Forum menu
Any opinion which is better: for app and for sound quality?
App; Well there isn't really an app for Apple speakers as such you just send the audio from whatever app you are using to them, which is exactly how I use my Sonos ones.
Sound Quality; Really hard to say as they actually don't really have direct equivalents to each other. If you take the Homepod at £299, I'd say that is the best sound quality at that price compared to anything from Sonos. But the Sonos Era 300 at £359 or Five at £399 would both sound better than the Homepod. At less than than £299, the Sonos Era 100 (£199) is the winner as the Homepod Mini (£99) is not going to compete. I'd say you pretty much get waht you pay for on the sound quality front.
All of the speakers listed really benefit from being paired which obviously doubles the price. I don't know what used prices are like but would guess a pair of used Homepods or Sonos Fives would give the best bang for buck.
Other consideration is voice assistant. I have zero interest in using Alexa, but make use of Siri a lot, so that skews me towards Apple stuff.
Up until recently, I’ve been pro-Sonos, now not so much. The S1 app no longer works with my Sonos Connect, and no amount of faffing will solve it. Hard reset, plug in Ethernet, don’t plug in Ethernet, etc etc, it will start the setup process then the app seems to screw everything up… I either have to fork out £400 to replace it or go for a Bluetooth pre-amp instead.
Recently the Spotify App has stopped being able to find our Sonuses. Before this, they've been pretty decent, had one die after a few years (5 maybe) but all the others still work when we can get Spotify to connect to them...
Ours had been behaving recently but the last couple of days it's been totally random if the app has worked or not.
Christmas morning it was asking me to search for the system and set everything up from scratch again.
Two hours later it was all working fine again.
This morning it connected almost instantly.
This afternoon it did the system not found thing again for half an hour the worked again.
Mine's working well enough at the moment. Still a bit slow to initially fully load the app but once you've used it stays responsive for a good while.
What I have done recently is switch off the wifi on my wired units and connected the other 2 speakers to my home wifi rather that using Sonosnet - this seemed to improve things. Likely because the 2 other speakers are now connected to 5GHz wifi?
I've just bought an Era 100 to go in the bedroom once renovations are complete and I set it up the other day, the setup was flawless and was up and running in no time.
I hope that they do make the app snappier at some point but otherwise it's not too bad for me. If I use the Sonos app on the computer it works better than ever and is super snappy - shame it's not the same on the phone.
It still needs some work, but it's stable at least and snappier again, but I still miss the old Zone Controller and still think there's a market for one with physical buttons and always on status (an iPad/iPod on guided access isn't the same)...
I wish they'd just leave a Home icon on the top left, move the search so it's always on the top of the app in the middle , and stick the speaker selection icon next to search on the top bar tool.
When searching Qoboz, they still list single songs or EPs as albums when you search, even though the Qobuz app doesn't. That is really irritating, especially if I'm looking for new things to listen to and don't know the albums...
Sonos boss stepping down due to the app issues
Will take them 20-30 million dollars to fix.
Sonos boss stepping down due to the app issues<br style="box-sizing: border-box; --tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, 'Noto Sans', sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji';" />Will take them 20-30 million dollars to fix.
Just roll back to the old app, admit you were wrong and carry on. I don't recall having any issues with the old app - used to use it all the time. Since the update I've attempted to use it a handful of times and given up and used Spotify instead and selected to play via the Sonos speakers - works as well as Sonos' own app should.
Weirdly (or not given how shite it is), every Sonos speaker in my network disappeared for a couple of weeks recently. Couldn't see any of them. Tried all sorts - powering off the router, doing a full reset/re-acquire on the speakers etc and nothing worked. They all just reappeared randomly the other day just as I was thinking about killing them with fire.
Love the speakers themselves but the user experience has fallen to absolute rock bottom...
MikkelFree Member
Sonos boss stepping down due to the app issues
Will take them 20-30 million dollars to fix.
Just read this - schadenfraude isn't a wonderful emotion, but in this case (as a loyal sonos user) feels very justified.
Worth pointing out that it may cost them much more than $20-30m; that figure was his (Spence, former CEO's) original estimate. And given how badly wrong he was on various other things, it could well be wrong.
Also not stepping down so much as "gone by mutual consent" (ie ditched), I though?
Having lost the ability to play music from my NAS I’m never going to buy Sonos again. Will eBay my two speakers so I don’t grind my teeth every time I look at them. Muppets
Having lost the ability to play music from my NAS I’m never going to buy Sonos again. Will eBay my two speakers so I don’t grind my teeth every time I look at them. Muppets
I can play from my (admittedly home-rolled) NAS via a SAMBA share. I don't remember if it re-appeared or I had to sort it out via the desktop app, but it's there now. Probably worth another look before getting shafted by Ebay too.
Having lost the ability to play music from my NAS I’m never going to buy Sonos again
This features shows on the IOS sonos app, if you scroll down on the main screen past "your favourites" to "your sources" and music library is there
It was a terribly managed process and frustrated me along with the others. My NAS drive is back, however. As, finally, is all the artwork from my 500+ albums I carefully ripped to FLAC, tagged and added art to. Luckily that's all back and working.
The app, and workflow, on the other hand, remains hard to use to achieve simple tasks. I have multiroom and rely on the app to group rooms, play music in various locations etc and it's a nightmare.
As for a roll back, they are now in a pickle after pushing a firmware update that forced users onto the new app. So new app works on new firmware, and old app on old firmware, but old app would need a downgrade process in place to also roll back firmware in parallel (or in advance, I guess). Sounds messy and fraught with failure points.
I have 3 sonos players of different kind and age, had just got them all connected after having issues with connecting to my NAS, but that was user error on my behalf to do with the address i was using to map it.
But they soon disapeared from the app.
Also having problems with windows failing to connect to my NAS, an old WD mybook live, so haven't bothered to try get it working again, will try again once i get a new nas setup.
As for a roll back, they are now in a pickle after pushing a firmware update that forced users onto the new app. So new app works on new firmware, and old app on old firmware, but old app would need a downgrade process in place to also roll back firmware in parallel (or in advance, I guess). Sounds messy and fraught with failure points.
Do you think it's that the new firmware can't play nice with the old app, or simply that they locked it in so it won't do so? I had thought it was the latter, but that's probably uncharitable!
And you missed a point, which is that while the old f/w works with the old app, you can't actually do a bunch of stuff with it - like adding a new speaker to your system, indexing your local NAS (although there's a workaround), or some EQ options either.
I can't comment specifically on the can't / won't in SONOS case but I have been product manager on digital connected product launches. There have been phases in the development process where a firmware and app update have gone hand in hand, and there's no going back after the update. I am not a firmware engineer so can't say exactly why not, but we had definite decision points in the development phase. Luckily this was all on tightly controlled pre-production samples to a limited number of devs and test users. Not a captive audience of paying customers with auto-update enabled on devices forcing them down a one way street.
So decided to start the app and it connected to my existing system without any problems, updated the speaker and even commected to my NAS.
Nothing as confusing as tech 🙂
Interestingly, the Chief Product Officer has also been eased out the door marked "Do One" - and it's been pointed out that he was also significantly responsible for the sh*t show last year.
Shame they didn't do anything about this at the time, rather than wiping millions off the company value then getting rid of people, but hey ho
Selfishly, my main concern is that as a company they survive for the foreseeable. All my kit is >10 years old, bought at a time when I can the kind of disposable cash I no longer have, but works pretty much fine. If the company went pop and that in turn bricked everything I currently have I'd be non plussed.
I just reconnected my NAS, that i used to store all my old burnt CD's, last night and all was fine. Better sound than spotify.
but I still miss the old Zone Controller
I had a couple of the 100, the big brick controller.
Have replaced with Lutron Pico remotes, limited controls, volume stop/start of present favourites, but I have it in each room wall mounted by the light switch so you can easily stop/start when enter/leaving the room
convertFull Member
Selfishly, my main concern is that as a company they survive for the foreseeable. All my kit is >10 years old, bought at a time when I can the kind of disposable cash I no longer have, but works pretty much fine. If the company went pop and that in turn bricked everything I currently have I’d be non plussed.
Fair point! As I understand it the new Sonos app would be much more exposed as it interacts much more with the Sonos servers. The S1 app in theory could continue to run happily enough - and I guess the APIs to drive it from other apps (eg Spotify) would still exist.
But despite their recent kicking and financial hit, Sonos seems to be doing pretty well. They're even apparently working with The Trade Desk (an online ad platform) to create a new TV OS. Why after all this Sonos was deemed the ideal partner for creating an OS, who knows... 😀
For those having issues with local / NAS libraries - are the folders you are trying to share under OneDrive's control? Sonos doesn't seem to be able to access these even if they are set to keep a local copy (may be Sonos, may be MS presenting the folder in a non-standard way). If you copy the files to another folder and then share that it seems to work, for me at least.
It's a pain to have to do it, but at least it's a workaround...
What I have done recently is switch off the wifi on my wired units and connected the other 2 speakers to my home wifi rather that using Sonosnet - this seemed to improve things. Likely because the 2 other speakers are now connected to 5GHz wifi?
I've just bought an Era 100 to go in the bedroom once renovations are complete and I set it up the other day, the setup was flawless and was up and running in no time.
My comment hasn't aged well...
The Era keeps disconnecting and can't be found in the app or says "No Content" whilst it's playing. It doesn't cut out once it's started but I can't always find it to start something playing and once something is playing can't always change the volume.
I'm debating what to do with my Sonos system and wanted to get opinions.
I have a bunch of Sonoses in various rooms: a Play 3, 4 Play 1s and a Beam, all running on the old S2 app (the gold one). It's not perrfect, but it's predictable enough. I also used to have a Connect, to play through my Arcam amp in one room. The Connect died, but I still want to hook my Arcam up to the Sonos system. Unfortunately adding a new Sonos device into the system means updating the app to the latest version so I really have two options:
- Option 1: buy a Port (£400 or so), upgrade everything to the latest Sonos app so it's all integrated and works together. It's a serious chunk of change, and I still have little confidence the new app actually works consistently as it should.
- Option 2: buy an old Connect (£50), downgrade virtually everything to the Sonos S1 app so it's all integrated and works together. The Beam couldn't be downgraded, so would run on the new app on its own, but that's not really a problem. It's less money, but obviously means having 2 apps on the go, and S1 isn't great by any means with things like a mesh wifi network.
Thoughts?
There are third party Sonos apps that I'm told work very well. My S2 system has been fine since the update, the only thing i still cannot do is edit playlists.
I didn't think you could downgrade to the s1 app once using the s2 app
Only just caught this thread. My Sonos 5/3/Amp refused to work with my NAS about a year ago. Due to age of most of it, was on the S1 app. Tried everything to get it working, but gave up in the end. Don't know whether I can be bothered to try again unless I know it is working properly.
You can waste too many hours trying to debug something that used to be plug and play when I started on my Sonos journey about 15 or so years ago.
There are third party Sonos apps that I'm told work very well.
I’ve got SonoPhone which does work quickly but isn’t a particularly great experience to use, maybe that would change if I used it more - I don’t find it very intuitive
" Option 2: buy an old Connect (£50), downgrade virtually everything to the Sonos S1 app"
This is what we did. We have 2 play 1's and a connect. Got to be honest it's worked fine. never really had any issues. Hope they do continue to support it
I didn't think you could downgrade to the s1 app once using the s2 app
You can! Late last year the 'new' app finally had the feature reintegrated that allows you to downgrade compatible devices to the old S1 app. Compatibility list here: https://support.sonos.com/en-ie/article/sonos-app-version-compatibility
" Option 2: buy an old Connect (£50), downgrade virtually everything to the Sonos S1 app"This is what we did. We have 2 play 1's and a connect. Got to be honest it's worked fine. never really had any issues. Hope they do continue to support it
Out of interest, what's your home/ Sonos network setup like? Do you have one hardwired, for example; and is your Wifi mesh?
I don't have an iPhone, so the third party SonoPhone is out, I think.
For a few weeks everything looked like it was working again but as of yesterday the app can't see my devices anymore. If they do eventually connect then you can't control them. Two old Play 1s.
Anything new else having issues again?
Do any Sonos users use the IKEA remote? Will it change the volume in 1% increments?
Quite a specific request I know!
I use the Lutron remotes and they work in 1% and they work the same way, but can't say for sure
Mine is slow to use, and it can take a long time for speakers to show up...but it does eventually work. S2 App/ Connect, a 3 and some 1s. I think I have them all on the main network with one hard wired in. None on the mesh/other network because that caused problems.
Lutron? Thought that was blinds n'stuff.
I wonder if I could get the ikea remote working with home assistant to control my sonos, i don't fancy adding another manufacturer specific hub just for that, but controlling the volume through spotify is a really poor experiance.
I use the Lutron remotes and they work in 1% and they work the same way, but can't say for sure
Cheers. Shame the audio one is so expensive compared to the light controls!
I built one of these https://github.com/petrepa/ESPHome-Desk-Controller
Works perfectly, but while not too hard to make, definitely not for the novice.
How deep is the hatred of Sonos running at the moment? Fighting the temptation to buy an ERA 100, but do wonder if a Homepod 2, or even Echo Studio, would be a better option
Lutron? Thought that was blinds n'stuff.
tis, the remote also connects into my lights and blinds
How deep is the hatred of Sonos running at the moment?
Dunno, but it's running just fine for me in 2 houses. It was a bit flaky some months ago but it seems to be doing what it's supposed to now.
Edit: I'd buy more if I had the money.
How deep is the hatred of Sonos running at the moment? Fighting the temptation to buy an ERA 100, but do wonder if a Homepod 2, or even Echo Studio, would be a better option
After a year or so of refusing to update to the latest Sonos app I just bought a secondhand Connect to replace my old expired one, and in setting it up realised it's a Gen 2, so need the new/ latest app in order to do anything (even downgrade it to S1).
So I did that, and updated my whole setup to the latest app and... it's not terrible. I got my music library set up, and my online music services (Sounds, Spotify etc). It's pretty responsive, recognises most of my system most of the time. The only thing it's doing right now is forgetting all my online music services, but resetting the app (while tiresome) fixes that, and the desktop controller doesn't have that problem.
Given the sound and the hardware quality, it's a qualified "goferit" from me
I'm finding the app fine, except it doesn't have an option to open the artist or album that a single song is for, which irritates me. Tend to airplay when I can find the iPad for better app.
We gave up after the old play 1s became bricks. Our play5 just plays as a speaker from a connected Alexa.
the play 1 might as well be a doorstop.
any market for them?