, is that you will be left with expensive paperweights sooner than later.

It's ok. Not much to say: it works, is easy to set up and aesthetically not intrusive. Can I tell the difference? Is it a sound experience? Sorry, can't tell the difference. Hasn't made any difference in console gaming, don't know when it comes to programs; and music -well, it's music. It's ok with karaoke. Does a program have to be promoted as surround sound? I don't pay much attention to all that; I don't watch movies that much. An idiot friend wet himself going on about it, so I purchased it; I guess I'm the idiot. It gets the job done; it doesn't blow me every time I listen to music or watch a movie.

What a cluster. The new S2 app is a complete disaster as evidenced by the pile on here, all valid complaints. I was an early adopter, which included purchasing separate music controllers (looked like an iPod) as this was before smartphones. I have endured all the updates, which have over time, required throwing out their controllers, amps, boosts, being told mesh is best, then wifi is the go, then back and forth. All the while I’ve trusted the trajectory….until now. A new version of an app should be a forward step. It’s unable to load content, can’t access local drives, can’t change playlists, while any intuitiveness has completely disappeared. Was any Beta testing performed? I urge Sonos to allow users to download the previous version until the new version is revised so as not to trash their legacy.

older speakers useless with app upgrades. Beware of Sonos rules where they disconnect your ability to play through the older model speakers, despite them being in perfect working condition. To force you to upgrade to newer models of their speakers (at a super high cost compared to their competitors) they drop your ability to use the older speakers by making them incompatible with their app upgrades. So for a while I had to run two different versions of the Sonos app just to play on two different speakers (older model and newer model) - which defeats the whole purpose of Sonos which is to be able to sync multiple speakers through your house. And over the past year I can’t event get the original speaker to work through the app at all. It’s now basically a paper weight - despite having no technical issues with the actual speaker. Out of principle I ain’t buying another speaker. Other far cheaper brands are much easier to use and can sync together throughout the house.

New app version. New app is clunky and now it doesn’t permit change in volume of Sonos if the TV is being used. Prior version worked a treat. New version also won’t easily let you pick Favourite or default Sonos unit to play. So our garage is now constantly getting music in it which is…. Unhelpful when you’re in the lounge room all the time. If one person uses their phone to start music, and another uses it to turn down volume (after 500 steps to get to the right device) the song on the face of the second device plays. This app has such lack of functionality it’s enough to make you change systems … so frustrating is the new app (and really not fit for purpose) we play music from our iPhones!

Sonos repression. I’m constantly taken to a dark place with my excrement of a sonos system. Can it just play the song on all speakers at once and stay connected? It just gets worse and I end up endlessly trying everything to get it going. Either through the app or via airplay it’s a tossup of how bad a system can be. How did they ruin something that used to just work. When it’s going for a few minutes there’s volume problems and pauses while it tries and fails to sort out it’s Alzheimer's memory problem. My friend just showed me his new boxes of Sonos speakers that I apparently inspired him to buy .. my first thought was poor sucker what pain you’re going to be in.

Nothing but problems. Loaded new App with some excitement as to new functionality for my Sonos estate. Loaded up and struggled to get my Play1 online eventually got 3 of 4 connected but last one would not get added to my account. Could not find solution on the Internet or on Sonos Help pages. Moved to my Playbar - same thing would not be added to my account - they were all working OK on old software. Had to reconfigure TV to use its own speaker whilst I find solution. Tried to transfer products to my account but app said my device was not on Internet when all other Apps are ok on the phone. Also App locked up numerous times whilst using requiring a swipe north!

2024 May update just breaks the entire system. What kind of company does this?. The recent update to the new app has basically made my entire Sonos system unusable. In several different ways! Part, unbelievably, by actual design. Part by accidental dysfunction. What’s the point of what are in fact excellent speakers with such rubbish releases of new apps? The last big “new app” was a bit of a disaster. This one is the complete catastrophe. Get the finance and marketing people out of the driver’s seat and put someone in who can actually drive without enthusiastically heading over every cliff encountered. I am a communications person. I know most of what we read online is controlled by money right now. However positive comms and PR are not enough if your product is not working. Look at Boeing right now.

Can’t even use my expensive speakers. Update 7th June - all speakers still not working. It’s been 3 weeks now and not a sound out of any of my 4 Sonos speakers. Rendered useless. Since the latest update they all apparently connected to my wifi. And then that was it. Nothing shows up in the app, so can’t play anything. Amazing - amazingly terrible. Got a new router and now can’t use any of my expensive Sonos speakers because this app is so terrible that it won’t connect my speakers to the network. All the comments say similar things - Sonos don’t care. A tech company that can’t even enable their customers to use the tech. And it was all working fine before. I just phoned their helpline and was told it’s a 80min wait! No thanks. How about a full refund on this speakers that I can’t use? Only cost me AUD$3,500. What a rip off.

New app May 24 - UX is only good thing. Update in July 24: everything is still bad. The only thing that the refreshed app has going for it is the new UX. It plain doesn’t work at all anymore. Won’t play more than a minute of any song on any of my 15 Sonos products. Absolute trash and if I hadn’t invested so much money on this I’d be giving away and moving onto something else. AirPlay is saving me at the moment, but draining my iPhone battery everyday. Terrible. I only hope people looking to buy into Sonos read these app reviews before taking the plunge. Speakers can sound as good as you but if you can’t play music, what is the point!?! May 24: The good: UX is much better and I can find music quicker and easier. The bad: everything else. Sonos Boost is now no longer supported. No message to users of these devices, no nothing. Disgusting. I’m now forced to use my network instead of dedicated Sonosnet. I use a mesh network which doesn’t work with Sonos. Constants drops outs now, one speaker can’t see it’s stereo pair, Airplay is non-existent. I purchased three Boosts to make my system work and they made them obsolete overnight. These were only on sale last month! At least when they grandfathered S1 devices they gave warning. This is just customer neglect and downright wrong.

No volume control after latest update!. Have loved the Sonos app, have the Sonos beam and 2 Sonos ones in my lounge. I live in a townhouse and knew what level of volume was good to play music without annoying neighbours etc. This latest app has removed the volume bars with numbers so now I have no idea. Why remove something no one asked for. So stupid. If I want my music playing all night at 25 I want to know I’m on 25. I don’t see why it was removed when no one asked for it but some UI dev thought it was a smart idea to just have a scroll bar, why?. Cannot wait to offload my Sonos now and move on to the Sennheiser platform. A friend has one much better app, good volume control and good price point. Thanks Sonos, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be ;)

Terrible App Update. So many issues with this new app, I don’t even know where to start! I’ve never bothered reviewing an app before but this update is so terrible. I have spent a fortune on Sonos products over the years, now stuck with this new app, have had to factory reset my 5 speakers twice to get it configured. Now have to load all the favourites back in, nowhere to find and adjust the wi-fi network settings, I don’t have some of the music content previously available to me (e.g. local radio non-existent), and the list goes on… Come on Sonos, great speakers, let down by a terrible app update! Time to invest more in user experience, it shouldn’t take reading online how-to’s to understand app synchronisation!

New app is terrible. Same feedback as so many other people. App is extremely slow and unresponsive. Changes to sonos system (room names etc) don’t work, searches are slow, sometimes it doesn’t find the sonos system at all. The latest update says that it has brought back ‘play next’ and ‘add to queue’ but it hasn’t!!! I have deleted and reinstalled the app but no change! I was hopeful that there would be quick updates to the new app fixing all the things that they had stuffed up but it hasn’t happened. Releasing an update saying that old features have been re added, but not actually re adding them is a kick in the teeth from Sonos to all their customers!! Please, please, please hurry up and fix this mess. It should not take this long to fix up, especially with all the generous feedback that has been given from all of us

Worst App Ever - stay away!. I invested in Sonos for the house 3 years ago and have had connectivity issues from day one. I’ve since added the ‘Boost’ to try and fix the issues but it didn’t. I have spent over 3 hours on the phone to Sonos customer service too many time to remember and nobody there can help the constant dropouts. This system glitches constantly- forget entertaining with music. I also have 3 friends that also pull their hair out when lever I go over for the same reasons. I have lately been waiting for each new update to arrive but unfortunately it seems to get worse every time. Tonight it is not dropping out as usual as it won’t even start to play music. So frustrating!

Updates are breaking the system. I have multiple Sonos Ones around the home and an Arc and Sub for the TV. Some units complete their updates fine, while others fail and the unit goes off line. Right now the Arc + Sub just failed it's update (Error 30) and is now disabled pending a successful update, so, no home entertainment system. Sonos support's solution for Error 30 is to bring the Sonos device closer to the router. Completely absurd, as it's connected via ethernet cable about 2m from the router. Sonos, please, please allow me to use my Sonos devices in the case of a failed update. This happened about a month ago with a Sonos One and after about 10 device resets and 30 update attempts, a new version of the Sonos app came out and the update then worked flawlessly. Sort your *hit out, PLEASE! Otherwise, great app :-/

So many disappointments in app upgrade. Please please fix this… 3 clicks to find out the battery level of Roam!! Seriously! At least now we’ve got access to Alarms again - but it would be good to easily see which Station we had chosen on any different alarm. Now it just says Station. And more clicks to find out, or to change. And it would be great if Alarms could be accessible on the Home Screen. Please could that option be added??? And so much distortion with graphics (on your ads for Roam 2) on the iPad app. And trying to delete the ad by hitting the x - actually opens it. Very frustrating.

Do you even performance test, bro?. Update 15/12: This SONOS product is more of an OHNO(S). Avoid like the plague: constantly drops out on same wireless network none of my other devices have problems connecting to. As a consequence the alarm often doesn’t go off AT ALL or plays the incessant Chime tone which makes me want to go postal. I’ve resorted to setting a second alarm on my phone - which defeats the point of having an alarm on a Wi-Fi speaker, no. Absolute worst. The app is buggy as hell and constantly pauses, stops, forgets what it’s doing, goes and makes a cup of tea etc. Pitiful. Worst thing I’ve ever bought and I owned a Fiat Panda once. Older review: This app is possibly the worst preforming app I’ve ever had the misfortune to need to use. I’ve spent the last 25 minutes ridden with insomnia just trying to change my alarm time for the morning. The app either randomly crashes and kicks me out or takes 30 seconds or more to even enable the System menu or just does not respond at all. How is it this hard to change an alarm setting / use an app?! And, no, my connection is fine given I’m seamlessly playing a podcast via the speaker. Honestly, get some performance testers you tight arses and get them to test. Or set yourself some decent SLAs. Or check your crash reports. T. H. E. W. O. R. S. T.

Awesome app. I switched to Sonos in July of 2022 because I wanted a great sound system but I wanted to be able to control it from my iPhone because I have Cerebral palsy and find using a normal remote control difficult. I currently have x1 arc with x2 gen 3 sub i plan to get a pair of era 300 as surround speakers to complete my Dolby atmos setup. Can’t wait to see what Sonos do for the gen 4 sub hopefully it’s a big upgrade with bigger drivers and more power. The same for the arc my friend and I did a test the arc puts out 85watts rms the next gen arc needs to be at least 100watts rms minimum. Arc Soundbar 85 WATTS RMS 120 WATTS PEAK Gen 3 Subwoofer: 211 WATTS RMS 299 WATTS PEAK

Terrible update. The latest app update is excruciatingly counterintuitive and frustrating to use - a bad case of (alleged) bells and whistles at the expense of clarity and functionality. Way too much faffing about is required, for example, just to get to the volume control function for the Beam connected to our TV, when with the previous iteration it would be the first thing visible within the app if it was the last function used. Further, all app volume controls are now less responsive to touch when you want to increase or decrease volume. Hope one trade-off might be more reliable functionality generally, but based on prior performance my expectations are low. In summary: great speakers, truly mediocre app.

Alarm glitch. Sonos newbie here. Got app for Roam2. Didn’t intend to use full app functionality. Direct Airplay2 is fine most of the time. However needed app to connect to wi fi and access other features. For this, so far so good with one notable exception…the newly added alarm. Setting an alarm, no problem. Issue is that once the speaker turns itself off, the alarm will fail. There doesn’t seem to be a mechanism to prompt the speaker to turn on for an alarm that is beyond the automatic 30 minute shutdown such for an overnight wake up alarm. The app itself also seems to lose a wifi connection overnight so that ‘content can not be displayed’ appeared in the morning until the speaker was physically turned on. This probably not helping to trigger a start for alarm. Hopefully this issue will be resolved quickly. Apart from that the app is working the way I need it to, though I suspect that may be in part because I’m not using as fully integrated services and multi room system. Just the one speaker. I hope my experience does not detoorate as the speaker ages as this seems to be a common issue with others.

Amateur Hour!. Steer away from the new upgrade! Full of untested bugs, fristratingly slow! It now seems to be storing and accessing the list of servies, the last played song and everything else remotely, and every time I start it it takes ages for the app to access that info from the cloud. If that's not enough, Ithe app is sometimes losing the information of connected servixes, no icons, just a dumb list of entries, all called "Service Name" . The worst annoyance is when I start playing a random song that I select within a long playlis, it ends up losing track of which song it was currently playing, so it just defaults to the first song in the list. Once it loses sync, there's obviously no way of controlling the playback at all. Does not re-sync even if restarted. Frustrating beta quality software, should have been tested it more before pushing this half-baked dodgy mess into production.

What a rip off. This app has major stability issues sonos support do not understand the difference between a wifi mesh system and an extender. I have a mesh system which has the same ssid through the house. The app was working fine support tell me to go and rename each wifi device because i have different devices on my network. clearly no clue that a mesh system has the same ssid and is supposed to then he flatly refused to help me everything was working fine no changes my end and no other device/app has an issue except for this one but he would not listen. Coincidentally they did an update a few days back he did everything he could do to deflect from taking any responsibility even telling me to contact my service provider to help me with the only issue i have which is sonos. Lol how can I possibly recommend this to anyone? Sonos if you actually read this can some there give me some proper support? Also I unplugged the other wifi mesh point so its just the router now no other devices and guess what same issue- major stability issues so over to you sonos….. I expect nothing but silence

Great products, disappointing app.. I had a play 5 which we’d been using for a number of years and were very happy with, great design and sound quality all in a relatively small speaker. When we needed a portable Bluetooth speaker I didn’t hesitate to buy a Sonos Roam. However set up was terrible. I wasted hours trying to get the speaker set up. You have to download a new Sonos app (why 2 apps?) and then I discovered my old play 5 was not compatible with the new speaker and had to be managed on the old app. To make things worse I’d set up my Sonos account so long ago it had an old email address. When I tried to update the email it asked me to verify but I never received any email. I was then effectively blocked from doing anything in both apps. I still can’t use the new roam because it is not properly set up. Tech should be an enabler not a blocker!! Really disappointing Sonos, you’re experts in sound and design but your tech leaves a lot to be desired.

Wasting my time instead of listening to music to be more productive. What happened SONOS? You’re products were once awesome. Then they alls topped working, the integrations with older SONOS products became unsupported, the apps stopped working, even newer speakers started dropping out. It’s become embarrassing to even try to play music when guests come over - a sub is missing, I can’t control what songs play, the music stops and starts as the wifi connection struggles. If I try to listen to music 3 times a week…2 times a week I’ll be spending 20mins trying to fix SONOS before I give up. Please fix this. You’re losing so must trust from loyal customers like me. I’ve started seeking SONOS systems tossed into the street and Facebook marketplace is riddled with systems being sold with descriptions saying “don’t ask me about the tech, I don’t know anything about it” - when the sellers are tech folk who have just given up and are trying to sell what once were great products for as much as they can get for them from unsuspecting buyers who haven’t read the latest reviews. Please, please, please fix the issues. A letter from the CEO means nothing. Refund, replace, credit the losses of our time and support for high end products that are failing.

great when everything works. ARC SUB (most recent gen) One SL (one each - bathroom, bedroom) or as Surrounds for Arc & Sub. Generally no problem to move connect & configure, if there’s problem? Day’s to learn wont pair on WiFi, when u set Arc & Sub direct ethernet ** *** for everything Sonos toy, learn how to manual force a reboot, its ‘factory fresh’ then Easy to install? So long as the auto set up gets everything right. no access to manual inputs, not even Support that should be able to adjust when all your gear is online. leads to Network, despite what they say, mine runs great on the 5G band of the modem WiFi, once selected, no changing it without a factory reset. Was putting Arc and Sub back on ethernet cable, after using surrounds all on WiFi, OOps aforgot I borrowed the Sub’s cable... Sonos could not get the sub to do anything, I rebooted Sub 3 times, Sonos, could not even connect it back up to Arc, and TV. I started drinking heavily, and problem fixed the following day, that is by the time I checked. Think I must have rebooted everything in the house, including self!

Downhill. Pains me to say, since the original app was quite good, that this app is now extraordinarily bad. Cover art doesn’t update for ages, the controls are unresponsive at times. Try adding a song to the playlist or editing it. A loading spinner appears and half the changes don’t stick, or just don’t display unless you reload the app. I’m sorry but I’ve never seen an app fall so far this fast. I’ve looked hard for reasons to upgrade to S2 but apart from different colours in the app, what’s different? Everything is less reliable and slower now. S1 nolonger working with my Playbar, sub and Play 5’s. What a poor experience that has left me sizing up other hardware brands now when two years ago I wouldn’t have looked away from Sonos. I don’t feel taken care of as a customer and now I also pass my thoughts on to those that I talk to. Change your strategy and get better.

Latest update is a disaster. The most recent update is appalling. I thought it was bad enough when I lost functionality such as no queue to manage when I play music from my library, but now the app doesn’t even detect my library even though my NAS is sitting there happily chugging away waiting for instructions. Not to worry, I thought, my PC app was still working fine yesterday but now, guess what, no music library visible. I noticed there’s an update available for my desktop - not a chance I’m hitting that button. I see some idiot blaming “user error” for the problems. How can it be user error when, at my end, I’ve changed nothing regarding my library or my setup or my system? The *only* change has been updating the app - nothing else. What a shame, Sonos, as I have hundreds of dollars worth of now useless equipment. I have, up until now, been an advocate and have recommended to lots of other people. No more. Until the app is fixed and my functionality restored I will be advising people to steer clear. Zero stars if I could.

I bought a system and you only deliver speakers. FOMO made me do it. I thought that at one stage S1 products would be sent to Sonos heaven and I’d be left with the corpse. I took the bait and used my upgrade credits to get new gear and S2 functionality. What a struggle. 2 days of resetting, reconnecting, wifi restarting, button pressing fun. Eventually I have connected the 2 ones and 2 fives and sure they sound great… when they connect. The app takes anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds to find the system and has even totally forgotten I own any Sonos gear at times. I’ve bitten the bullet to connect another phone via the app to the system but I’ve not been successful. It scares me when it can’t find the system and asks me to reconnect speakers as I don’t have another 2 days in me. Sonos, you sell a system not speakers. Everyone who has commented on here with app issues has paid at least $500 for the pleasure. The app is an integral part of our purchases. Just because it’s “free” on App Store it doesn’t mean you get to support it poorly. A sign to me that you don’t think the app is important is that no one from Sonos ever appears to comment on any of the feedback provided here. Very disappointed about my “upgrade”. The real world experience and the poor performance of purchased components is probably a breach on consumer law. I’ll consider downgrading to S1

App bugs and errors. Since the new app release I have had nothing but problems. The app is incredibly slow to recognize the system, and often doesn’t recognize it at all. I have alarms set to start evening music, they start, but don’t show up on the queue, and can’t be accessed to stop/change etc. additionally they’re on repeat- after 2 or so run throughs a completely different song starts playing, but then I can’t get connect to the system to stop that song and play the original song. The key issue here is that these evening songs play white noise, the track runs for 130 minutes…so it’s the middle of the night when it switches to the random song (that happens to be a loud, happy kids song) - not what you want at midnight. In the middle of the night it appears as though the internet connection dips out, so the songs don’t play, and only the alarm Sonos chime play - again annoying in the middle of the night. Very unhappy with the new app. Its impacting my sleep.

Gone from bad to worse - 1 star as 0 isn’t an option. I’ve built my system over 12 years after it was recommended to me by music retailer. It was touted it as the best system you could buy, so I decided to purchase the hideously expensive system. I’ve stuck by Sonos through all their updates and upgrades, even retiring my expensive “5” speaker after only a few years as Sonos decided to retire it!! Upgrade after upgrade, of speakers and glitchy system has left me regretting sticking around this long. This newest app upgrade has convinced me to get rid of the whole Sonos system. I’ve finally come to that last and final straw, and no longer want to put up with a glitchy, unintuitive system interface. Sonos you were once a giant to be proud of owning - but no more!!

Sound of music. The healing sound of music in our lives is essential to our overall wellbeing. Music fills the void between the physical and the empty space that surrounds us. Beautiful music can only become food for the soul when the sound quality is as close to what the artist intended as possible. All my research kept brining me back to Sonos! Room by room I am adding the system and each time a new Sonos product arrives it not only changes the mood of the house but add a whole new dimension to the time I spend at home. When I unpack and set up each time I always seem to say to myself “This is a great product” thanks to the team at Sonos it’s really is a great product and service you have created.

How sonos killed its own product. There was once a time when Sonos was a great product. The application worked. Everything was seamless, then came the forced updates, constantly updating and forcing you to update your devices. When the basic functionality still worked again we had more updates, and finally we got the update that everyone has now with everything pretty much, not working. Applications crashing, and functionality gone, music libraries unable to connect, and the basic optimal responsive application gone. It’s no wonder the share price has fallen down from memory, 10%. When will Sonos fix the products and make them like they used to be, simple, user centric and working?

Worst software, good hardware. I have invested a lot of money into the Sonos ecosystem. After upgrading from old obsolete hardware, I now have a collection that comprises an Arc, Sub, 2 current gen Play 5s, 2 Play 1s, 1 Play 3, and a current gen Port linking with cinema system. The hardware is very high quality and sounds great when it works. I recently hosted a party and tried to use the Sonos system for music. After numerous dropouts I was forced to abandon the entire system and use a different sound system. My Wifi is not to blame, I have high speed internet over fibre and a very good router. I also spend excessive time trying to link multiple zones together and control them. The current software/app is the worst I have ever used. I get the same feedback from ALL of my friends and family who use the same system. Once upon a time I would recommend to anyone that Sonos was the best option for home sound, but now I would tell EVERYONE to look somewhere else until SONOS can get things sorted out. You only have to look at the other reviews to see that my opinion is reflected by many. If I wasn’t so heavily committed with my current hardware, I would be tempted to replace the whole system with another brand.

Great when it works which is rarely. I have 9 speakers connected to my system. I can rarely get them all working at the same time. Music drops in and out, songs quit halfway through, and sometimes the app just doesn’t respond. It could be issues with my home wifi, but it is an expensive system that works for all of my other devices so I can’t see why it would be the culprit. I use the sonos app for iOS and MacOS and they are both pretty limited. They have few, if any, features to assist me in diagnosing where the problem is. I am continually stopping and restarting the app and rebooting my devices in an effort to get the music to stream again. I have spent a lot on this and am disappointed that I might have to dump it for a different system. When it is all working, however, it is fantastic and I often play different music in different zones. Fingers crossed a future update will fix these streaming issues or at the very least give me some diagnostic tools to help identify why the connection keeps dropping out.

Great speakers, but who approved the new app??!!. Sonos speakers are fantastic and we have been enjoying it in all our rooms for years. That was until the new app was released, which is a catastrophe in regards to stability (it crashes or can’t find our speakers), usability (it’s a pain to find playlists and songs and slow to connect several speakers together) and unreliable (songs are not playable, speakers start playing that shouldn’t play and it can take a long time to group speakers). The previous app was fast, reliable and great, now we are thinking of changing our entire system as this one doesn’t work anymore. Our ask to SONOS, please act and either improve fast or reissue the old app, or lose customers.

Beware of this update!!!. Took me over an hour to get my system back up & running after installing this update. Wouldn’t find or recognise speakers, wouldn’t connect to speakers, forgot wifi for all speakers. Left me totally tearing my hair out. Now my main system often won’t show up, just a single speaker. Only way to regain control of the system is to quit the app, turn that single speaker off, re-open app with speaker still off & then my main system is there & I can reboot the other speaker. Pretty pathetic.

Constant updates. Sonos constantly update their software, weekly on average. I always know because my surrounds stop working. When I hit update there is ALWAYS an ‘issue’, as the left and right surround have not updated. I cannot ungroup them and try to update them individually as the Sonos app does not allow it. I always stupidly try and try again to no avail, hoping to avoid the inevitable - unplugging the speakers (on stands) and taking them into another room to plug in directly next to my 5G wifi router, which I also have to unplug. After everything has been turned back on again only then can I update the left and right speakers before relocating them back in their original location behind the couch.

Amateur hour. Some of the design implementation in the new version feels extremely poorly done. The slide up panels and their background appear with a jarring effect, the floating now playing around is offset on all sides except the bottom, and we still don’t have a dark mode? Picture this, I’m sitting in my lounge with the lights out listening to Pink Floyd and I just want to change the bass settings...great now I’m blinded by the shades of grey that have been picked to bore us to death. Functionally the app is fine enough but there needs to be some serious focus on the last 10% to bring this app up to standard. If you’re going to create your own design language it has to be better than what you’re given for free in iOS, presently it is not.

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Tech Industry’s worst software. Been on sonos for 10+ years, every version of this app has been terrible. There is needlessly long delays/lags in playing and searching for music, and connectivity gets worse with each update. I really wanted to like this product and have even continued to invest in their newer products over the years, but i am done with this system now. Stay away if you haven’t already purchased, it’s only redeemable quality is that it looks good.

Continued problems. I continue to have problems with Sirius on Sonos. I am not happy.

Absolutely abysmal.. To be frank, the previous app was far superior. Connection issues, recognition issues, control issues, factory reset to recognize components. The list goes on. Change for change sake is not change. Its job justification. Make the previous version resettable until you sort this out. It’s works than Air BNB when all your looking for is a location not a booking calendar.

Sonos. Trouble app. Takes too long to load if it loads at all

Don’t buy sonos. Don’t waste money on this system. I regret buying in to this system. Ive had nothing but problems with it. Now after this new update I am going to replace my system with something else. The app continues to disappoint. With this new update I am left with speakers that are almost useless

Worst app. Why spend so much money on a system that is never working properly. This probably the worst investment you can make in your lifetime. It always says that you aren’t connected to wifi but you are. There’s never an explanation for that mistake from Sonos.

No more numbered volume indicator. We used to keep the volume in the shop at 60, now there is no way to know what the actual volume in numbers % is. Why remove this important information from the volume slider?? Lazy

New app is absolutely garbage. Needs immediate attention. Sonos S2 worked flawlessly in my opinion. So to completely redo the app is one thing but to release it in what seems to be such an alpha state is horrible. As an installer this has caused nothing but endless service calls and no matter how involved you are with technology there is simply no fix to the problems you encounter. Hoping there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and very soon.

No in sinc. New app doesn’t work as well

Sounds good. Software terrible. Absolute garbage software Continuous updates that prevent you from simply listening to music. Stop requiring updates to listen to my music through a product I purchased Would not recommend

Great when it works, frustrating when buggy. It’s frustrating that the system seems to be temperamental. There is no pattern to the inconsistency of when the app can find the speakers and when they cannot connect.

Latest update. The latest update has rendered my 8 speaker system unusable. I don’t know where to begin….

Don’t update. Stupid app. “Sign in to access that feature” so I sign in. “Sign out and sign back in to access that feature” so I do. Never can I access that feature - so how the he’ll am I supposed to add my subscription services back. Even though they used to work just fine. Also why in the world is Sonos getting into radio stations too. Writing on the wall…. Won’t be buying new speakers evah

Absolute crap. Tons of issues connecting it almost never works on your first try, and disconnecting is the same sometimes it just keeps on playing ever AFTER I DELETE THE APP LIKE WHAT!!!!

May 2024. Worst version of the App ever!. Access to own playlist is not easy. Local media gone

Very poor UX. The new app makes it extremely hard to set alarms and manage current activity. It seems to be focused on setting up a service - which isn’t something done frequently.

Update doesn’t solve problem reauthorizing Apple Music. Was hoping that todays updates would solve the abysmal initial experience with the new app. I was wrong. I was just about to pre-order the new headphones but forget it. I am quickly losing faith in Sonos. Too bad they didn’t have the same expertise in apps as they do with audio. They just don’t seem to take it seriously.

Pre-historic era app. Makes me nostalgic of the magnetic tape cassette times !! /:-(

Bring us the old version back!!. This newest app update is a disaster, honestly it renders the speakers useless at this point. So disappointed!

Stay away from this update!!!. Too many issues to list. A quick google search will list all the issues with this update. There was no warning in the app that this was a major update! We need to be able to restore to the older version. Don’t update to this version!!!!

Connection Issues. Trying to select Sonos speakers out of the Spotify app results in errors. The Sonos app will often show music playing but there’s no sound. Porting over from S1 was hours of trouble shooting. Garbage.

New App is terrible. The Sonos App used to be completely user friendly and worked flawlessly. The new version is horrible. If they don’t fix it I highly encourage everybody to move away from Sonos. I may be putting my 8 speakers up for sale and switching soon. Spotify doesn’t interface as well with it as it used too. Volume control is a joke. 50/50 it even works and then another 50/50 shot it works in the way you intended. Check out any Reddit or online chats. They have destroyed this once awesome system.

New app version as issues. New app version as issues: cannot play music from app from sources like TuneIn or Apple Music. Alexa won’t start music either. Only airplay seems to work properly, since it bypasses the app. Had no issues with previous app version.

Would give zero if possible. Absolutely waste of money. gonna be returning my pair of Era100s.. can’t get them to pair since the new app update. Gonna stick with Bose ..

Ver 80 broke many services. Do not update your app. The update to version 80 is not good. Many of the services (CBC and Stringray to name just a couple) do not work any longer. And music streams are missing from CBC, only radio available. It all still works fine on my other phone with the older app (ver 16.1).

10 year decline. Had this system for as long as I can remember. Slow death. Was awesome now update after update reset after reset. Garbage now.

Pairs always out of sync. Have two fives and they are always out of sync if you use high quality music stations. Not worth the money!

Won’t work on your iPhone if you don’t have the current OS.. The installer says it will work but it doesn’t. Wish I could go back one update. Zero stars for this update. Do not install if you don’t want to buy a new iPhone. Pretty soon all our devices will just cease to work and I will go back to playing cd’s on random play. Planned obsolescence sucks.

Avoid at all costs. This app is terrible! The new version has gone from bad to worse. I have no idea what type of user the app is geared towards but it is a train wreck for me. I have 7 zones and 5 different Sonos products. If/when there is an alternative I will be first in line to leave this ecosystem.

New App forced through with huge problems.. Sonos used to be such a great product. I am consistently disappointed as they release new, far worse app versions, loss of functionality, buggy, and forcing my older speakers to be disconnected from the system. Just not worth the headaches.

Not an update, more of a downgrade. The latest update removed many options like the ability to set sleep timers, easily select rooms to play music in, and easily search music and playlists. Now the navigation is awkward and the home screen is choppy and hard to navigate. I normally embrace change and newer, better systems, but this one was a terrible update that made the app annoying. I’ll go back to using Apple Music to navigate playing music

Now you can’t edit Que while playing a playlist!?. You just screwed over a lot of fitness industry professionals for no reason. Also where are the numbers for the volume control? Just a boneheaded move what a terrible refresh. I’ll never recommend your product to anyone after this.

Forced updates continue to break things. Why do you force your users to update? It’s incredibly annoying, and most of the time when I do, it breaks things - I have to redo the setup as it loses speakers. Very frustrating, absolutely unnecessary.

New app terrible. The new app is a huge step backwards. We experience the following issues: significant delays between the app and the speakers; default to Sonos 1 no matter which other speaker/room we’ve selected; random changes in volume; trouble searching; troubles using our connect amp.

Truly terrible. Freezes, lags, loses connection constantly. Seems to get worse and worse with each update.

Expensive system that is overly complicated to connect.. Speakers 1/10th of the price are easier to connect.

Sooo bad…. Inconsistant, soooo slow to respond to command, so complicated, I am always frustrated with Sonos…

Worst app upgrade ever.. The new Sonos app is terrible. The interface is not easy or intuitive. It gave me endless sign in issues and wouldn’t load Apple Music. Please go back to the old app.

Terrible. Can’t even use it anymore. This is minor league stuff Sonos. At least tell us you are working on a fix. Very frustrating.

I’m listening to LESS music now!!. Sonos… stop destroying my music listening experience. I’m 100% capable of adapting to new software, but the new update is so counter intuitive that my house has went silent because of it. :(

doesn’t work. I tried downloading S2 several times and I was never able to use it. Because of that I haven’t been able to use my Sonos bar for 2 months since S1 doesn’t work either. Very disappointed with this tentative upgrade of the app by Sonos.

Terrible. Ever since the upgrade to Sonos to I’ve had nothing but troubles speakers cut out continually and unable to connect from the iPad controller never had issues with the old one. disappointing!!!

Glitchy. Every time they do an update I loose one or more of my speakers off the room list. This is on my iPad 4 and an iPhone 8.I often have to delete and re download the app to finally see them populate again. I have a bit better luck on my iphone XR but it happens sometimes on that as well. It was better before Sonos started doing all these updates since about 4 months ago

Horrible. Doesn’t deserve any stars. Has a mind of it’s own. Won’t play the speaker or music I select.

Soooo bad. What was wrong with the S2 app? This new interface is terrible. The app is laggy. I move the volume slider and it goes the other direction. It is absolutely an evolution in the wrong direction. Please fix this as up to this latest app (bring back S2!!!) I was the biggest Sonos supporter :(

Critical bugs prevents set up. Infinite loop.. Garbage app. Needs QA of critical flows. Forums show this infinite loop of app asking for network access despite it being granted has been going on for over 10 days. 10 days with countless customers unable to use their costly paperweights.

Do Not Update. What a fiasco. Updated to the new app only to find that not all functions are available. This includes the previous ability to set an alarm. Absurd that the "updated" app has less functionality than what it replaced. Has made my Roam useless as my main use was as a bedroom alarm.

Pointless. I tried it and went back to S1 immediately... Glitchy, asked me to set up my speakers again... So disapointing from Sonos, you were leaders in 2010, but have dropped big time. APP is so pointless. Don’t download this beige app people!

Awful user experience. The latest version of the app is verging on unusable. It’s not intuitive. Features are missing (e.g. alarms and timers). Error messages are rampant. The app doesn’t follow accessibility guidelines at all. It makes me rethink my decision to use Sonos products altogether.

Was working fine..... Now it continues to drop speakers off my system. Something happened at Sonos, it’s almost like some important knowledgeable person left... Miss the old app, I could easily use my laptop. So a few things changed my former 5 star rating.

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Sonos more trouble than it’s worth. I was initially quite impressed with the sound quality of SONOS and the ability to manage multiple speaker locations throughout various rooms in the the home. It also seemed to link up well with Apple Music for a while, but have more recently been quite disappointed due to frequent unexpected downtime and poor reliability of anticipated use due to frequent notifications to “need to re-authorize Apple Music”. I get these notifications quite often despite my Apple Music subscription being paid and consistently up-to-date. To magnify the frustration with this system further it seems to require these authorizations usually when I have friends over and the system fails to respond unless I take an inordinate amount of time away from my guests to get up and running again. While I could expand the number of speakers, subwoofers, etc. in my home, the frequent service disruptions are a huge disincentive to invest any further in this system. There truly are many other options available that deliver greater reliability, more predictable availability with blue tooth compatibility and high end sound quality.

A great experience. Paired with a phenomenal sound system, this app gives you access to numerous different music apps, your TV and much more, making it work seamlessly with all voice assistants and with its very own assistant (which in my opinion is the best way to control the sound system, with a very reassuring and calming masculine voice). The app has very elegant graphics and does not crash at all (in my experience). There are many options for personalizing your sound system both as a group and individually, speaker by speaker and for different uses too, such as for watching movies or listening to music. This is without a doubt the best option out there for those who care about sound quality and interoperability. Sonos knows what it’s doing and just keeps on improving on it. Five stars for sure, I abandoned all my HomePods (I had many throughout the house) but one (which I use as a home hub) and replaced them all with Sonos speakers. No-brainer.

Sonos Speakers Unusable after app update. Had been using the speakers with no issue until the recent update. Honestly rarely used the app, apart from setting up the speakers. But since the update, the speakers (beam 2, era 300s and sub) disappeared from the app, and the app isn’t able to add them back. Keep getting error messages and that I should contact customer support. Well, turns out customer support has been horrendous. Two hours waiting on the phone for customer service reps who never picked up. An hour trouble shooting with a rep via chat, only to refer me to try calling customer service again as the rep on the chat couldn’t figure out the issue. Not looking forward to potentially many more hours trying to get through to someone from Sonos to sort out an issue of their own making. Shocking to see how a malfunctioning app can render my Sonos speakers useless, and that for such an important part of the setup Sonos has launched this update with critical flaws in the App. Sonos needs to own up to the issue, communicate with customers about what they are doing to resolve the issue, and do a better job of testing changes to the app before launching.

Less than helpful. I have a subscription to Sonos radio and on my last CC statement I noticed they charged me 16 times for my subscription…I reached out to them….was on hold for the better part of 30 mins only to be told they would have to get back to me. They would send me an email saying they would get around to it till the following week. I responded saying that wasn’t acceptable. Heard nothing back. Seven days later I reached out requesting an update, heard nothing, 3 days later I asked for another update. I did hear back…they pretty much just told me they raised my concern and it turns out this is a known issue and they are waiting on the response from the back office (I was told this when I called them as well). Six days later I requested an update. Five days later they would respond asking when would work to talk…I told them…they never called and it is now 24 days later than they have done nothing to make right by this….this is not the first issue I have had with Sonos. If you are going to charge for a premium product I expect the customer service to follow suit. The customer experience is less than dreadful…much like dealing with cell phone companies.

Stand by the devices that have trouble.. Everything went smoothly for me. I checked the hardware comparability list which clearly listed the play5: gen1 and a few others that wouldn’t be compatible, no problem I just have the playbase and bunch of play1s. Downloaded the app and proceeded to push the updates with several notices of errors however I waited about 5-8 minutes and most of them finished updating on their own. Two play1s failed and when I tried them again only the ones I was immediately next to would finish. I don’t know if its that they are using our phone’s Bluetooth but I did get a notice asking if it could use it prior to the update. So that’s my advice check the compatibility list, stand next to the trouble speakers while attempting the update and you may have to try several times. 4 stars only for the update process but as far as functionality almost identical to Sonos S1 so far.

People better have been fired!. Sonos WAS the greatest system for over 2 decades. And when apps appeared on our phones, they replaced their freestanding remote controls and embraced the new technology. For YEARS, the layout and ease of using the system on our phones was perfect. NO ONE complained. And yet, just a few months ago, they changed the entire app — taking away standard features that were there since Sonos’ inception. It’s just a mess now. And Sonos is aware, because when you call their customer service, the FIRST thing the recording says is (paraphrasing), “Sonos is aware of the problems on the new app upgrade and are fixing them.” And still, weeks later, it ain’t fixed. So, here’s hoping whomever the designer was, who ever the engineer was, whoever had a hand in screwing up a FANTASTIC system for NO reason I currently unemployed. Seriously. In any other job in the world, if people made this kind of an error, they would have been replaced immediately. Here’s hoping the same has happened at Sonos. I encourage anyone contemplating buying this system to wait until it’s fixed — out back to how it worked perfectly for YEARS — or start looking for ANY other system I use instead.

Sonos speakers are expensive but you get what you pay for. Since I was a kid I always wanted a nice stereo speaker system. I never got one until I started out buying Sonos products. I start with two sonos play speakers which sounded amazing but eventually I wanted more bass. So I got the sub. Amazing room filling sound. Then I wanted surround in my home so I got the sound bar, not the arc but the lower one.(though I still want to buy the arc). Then I needed some speakers for my garage to work out… I got 2 play 5’s. Then I wanted some outdoor sound so I got 3 more play speakers. ( I never leave them out. I bring them in after every use). I am not rich. I bought these over the course of many years and loves them every step of the way. I can wait to get the arc once I save up enough for it. They are definitely pricey but if you love music the price is well worth it. I’ll never buy anything else.

Sonos...thank you. I did a lot of going and back and forth before I bought my first Sonos speaker (and now the owner of many) because I had always been a Bose person but after reading more on how far Sonos was ahead on WiFi connection speakers I decided to buy the Sonos (not to mention the aesthetics of the Sonos are nicer) - later I started becoming so disappointed in the compatibility of “old” speakers that I had paid a lot of money on with my new speakers and the app with the new ios updates with all of the extra steps that I now had to go through - I called Sonos and was advised this was not going to change - then one day out of nowhere it did change and it was as easy as before - now with this new update to the app it is even better and just has even a nicer look to the screens - thank you Sonos for doing the extras to continue to make the experience perfect - love my Sonos!

Broken update. System was working yesterday. I have eight Sonos hubs which run my front yard, house and backyard. Although at times glitchy it generally works pretty darn well. Last night new app update and all my system off-line wanting me to reset everything. I’m hoping there’s a fix before I try to do this because I would hate to disable an entire network that’s worked together well. Each update has been a fail. Even the layout makes it more difficult to use from what was a simple interface. Apple went through this process sometime ago, where they started adding what they thought would be updated nuances, which made the end-user experience more difficult. Even Apple has gone back to having and user simple interfaces. This is why we move from the world. Of DOS to windows. The idea was simplicity. Apple perfected it. Apple ruined it. Apple fixed it. Sonos needs to learn THIS LESSON. SO BOTHERED THAT MY SYSTEM IS TAKEN OFF-LINE WHEN I HAVE FAMILY IN TOWN AND WAS PLANNING TO ENTERTAIN IN MY BACKYARD TODAY. I GUESS I’LL GO BUY A BOOMBOX FROM COSTCO AND PLAY IT OVER TWO SPEAKERS. Sonos, what happened to you? Don’t put out beta tested updates. Obviously this is one.

My first review. This is the first review I’ve ever written on here. I think it’s necessary because the new app is such a mess that Sonos needs to hear about it. The response time in the app for simple things, like volume and songs currently playing, are on such a lag and so out of whack that I’m wondering if the company even wants me to use it. The UX is no longer intuitive and took me way longer than it should have to find the information I was looking for that I’m wondering if the company even wants me to use it. It used to have a great feature where I could push the volume button and it would show all of the speakers playing and their volume levels so I could adjust them individually. That’s gone and I’m wondering if the company even wants me to use their app. There used to be a simple menu bar at the bottom where I could get everything I needed from the app, but they decided to remove it and make me click through multiple different menus looking for something that was so straightforward before. Hey Sonos, do you even wants me to use the app‽ Please fix these issues, I’d really rather not have to sell all of your products.

Feeling cheated. DO NOT BUY SONOS. I have Sonos throughout my entire house (and back yard, and front porch) … every room. I started small and added over time And I loved it! Speakers sound great, like functionality of the interface, versatility, etc. But now Sonos is telling me that half of my system (the oldest half) must be replaced. The hardware is in perfect working order but Sonos refuses to upgrade the software for the older units. Which will be thousands of dollars for me to replace. To replace a perfectly good working system of speakers and amps. I’ve been hacking my way for over a year by using Sonos 1 and Sonos 2 apps but now even those don’t work. This was clearly an intentional - and highly flawed - business strategy. In Europe this is an illegal business practice under their “right to repair” act … but I should emphasize that my system doesn’t even need repair. The hardware is in perfect working order - Sonos has simply decided to force its existing customers to spend more money because they don’t want to keep using the original software. That I paid for. Outrageous. Don’t buy from a company that treats its customers this way.

Unable to access content or volume controls with latest update. I updated the app 4 days ago. With that update, I couldnt access any of my content services (Apple Music) thru the app to play music. I saw that today there is another update available. I thought this would solve my problem. NOPE! I tapped the Apple Music icon, it told me i had to reauthorize the Apple Music account on Sonos. I followed the steps, and I was able to see my content BUT…when I tapped on a song, I kept getting a “something went wrong error”…I did all the obvious troubleshooting steps, close the app, disconnect from wifi, reconnected to wifi, rebooted my phone, when it came back up, I went into the app…still having the same problem. In the last update, the trouble shooting steps included “Refreshing the app thru app settings, close the app, reopen the app, join existing system” and I was still unable to access anything. I am very disappointed, because this all happened while I was trying to entertain for company and had literally no access to any of my music. Sonos, please send a good update patch to truly clear this issues…

Good speaker BAD app. I don’t use my speaker a lot, but I’ve had it since 2017. I believe it is 8/10 I go to use the speaker and the app, I have to update AND reauthorize. A few times it makes me do the whole walk around the room beeping thing. I am such a casual user that I really feel impeded by this. I just want to listen to some music now while I paint, instead I’m standing at my speaker once again trouble shooting to make it work. Almost every single time I want to use it. THATS what is trusting to me. If I didn’t have to update it and authorize it on a near constant basis, I would give 5 stars. But all I want to do is open and play. I don’t understand why that’s so hard, that’s how speakers and music players of any kind worked before. On, play. This is a 20 minute tech support quest almost every time, sometimes I’m like “f* it, I’ll turn on the TVs music channels instead because they just play” Otherwise I love it. The sound is good and I’m really happy, except when I use it. 🤦‍♀️ The next time I purchase one of these speakers I’ll be looking at these reviews first, because I wouldn’t buy another one that does this. I do not understand how anyone rates this app above 1 star.

Updating App. After reading I am afraid to update my app. I’m afraid to buy headphones that I want and need because of need to update said app. I will try to be helpful here. My experience talking to a real person was very helpful with problems I had with my rear speakers putting out a weird random sound. I deleted and tried to re add and had no success. Finally called and talked to a person and was able to fix the problem. Turns out a wifi booster I was using was not compatible. Once removed was able to get everything working again. If you have a Wifi booster or mesh system that may be your issue as told to me by the representative. However, many people have these systems in place and SONOS better figure out how to get their systems to play nice with them because that is the future. Hope this was helpful. Will not upgrade app yet or buy headphones yet until I hear some positive feedback on Twitter (X).

They “updated” to garbage. It pains me to be so motivated to write an awful review of my beloved Sonos system. I’ve been a customer since the very beginning. Spent thousands. I have most of their products, but the serious lapse in quality control for software you MUST use to control thousands of dollars in hardware is shocking. You cannot simply search. There is 2 minutes of latency from pushing “pause” to play. Error after error. Again and again. Unusable garbage. I uninstalled. Reinstalled. restarted my phone. Consumed a solid hour of my attention while entertaining friends and family. I’ve never used such awful software in all of my life, and Sonos software, while never a great experience, has jumped the shark. I’m going to wait a few weeks to see if they can make this app usable (therefore my entire music system), otherwise, fire sale on Facebook market place, and over to whatever company can compete. And let me tell you, half the hardware quality with competent software engineering would win me over in a second. Sonos charges a premium price because they can, and I feel ripped off.

Latest app release is hot garbage. I don’t know what brain donor at Sonos removed the volume numbers but they gotta go. Also there is no future scenario where I care about Sonos Radio or Sonos favorites. I want them gone / needs to be something that can be hidden. Push it on me all day long, it’s never going to happen. It is impossible to X out the “Add a voice assistant” in settings on my iPad air 4. Why engage in hostile design and and force it upon us? Nevermind the loss of features with an app update, which should never happen. I read that the Sonos team thinks this app release was courageous. What?!? There is a line between reckless and courageous and you’re miles onto the reckless side. You people are living in a dangerous echo chamber. I have 6 Sonos devices and *was* a guaranteed buy for the Sonos headphones. Unless I see a sharp reversal you can forget me staying with this ecosystem. Go ahead and chalk me up as another overreaction. Or maybe Sonos could stop making insane business decisions and leaving your customers desires out of every update! Your CEO is an old pro at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and your customers are sick of it, how many times can we be exposed to nonsense like this?

New App Bricked Everything. As many others have said, the new app turned my system into expensive paperweights. After spending three hours to figure out how to make it recognize my media server again, I get nothing but “something went wrong” every time I try to play anything (whether media library or streaming service). And now the app says it cannot find any speakers even when I’m sitting within five feet of both a speaker and my router (despite another hour plus spent trying to troubleshoot that problem; the router, of course, is in perfect working order when it downloads useless troubleshooting guides or uploads this review…). Plus, this is all without getting into the functionality that was removed and would make my music library virtually impossible to use even if I could get the app to recognize its existence and the speakers’ existence at the same time. I’ve seen corporations shoot themselves in the foot in pretty spectacular ways before, but this is certainly top five. Can’t imagine it’s doing wonders for sales of their headphones, which is the only reason they rolled this disaster out months before it was close to ready.

Read before u buy. I have had Sonos since 2012, which I believe was the year after the company started. At the beginning I absolutely loved this entire system. So much so, that I spent close to $45,000 to have it installed throughout my entire property & my home. Everything worked beautifully until they introduced the S2 app. I won’t go into extensive detail here, but upgrading to the S2 app has rendered my entire system completely useless. It cuts out all the time & I can’t play any of my playlists anymore . To top it all off, they have completely off-shored their customer service. So if you have a problem, your left to speak to somebody in the Philippines, who basically troubleshoots from a script. Good luck trying to get a hold of anybody in the US for customer service. They make it completely impossible! They could care less about their loyal customers. I have spent the last five months trying to get this system to work again, even hiring technicians to troubleshoot, all at great expense. Extremely disappointed in this company and how they’ve screwed their older customers . Completely wasted $45k+.

Rating the app. What can be said that hasnt already been said. When it comes to sound quality, Sonos, (in my opinion) has some of the best wireless home-stereo equipment available, but unfortunately, the app turns that beautiful experience into nails on a chalkboard. Similar problems seem abundant with a lot of products these days. Many of the problems seem to be when a company is too big, and the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, or because nobody’s actually trying the product after its made to see if everything‘s up to par. What I’m wondering is will anybody running Sonos see these reviews, and realize how unhappy their customer is with the app, and how badly they need to change their app and how soon, and well, the app work the way the consumer expects it to work? I keep noticing similar things happening with good products that could be really successful, but it’s almost like nobody’s home anymore once the product goes out and simple fixes don’t get done, and companies go out of business, because nobody ever addressed the small thing that was wrong with a good product. Seems a shameful waste of everyones time and money

New app update is terrible. I used to be able to manage multiple systems of multiple speakers quickly and flawlessly. Now they have a “Systems” tab that houses each current grouping, but you can no longer access it from the music management tab, you have to exit out of the current system (which takes multiple clicks) to back out all the way to the main menu, click on a menu button to find your next system, then click more times to manage it/change music etc. Before, I could access all system groupings and change music and groupings within a few clicks. The new app is very buggy and slow when trying to group or ungroup units together. It often takes 10 seconds to load the currently playing song. My connection, nor my device, are the issues as I’ve never dealt with this in the past. After seeing the other recent reviews, it only confirms that clearly there are major usability issues here that need to be remedied. The old design was genius compared to the new update. Please change it back or give us an option to switch to the old system.

What HAPPENED?!?. I feel like my system is a waste now. I may disconnect it fully from Apple TV because it keeps interrupting and turning the TV on when it’s off. And why does it now overlap the ends of songs with the beginning of the next one? Terrible…undo whatever you did. You messed with excellence and I’ve been recommending the system for over a decade. Now I’m done. Going to try the older app when it comes back or one of the paid ones. It’s slow, laggy to pick up song selections, won’t play some songs that play just fine on Apple Music, clunky, and just overall a downgrade. Like, fire someone bad enough. It randomly drops and adds speakers to a group while I’m playing songs, so the sound is inconsistent. Repeats parts of songs…it’s honestly crazy that I’ve invested so much in this now awful experience. I’ve tried reinstalling, recalibrating, using the Apple app, everything…the benefit of this system was it’s UX and that I DIDNT need an installer. If this it’s where the company is headed, I might as well just bite the bullet for a higher end system that I can actually control.

Updating into obscurity. First of all about the star ratings. At first glance Sonos gets nearly a five star rating, but I wish I had just looked at the recent reviews because I wouldn’t have upgraded….nearly all recent reviews are one and two stars. When it comes to apps, older reviews should just be deleted because they don’t apply anymore. I purchased Sonos speakers because I wanted decent sound that I can put in any room and that would be wireless. The speakers accomplish this, but the dependency on WiFi and the app is a big drawback. Just like with our phones, computers and now even cars, technological advances will make these speakers harder to use or even unable to use as more updates are added. When I first got my system several years ago, the app worked fine. Then recently music would just stop, then come back. This would go on and on until I unplugged everything and started over. Hopefully this update will fix that, but they haven’t improved the volume control, and now I’ve lost radio stations that were there before. Very disappointing.

Great Sound when it works….. We have a sound bar, sub and 4 play 1 speakers. The sound quality is excellent. However every time I get into the app in can’t connect or find the speakers, the only thing that works is the sounds bar I guess because it’s connected directly to the tv. I follow the instructions to try and find the system, but it NEVER works. The only thing I can do is factory reset everything and start all over. Again, every single time. Could reset it today then have to do it again tomorrow. Every other device in the house connects to the internet with no issues, so this is 100% a Sonos thing. Their customer service is a joke, couldn’t be more rude if they tried. You’d think they’d at least be marginally understanding given the amount of $$ we’ve spent, but no. We’ve stopped using the play 1 speakers (google nest, works great), and will be replacing the sound bar and sub as well. I know some people have had success with Sonos, but think long and hard before buying their stuff. They are not cheap, and there are a lot of reviews similar to mine. Your money may be better spent elsewhere.

For my nosy neighbors. I live in New York and the walls are paper thin in all apartments. So I originally had a beats beatbox speaker . it was loud enough but if I maxed out the speaker you’d hear the bass more than anything . I wanted something that I could hear the music clearly . I was tired of my neighbors listening to my every conversation and then repeating my business to any who would listen . so my brother got me sonos 1 speaker (not sold anymore) but when I tell you my neighbors hated me !!! I loved it . I played music all day and night . then I got a sonos second generation for my bedroom because they could still hear my conversation from the back of the apartment when I found out the speakers sync to each other and I think I almost cried .BEST INVESTMENT EVER !!!!!! And the music sound amazing ! So clear and it’s so loud and if I have both speakers on at the same time it sounds like I’m at a concert .

Great sound, headaches along the way. Sound is awesome. Setup a bit troublesome due to confusing app verbiage and app goes in circles during setup (for me anyhow) asking for the same thing over and over even after it says your good...so you’re never sure it’s set up....until it just works. When connection is sketchy for whatever reason, then you may have to plug and unplug it to get it going again...and also rebooting the WiFi router may be required after an interruption of the connection. That is quite annoying. With a solid WiFi connection and once set up it’s great. If you move it around to differing networks or have sketchy WiFi, you may experience confusion with the setup UI. I love the hardware, not a fan of the UI on the phone though. I’ll probably buy another though as the active amp and network configurability of combinations are quite solid features. Oh, and I couldnt submit this review without a nickname. I tried “nicknamenottaken”....and guess what? It was taken. The first 7 names I tried were taken....such is the annoyance of Sonos. I almost didn’t write this because of it.

Roam Continually Skips. I have a love/hate relationship with my Sonos Roam. My system consists of Sonos Beam+Sub and the Roam. When the system works it is amazing. I love to have music streaming and take the Roam outside while the same music is playing inside. The Beam+Sub has worked for the most part flawlessly since I purchased in late 2019. I bought my first Roam in mid 2021 and it seemed to work fine until out of warranty about a year later. It stopped connecting to my system. Okay I thought, I love it that much, I’ll buy another. So I bought another in late 2022. Guess what? It stopped working, just loud screeching noise around mid 2022. Still under warranty, they sent me a new one. Worked fine until mid 2023 (out of warranty now I presume)…now drops from my system over and over. They suggest a fix, works for 3 days, then disappears from my system. I reboot the router, the Roam returns and the beam goes out. Of course it’s the weekend and no support availability, so no music tonight…except on my other brand Bluetooth. When my Sonos system doesn’t work I hate it, and it’s super embarrassing when I have company, not to mention their opinion of the Sonos brand.

Wasted $2000. Purchased a Sonos ARC, Gen 3 Subwoofer, and 2 Sonos One speakers to use as surround sound. Owner then for about 6 months and loved them but then I moved to an apartment where the provide very fast internet. I routinely get 600mbps upload and download, and they are using Ruckus access points. Unfortunately they also use ip isolation and because Sonos insists on only being setup on a network that has an active internet connection I can not use my Sonos speakers for surround. Luckily I can get the ARC it’s self to connect to my tv but the app can’t find it so I can’t tune it or use any network features. If Sonos would enable an offline mode and allow me to connect it to a local network without internet then I could use my $2000 sound system the way I want, but it’s typical big tech forcing an online connection because they think they know how I want to use something. Probably making sure they have access to your data so they can sell it. Before this experience I’ve sold several thousands of dollars worth of Sonos products through the retailer I have worked at for 15 years. I now try and push Sony products for sound bars.

New app has destroyed Sonos System. Completely unreliable! Sometimes it works sometimes not. Sound drops from some speakers randomly. Went for there days not being able to choose music so the system simply could not be used. If you don't choose music it won’t work. My wife and I could control the old system flawlessly from either of our phones. Now, the phones conflict. If one is using the other can’t make any changes. The thousands of dollars invested in this system is essentially lost on a totally unreliable sound system. My frustration is quickly becoming anger. Soon I’ll be demanding my money back for all ten of my speakers! The problems started a few months before the new release. I suspect that they were affecting the old app while working on the new one. This is a serious problem. Would rate it less than one atar if I could.

Garbage!! Sonos kills their own product!!. For 6 years I have enjoyed listening to my music on Sonos speakers. The sound was fantastic! But no more. Last month Sonos sadly turned these wonderful speakers I have enjoyed into useless “shelf decorations”. The app will no longer access the hundreds of CDs that I ripped to my local PC as mp3 files. All my playlists are gone As a test, I streamed music from a few channels of “Sonos Radio” that the new app shoves in your face and also floods your room with more advertisement commercials than an FM radio station. Indeed, my speakers still work. (Tech Support take notice: this test confirmed the problem is NOT “at my end” and NOT “with my WiFi or my ISP”.) By the way Sonos, your music channels are worse than elevator music. I acknowledge that your app will still support Streaming music subscription services — for now. However, I don’t want to purchase a streaming service that plays their music choices instead of my music. So today I’m shopping for Bluetooth speakers as a replacement for Sonos. Oh how I do miss sitting in a room full of sound. I wish I could rate the app using negative stars instead of the 1 star.

Transferring Ownership. Overall good app minus one important feature/setting…transferring ownership. There is no way to transfer ownership of the Sonos system without I’m putting the new owner’s credentials. Why in the world would a new owner of the system want to give me their password??? You should be able to transfer ownership by only having to type in their email address, and then they should be able to achieve ownership themselves without giving out their passwords. On the Sonos support pages, it does indicate you can do this by logging out first, but it doesn’t work. When you attempt, the app only guides you to log back in and then starts over with requiring the password of the account you are trying to transfer to. I even tried resetting the app and also deleted and re-installed the app. In disbelief, I contacted Sonos phone support only to have them repeat the same processes I had already done on my own and taking up 45 minutes of my time with no solution. This needs to be fixed!

Dumbest interface on the planet. I have spent equal time listening to our Sonos Move and trying to set it up…over and over again. Why? Because you can’t just move your portable Sonos device from room to room. You lose the signal when you do. What does this have to do with the app? Everything. The app is your lifeline to the device. You’ll bounce back and forth between inane instructions: “connect to the new router then return to the Sonos app” and FAQ on the Sonos website. And even when you place the speaker next to the only router it knows, you still can’t connect to it. Why? Because there is a new version of the app! Or maybe not. I updated to Sonos 2, then updated that. Intermittent wifi signal still. Can’t connect to Sonos. And round and round you go. Want to use Bluetooth because Move loses the wifi signal over and over again? Well, good luck with that, too. Which button do you push on the back to pair? The infinity one? The one with two symbols on each end? And why isn’t it pairing automatically, anyway? It did yesterday. Yes, the app is the key to using your $400 speaker, but no, it won’t tell you how to use that speaker.

Save your money. Sonos is a garbage app. The speakers sound nice but connecting them to my phone is the most time consuming and frustrating process. It’s really a shame that I cannot just play ANY audio from my phone. It HAS to be from one of the platforms they support. And you have to search the platforms from their god-awful app. The interface is clunky and not nearly as responsive as the music apps from the actual platforms. The latest fail from this app is that I couldn’t reconnect to the system after changing my wifi password. Whenever I click on ‘go to system settings’ it does absolutely nothing. The button doesn’t work. It’s clear they didn’t fully test this app before releasing it. When they first released this app they had also forgot to put in the alarm settings. Since I couldn’t change my alarms I just had to keep my speakers unplugged until they updated the app. I honestly only use the speakers because I still have them. I regret wasting my money on them. Once they stop working with the app, that’s the last I’ll ever deal with Sonos. I will never buy from them again and I always warn my friends not to waste their money on Sonos.

Hit and miss. There is much I like about Sonos, thus I have a variety of Sonos components. I think the sound is quite good. I very much enjoy the ease of starting something playing in the living room, deciding I need to be in my bedroom or garage, going to one of those places and quickly joining what I started in the living room. I have two Sonos moves that allow me to have quality sound anywhere. I am on my property. it is often the exception, though rather than the rule, that all of my Sonos system components coordinate together as they are supposed to. The same can be said for the Sonos voice control feature, that it really does make things easier when it actually works. I have other voice assistance and thus I was slow to adopt the Sonos version. I do think it is really good for controlling Sonos products, again, when it actually works. finally, I am one of the Sonos users who is totally blind, and who has valued Sonos commitment to Accessibility. From all I can tell, Sonos has given that commitment up in its latest app update. I don’t believe I am running it unless I am accidentally and that’s my problems right now.

App is lacking. First, I have had Sonos products for several years and have found them to be excellent. Second, I am a software architect by trade so understand technology very well. But the app that supports the hardware needs work. I can often find work around s in the community but that shouldn’t be needed. An example of this is that with the new generation of speakers you apparently must purchase the ‘connect’ hardware or go through a reinstall of your speakers almost daily. Since this is the case they should offer this at a huge discount, and make note of this need on website. Second, if one or more speakers was ‘dropped’ due to wifi and you inadvertently start playing music you won’t easily be able play including the dropped speaker, even when it had been re-added, the app restarted, etc. the option to select speakers doesn’t pop up. Any help has to be through a search on website or google. As I said the user community has workarounds for several issues but this should not be needed.

New version must go. The new Sonos app has had some bug fixes since its terrible launch several weeks back. One big fix is that alarms are now back in the app (how they missed this prior to launch is still a mystery that unfortunately can only be explained by a lack of focus on quality at once was a hallmark of Sonos). Despite the bug fixes, the navigation in this app is still far inferior and less intuitive despite Sonos’ claims otherwise. It takes more screens and clicks now to select the music and rooms you want to play. And it’s very glitchy, so you you often have to try multiple times to add or remove rooms from playing music. It’s a far cry from the seamless experience that Sonos was once known for. Their speakers and overall system experience were once top of line but I have lost all respect for Sonos since they released such a sorry product as this app. If this is the direction Sonos is going I will very sadly transition from a big Sonos fan for more than a decade that was willing to pay a premium for an exceptional system to one that longs for their past glory while shopping Bluesound, Denon, or gasp, Bose.

High latency GUI experience, buggy app, speakers audio drop randomly. While I love my Sonos speakers when they rarely work, I never recommend my friends invest in them. Do not buy Sonos products, the app makes it not worth the investment. The app is a terrible experience. Whenever I try to give a demonstration of my sound system things fall apart. I inherited a brand new 5:1 setup because my ex-roommate didn’t want to deal with the hassle and unpredictability 7 months after purchasing the speakers. I have to close and reopen the app if I just need to make one simple adjustment after jumping to a different house. This happens across multiple devices. I really wanted the ability to listen to music and or the TV as I walk amongst my house. I am mad just makes each speaker individually intermittently on reliance with lots of dead air and speaker drops. To avoid any audio sync issues the resolution is to turn your wireless speakers into…..a fully wired speaker system. Avoid wasting your money on planned obsolescence expensive hardware and a horrible app. They don’t have an Apple Watch app either, which makes adjusting things so much slower.

Simply the Best. Does it seem hyperbolic to say SONOS is one of the best investments I’ve ever made? Maybe. But is it true? Heck yeah! I use all my speakers every day, and the SONOS app makes it all possible. Using the SONOS app, I can seamlessly play different music for different people in different rooms using different accounts like Apple Music, SoundCloud and Sonos Radio; I can unite the speakers to play the same in all rooms; I can use voice control when cooking or other activities make fidgeting with my phone a challenge; and I can switch from music to movie watching, giving my den theater-quality audio. I can even take my waterproof SONOS Roam into the shower with me for a much needed wake-up jam session (or to get the morning news OR to continue the Audible book that kept me awake too late the night before). For mediaphiles of almost any sort, SONOS speakers — and the app that makes the magic of SONOS all possible — are indispensable.

Features missing from this update. The alarm and timer have been removed from the app. Developer says they will be added at a later date. OK, but then you need to warn users that this release is only a beta release and list what’s missing. (Also, the new UI is a mess, but I suppose we’ll just have to get used to it.) I’m very disappointed. Another problem with this update- lists in the Music Library (Artists, Albums, etc.) no longer display the alphabet along the right side of the page that allow the user to jump to that location in the list. This is a real annoyance if lists are long. (I really wish I could rate the app zero stars.) I think I've figured out why items like alarms, timer, and multiple-item queues are left out of what is obviously a pre-beta development version of the S2 app that's being foisted on us. It's because the 16 year old video game designer they must have hired to replace the previously useful, simple to use app hasn't yet figured out how to make these features complicated and confusing enough to fit the new "User Experience" that SONOS is aiming for.

Alarm functionality removed? Really?. I’ve read online that this update is meant to take the company further and set itself up for future success. I’m sorry but the only significance here is that I can now see what’s playing on both my speakers instead of selecting one or the other — hardly what one would refer to as innovation. The alarm functionality needs to be restored in the next update, not a “future” one as listed on your support page. Yes, every company has its right to operate and do its own thing, but, when it comes to your customers and basic functionality, sometimes you have to listen. If you do not enough people have left reviews saying they will move on. And believe me there are cheaper and easier options with better customer care. Bose, Sony, oh and the company who makes the device I’m typing this review on and runs the App Store as to which I’m posting the review, Apple! Please be aware you have dedicated customers but a sharp turn from functionality will turn customers away to companies that still believe in an easy to use UI, which is table stakes.

New App is AWFUL. I admit I tend to default to new versions of apps, so shame on me for not researching S2. But MUCH bigger shame on Sonos for putting this app out in the world - especially when people are at home more than usual due to an international pandemic - when it has so many shortcomings. I chose Sonos years ago and have loved it because it’s not Bluetooth and my music doesn’t get interrupted every time I receive a text or phone call. But this new app is about to make me rethink things. I CONSTANTLY have to refresh the app, unplug my speakers to test everything or both. And even that doesn’t fix the problems. It will literally disconnect mid-song with no explanation. And tries to blame it on my WiFi. I worked from home even before COVID, so my internet/WiFi is NOT the problem. And now, when I try to go back to the old app, it tells me my system isn’t compatible. I’m beyond infuriated....

Sound Quality seems better. After reading many of the reviews I decided to upgrade to S2 when I had some time to spend troubleshooting. The process went super smoothly and took less then five minutes. I did make sure before upgrading that all my equipment was compatible with S2 because using 2 apps to control only some speakers on a particular app would be a showstopper for me. My home network being quite good might have contributed greatly to my success, I have all ubiquiti UniFi equipment running my network basically commercial equipment, App seems to have a quicker response with the speakers and sound quality has improved. I would like for Sonos to have a dark theme option for the app but the white background is not a dead breaker. If you choose to upgrade I hope that you have the same results as I did and not deal with some of the nightmare stories in some reviews that were posted for this app. Good luck!

Frustration. I have an extensive Sonia system: 2 Sonos Ones; 2 Sonos 3; 2 Sonos amps and 1 Sonos connector. I have an endless problems. I play them all together with the dream of having music throughout my house; however, at any one time two will randomly quit playing. I have called countless times and they always blame the WiFi. I have 7 Wi-Fi spots in my house (which is not that big) and best internet package - and my Sonos devices sit proximate to the Wi-Fi devices. Sonos is good because (in theory), it’s a connected wireless system - and the only one I know of. But it’s connected yet goes it and out that if you’re a music lover and went to the effort to set this up, it’s totally maddening. And I talk to my friends that have the same experience. And to add to the madness, Sonos won’t support older generation devices - when will they decide to quit supporting mine? Would you ever knowingly buy with the threat of (minimal) support? So now I routinely have to go unplug all the Sonos and wait like 20 minutes, plug them back in and hope they’ll work for a while. Bottom line: it’s a frustrating system although I don’t know of another way to do it wirelessly.

I regret my decisions. First, the only reason I have Sonos is because the former owner of my house decided to install a home speaker system using Sonos. The app is a strong hit or miss and even when it hits, it’s clunky, difficult to navigate and not extremely user friend. Against my better judgement, I purchased additional Sonos products, knowing I would once again still rely upon the app functionality. Well, I can say I stand behind the quality of the product, but the difficulties of this app make me regret my decision to ever continue with the Sonos product. Currently, I am locked out of anything on my account as every time I try to access, factory reset or do anything with my Sonos products or account on the app, nothing works. My account, system and services options are all greyed out and I cannot do anything to remedy it, even after calling Sonos and scouring the internet for solutions. Once again, I regret the decisions I make and would strongly urge anyone looking to purchase Sonos products to question if they are willing to deal with an unreliable and useless app to properly utilize your expensive product.

Horrible “upgrade”. The new v. of the app is horrid. Truly. My favorite error we get daily (hourly?) is “something went wrong.” Awesome. Thanks for the detail. It cuts out. It can’t find our music (on the same network where it always found our music), search doesn’t search well, it doesn’t connect to music services properly (even tho it did before), it’s slow and takes 20+ seconds to register that we adjusted volume. You can’t choose a station and select where it should play at the same time. And seriously, the cutouts are frequent. Don’t tell me it’s WiFi issues because these errors didn’t exist before the “upgrade.” Sonos developers have a lot of work to do to make this right. Cannot believe they released this garbage. Did no one test?!? Update: app continues to get worse! Where is our music library? According to SONOS help, “this feature is not available on this version of the app but will return in the future.” What?! You seriously removed the ability for me to play MY music on MY network?! How could you release an app like this? Based on what you’ve done, we would never recommend Sonos now. Fix this!!!!

App "Upgrade" Broke My Whole System. 1. Do not upgrade & 2. If you are considering purchasing Sonos equipment, stop and read about the many problems they have created for devoted users with this software "upgrade." You may want to reconsider. For the past five years, I had no problems with my whole-house setup, but the new app has destroyed the experience. No matter which rooms I choose, music still plays in the basement, so I *can't* turn it off in there (home office, ugh) and when I try to play in other rooms, some just randomly stop. I can't control the volume at all. (When I try to adjust volume, it snaps back to where it was before.) My system has literally been unusable since the "upgrade," going on a month. Chat has been unavailable. I have emailed support and the CEO, begging for a rollback to S2. Instead they put out a timeline promising to roll out //critical, previously existing// features in the weeks to come. Meanwhile, there is no music in my house. This is ridiculous for the $$ and years I have committed to these products. Would not buy again.

Disappointed, frustrated, stunned…. As a music journalist I was fortunate to experience Sonos in my home (thanks to a very generous discount) quite early on, nearly 20 years ago. I wrote about my system, and expanded it with new products whenever I could, having nothing but good things to say along the way. Until recently, that is. When the updated app was introduced, it was as if demons had infiltrated the system, causing havoc with the app, confusion with the new layout and even more frustration and disbelief while trying to figure out where SO many things went or why nothing seemed to work anymore. It’s maddening to think that this was the best Sonos could do, and just really confusing as to why the issues continue and there’s no way to roll back the app on the iPhone. Thankfully, the desktop app isn’t affected (not to any great extent, at least) but what’s next?! If it isn’t a major overhaul to fix the ongoing issues, it’s going to be the end of the road for me. I hate to think what I’ll have to write about in the future if these problems are not addressed and corrected soon.

Ruined what was once great. Boy do I wish I could get the old Sonos app back! What happened to “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it?” Maybe the conspiracy theories about planned obsolesce to get you to buy the newest hardware is true…let me take you back to when everything worked beautifully. I set up Sonos one and two Sonos Play:3s in the app. Easy, simple, beautiful! From then on, I would just airplay music to my One through the iPhone and it would automatically play on all 3 speakers! Then came the first major app redesign a few months ago. Suddenly, when I AirPlay into the One, the other two speakers would no longer automatically play. I’d have to go into the app to connect all three together EVERY TIME, when before I never had to do that after initial set up. Annoying to be sure, but hey at least it still worked. Now with the latest app update, nothing is working. Not even airplay into the one. Sometimes it would start playing, then when I go to connect the other speakers, it stops or malfunctions in some one. Again I ask, when everything was working beautifully, simply, cleanly, why ruin it?!?!

Seamless So Far.... This has been a seamless upgrade for me. Took about three minutes to upgrade. All you had to do was download the App and it detects your system on the network. The rest is history, including the old S1 App. Also, I don’t get the clamoring about all the new features and that this is just lipstick on a pig. The upgrade here is intended to manage a lot of the things in the background and enable all the new products with the next generation software. If you’re having issues connecting then perhaps it’s your network or internet. Overall it just worked when I downloaded. All my speakers work great still and it was glitch free so far. I think people take for granted how hard this stuff is with their 1 and 2 star ratings? How can you rate an App one star if you haven’t even tried to use it? (There are several reviews that give one star but then go on to say they haven’t installed it yet).

From Delight to Boat Anchor. For years my ever expanding network of Sonos speakers has been a source of joy in our lives. (Although it was clearly designed by a bunch of engineers who’d never heard the term user testing or human centered design practice they at least kept it simple and as long as it worked it worked.) I grudgingly suffered through the occasional system meltdown that required 90 minutes on the support line because they were few and far between. Today that preposterous engineering culture assumes we’re all fine with hours of daily troubleshooting and that this is normal and fun. It’s not fun. I’m ready to huck the entire investment into the New York Harbor. The past several months now have me triggered every time I think about turning it on to the point that I often prefer to just sit around in silence. Hire at least one designer with empathy for human experience and put them in charge. Please. This system is worthless now. Speakers constantly connecting and disconnecting. Songs constantly jumping mid chorus to the next song. An interface that is impossible to navigate intuitively. Pure garbage.

Disaster App Upgrade. July 2024: I hope management is being replaced over this disaster App release. Devices randomly go missing and cannot be found or accessed by the new App. I can see only 5 devices of a whole house 12 zone system. I was a Sonos loyalist for decades when they used to be the undisputed leader. This latest App release was pure bush league in terms of App Design, Testing, and Rollout. The gravity of this mess up should never have occurred, particularly with such a vast installed base of Sonos loyalists. Sonos makes no App version rollback available - another junior varsity screwup. Folks like me with an integrated Sonos platform are stuck with no way to access music in half of my home. Several multi-hour calls with Tech Support resulted in no resolution whatsoever. They acknowledge that the App release was a foul up and has many unresolved problems; they currently have no solution or timeframe. As you can read from others, this is an unmitigated disaster. I would not recommend buying any Sonos products until if and when this issue is fully resolved and the management team responsible for letting this happened is replaced.