New Sonos app update with all-new design on May 7 - Any information on Accessibility?

You can group speakers and play to speakers from the control center on your phone. This means, unless you are adding a new speaker, you can avoid the app in most cases.

Sockhop Singer is correct. You have to update the app to update your speakers. You can try to get the app on an old IOS product you don't use and update them that way, or you can avoid the update for now.

Latest update seems more promising. I've not had a good play but things are labelled properly now.

They've just released roam 2 and their ace headphones. Nothing really that exciting about either, sadly.

I listened to the RNIB Tech Talk podcast a couple of weeks ago where they demoed the first version of this new app and it was pretty depressing. Since then, I see a few updates have come out and I've been reading the bug report post on here after the latest update.

So from that, it sounds to me like the app is now mostly usable but still not very good. So best to hold off updating for now and give them some more time. Is that about right?

Although I am still quite upset about this whole thing, it does feel like they have accepted the importance of sorting the problems out - accessibility fixes seem to be coming round quicker than restoring lost functionality. So, assuming they do fix the remaining bugs, I don't think it will have a massive impact on my feelings about Sonos as a company. It has a few annoyances buy on the whole I love my Sonos system - I've never lost the joy of being able to walk from room to room and have the music follow me around. I think anyone can make a mistake - the important thing is how you respond to that.

I also want to thank Jonathan again for his efforts in getting this problem recognised.

Everything seems to work aside from a few check buttons in the settings app. I bought the Roam 2 yesterday and had to dive in to set it up. Really no problem for accessibility, aside from what I just said. There are wider issues with the app as a whole, if you read reddit, but I think it's fine, good even. It feels a lot simpler.

One thing you can't currently do is add a new wifi network, which is annoying.

Maybe others can speak on this before you make the plunge though. It's certainly not giving you anything new buy updating, unless you have to update, that is.

Thanks for your answer - sorry for the slow reply. I think there was another update 29th based on another post on here, and think maybe a couple more bugs have been fixed. So maybe will give it a try this weekend if I get some time.

I have a few annoying long-standing issues with my system that I hope a firmware update will fix, but so far nothing has. Like room names changing so I end up with 2 rooms with the same name. Or the volume of a couple of speakers that keeps dropping to 8%. Or weird issues with Sonos Voice Control not quite doing what it should. I'm guessing the new firmware update won't help but you never know. At some point I will have to go into battle with the Sonos forum and ask, or call the support line during my work hours but I'd rather not.

Yesterday's update fixed issues with voiceover and toggle switches. The nice thing is, they are doing what they said and voiceover bugs aren't being ignored. I'm actually quite impressed, despite their fumbled rollout. Apple rolls out rubbish and doesn't admit it. Sonos had to get this app out for the new headphones but they've admitted it was pants and are quickly fixing it. It's a nice app, if you can get past the bad taste of the first release.

The new SONOS App on IOs does not support updating your private music libary located on a NAS. It does let you play the music. bur you have update the music libary via an App on a PC OR a MAC. The new App seems to produced to facilitate comercial streaming, not private collection og old music ripped
from albums from the past.

I have a lot of SONOS products working at the 4 levels I have in my house. That is made possible via a MESH system. However, it is not that easy with the new App to get the whole system to play the same track.

When you say you are using a mesh system, do you mean your general house wifi is a mesh system and your Sonos is not directly connected to the router and therefore running on that directly? I always wondered how that would work with a Sonos - guessing it did before but not now?

Are you able to plug one into the router and then connect them over Sonosnet?

I often play the same music around the whole house - it's what I like most about Sonos. So I hope that isn't totally broken.

Finally took the plunge and installed new app. So far it seems like a bit of an anti-climax.

I miss the magic tap in the app. I didn't think I used it, but instinctively immediately tried to use it to pause music and, of course, it didn't work.

I've found a few random unlabelled things mainly under System Settings. A number of chevrons and the battery charge indicator for roams.

I think maybe there could be more headings on the main page. It feels a little fiddly to use. For example, at the top it lists my recently played, and if I skip down a heading and then go back to the top, it seems to have scrolled the list a bit and I need to fiddle about to get back to the top. But probably OK with a bit of practice.

I did find one long-standing minor niggle may have been fixed. Before whenever I updated the system it would always time out and give me an error, then I'd quit the app, go back in and find out it had worked after all. This time it forced an update and it actually seemed to work.

Time will tell if it is an improvement or not but so far so good. Hopefully they fix the last few niggles but feeling quite relieved now.

Thank goodness for that. I was terrified when I saw your subject line, as I was saying it's not bad.

I spoke with a rep from sonos over on reddit and they are aware that they dropped the ball with voiceover and are continuing to improve.

I think the other fixes will come.

In other news, the reviews of the headphones aren't amazing, the AirPods max are still coming out on top. Shame. I'll have to wait for max 2 then.

It sounds to me like they are just regular bluetooth headphones and the only link with Sonos is that if you are using one of their sound bars (think Arc maybe?) that you can transfer the sound to your headphones. Which is a neat trick but not sure if it's something I would ever actually do if I happened to have a Sonos sound bar. I was expecting to be able to use them as a regular Sonos speaker.

I had another peek at the web app this afternoon - doesn't look like it has received much love since it was launched. The services are still unlabelled buttons, although they do respond well to VO+/ so I have at least labelled Spotify. And I can't quite figure out what all the room controls really mean. Still an improvement on "didn't work at all".

After a bit more of a play, I still think the app is fine but I'm not sure it really is an improvement, if we look past the bugs.

In the old app, I did find the Now Playing and System tabs a bit confusing. I never quite knew where to go to change the volume of rooms for example. But the tabs did make it quite easy to navigate otherwise. I could get to my list of services with Browse tab, easily do a search, go to Home if I wanted to play something recent.

Now it feels to me like the home page is just doing too much. OK if they put headings on each section it would help a lot. But it feels to me like they have added all the personalisation stuff in purely to compensate for having removed the tabs.

I'm not quite sure how to remove something from the home screen. I don't really use Sonos Favourites, for example. I can drag it around OK but not sure how to delete it?

I did manage to accidentally get rid of Your Services which put me in a bit of a panic. But I went back to edit home page, then moved Sonos Favourites to the bottom, and when I went back it had reappeared. So not sure what that was.

One thing that has always irked me a little is that when you browse Spotify I almost always want to go to my playlists. But I have to scroll down a million pages of crap to get there. I see the new app has this - although it was just 11 pages to scroll through which seems less. It's a shame folders don't work, although I have a suspicion that might be a fault of the Spotify API.

Anyway, if they can put in some more headings, get rid of all the chevrons and restore two finger scrub and magic tap then it will be good enough. Probably always going to be slightly less good than previous app, but not so much as to be a problem.,

The Sonos app was again updated on June 4. Has anyone tried that new update out, and what are your thoughts on the latest accessibility? I have to be honest; I never expected Sonos to so openly acknowledge Voiceover and accessibility in their update notes, and I do give credit where credit is due. That being said ... thoughts? Thanks.

My SONOS is connected to a SONOS router that is conected to my WiFi. Due to the MESH, I do not need a SONOS boost or an WiFi extender. The SONOS and the extrnder actually did not work that good for me. It seemed like had two sparate SONOS systems, not just one covering all floors of my house. Now I am able to play the same or different music, podcast or you name it on all floors. However, the new App seems a bit more difficult to work with.

Another problem with the App is that it does allow me to search artist in my music library by name like when you search eg. Applemusic in SONOS. The old one had that features. I now have to scroll down the list to find a specific artist in my privat musiclibrary. I have music with several hundreds artist. It is a bit tidious always start to with an artist with the letter A when you want to play an album with Yardbirds. The same goes with composers.

Why is that a problem? Not all music is available as streaming, espcially not old Danish rock music.

If you have any Sonos connected to the router then by default I believe the whole Sonos system has its own mesh wifi which it uses to connect all the other speakers together. Whereas if you don't connect any Sonos speakers to the router, then you can configure each Sonos speaker to use your own wifi network instead. I use the former but did try the latter and my wifi wasn't really good enough for that. In my head things like Sonos Boost are for situations where you don't want a speaker plugged into the router, but I may be wrong. I always wondered if I had a mesh network in my home whether I could run Sonos in the second way and have it make use of that, but I suspect it wouldn't go well.

One thing I don't like about the new app is how you start new music. In the old app, if I went to Spotify to play something, it would ask me to select which speakers I wanted to play on. From here I could select Everywhere and I could choose the volume of speakers I had selected. But now I'm not entirely sure I know where I'm playing, and I have to change volume separately to playing the music which seems more fiddly.

I like how four finger tap at bottom means I can easily change group volume. At the top there is a System button which seems to be a combined now playing/speaker setup thing. but from here I can only change the overall group volume not individual speakers, which means going back elsewhere. It still seems to me that the one problem with the old app (confusing now playing vs room setup screens) is still confusing. And all the things that were fine in the old app are just a little worse here.

I checked the app just now and there are still plenty of unlabelled chevrons. I've noticed the scrub gesture does work in some places but not everywhere. And I'll keep saying it but without some more headings the home screen is usable but really not very quick to navigate. The only heading is "Your Source" which is probably my least used part. Quite why "Your Services" isn't a heading I don't know.

If the app right now was my first taste of Sonos I wouldn't really have any major problems with it. But it is worse than the old app in pretty much every way. Just not so much so that it is a big problem.

I also wouldn't be so hung up on changing individual speaker volumes if my Sonos didn't just randomly lower speaker volumes all the time.

I'm only really using it with my roam and have bought sorrow too which is a bunch of shortcuts you can set up for quick actions like playing favorites on specific speakers etc.

Yeah, maybe the previous version was better. To be honest, I can't really remember it as I didn't really use it. I've got a beam 2 and a couple of play 1 backs but never used it for playing anything but TV output.

Yeah, the headphones are a bit of a flop, I think. The USP of connecting to the sound bar is good, if you have an Arc. i've got apple TVs so AirPods do a better job for me. I know the link thing is coming to other soundbars, but I'm only ever going to judge on what is out now. They are supposed to be very comfortable though, unlike the max, but the ambient pass through, like all other headphones, can't touch the AirPods max.

Finally, looking at another thread, it might be useful if we can get a direct line to sonos to give them feedback. Headings all the way down... I think this is a good rule of thumb for absolutely every app!

What are people using for podcasts with their sonos systems? I was kinda hoping I could use alexa with my apple podcasts app, but can't and I don't think sonos voice control works with any podcast apps meaning we have to use the app? I'm a very voice control sort of a chap, but any suggestions of podcast apps that are good that I can sync with sonos will be great.

I really love my roam 2. I just took it on a trip to lake Garda and, despite a couple of issues with a travel network I setup and the apps inability to ad newe wifi on the go, it's awesome. It sounds amazing and I'm listening to loads more radio.

Although far from perfect the app has definitely improved since launch and hopefully this will continue. I agree re headings on the homepage and I have fed this back to Sonos but I agree with Ollie it would be good if we could establish a link to Sonos to feedback on accessibility going forward.

In terms of a good Podcast app that works on IOS, Sonos and also integrates well with Alexa I would personally recommend Pocket cast. The iOS app is accessible with voiceover, you can add the service on Sonos and there is also an Alexa skill. Once everything is linked you can say to Alexa, ask pocket cast to play whatever podcast you would like to hear. I would suggest setting up the pocket cast app on IOS first.

Just taken delivery of the Sonos Ace headphones but not had a chance to have a play with them yet.

I don't think the headphones are a total flop - time will tell if there is enough demand for them and I think they are really lacking a killer feature but they sound like a very decent pair of expensive headphones.

I have a specific way of using SOnos - I use Spotify Connect if playing music to work to, but otherwise use the Sonos app to play Spotify playlists - which means I can keep my place in both. Otherwise I only use it to fix the group volume problem, because it's easier than voice for multiple rooms. Oh and to fix room names when they magically change on their own.

Maybe sorrow would be a good bet to fix volumes in all rooms. I was a bit put off because it uses Apple shortcuts which always scare me. How easy is it? I used to use Macronos when I still had Android and had it set up with NFCs which was quite cool but voice access is better these days.

I've not found any way to start podcasts on Sonos at all, voice or otherwise. It certainly doesn't work for Alexa for me either. Is there a way you can do this in the app??

I have a couple of Roam gen ones and they are generally great. I took them both with me on holiday but Alexa was a bit weird - it wouldn't play anything that way and on one of them you couldn't use the wake word to interrupt it. Not had that problem before. But then I have all sorts of quirks at the moment.

I definitely agree that we could do with some way to give Sonos feedback. As I've mentioned before, they have an accessibility email address which should be perfect for this but they've never responded to me, although I've not used it in a year or two. Otherwise there are the forums but that's hardly a direct line.

I still love my Sonos system though despite its flaws.

Sorry didn't read that other reply before posting. Pocket cast sounds good - I will investigate.

I tend to air play podcasts from Apple podcasts or over cast. But it has a weird quirk. If I pause it for a minute then try to resume it always messes up and I have to go to air play, turn it off, then turn it on again. Probably just another quirk of my system but it's a bit annoying.

Think I will hold off on the Sonos headphones. I've heard reviews for them and, while they sound interesting, nothing I have heard justifies the ridiculously steep price tag. Sorry, Sonos, I'll stick with my Earfun Wave Pro headphones at less than 20% of your price tag. PS: Hysterical Microsoft Edge flags Sonos as mis-spelled.

Well I gave in and bought this. To answer my own question above - how easy is it? Well, short answer - it isn't. It does require you to go into the shortcuts app and understand what you are doing. There is a reason why this app has a bad reputation. Oh well, at least this has given me a good reason to start trying to get my head around it.

Drop me a message if you want a hand with sorrow. I've got an enough to be dangerous knowledge of shortcuts and have managed to add a couple of them to my iPhone.

Yeah, flop was probably too harsh. I think they just haven't brought much to the table and reports on sound are all over the place. Some say good, some say worse, some say they are about the same as cheaper headphones. This may all be sorted in a firmware update though. I'd have jumpt for them if the transparency mode was better, but I'm happy with my PX8 wich, to be fair, are higher premium, though they are now only about £80 more than the ACE with a significant improvement in sounds... Or so tis said.

Also, thank you for the pocket cast suggestion. It's a little fiddly but certainly easier than airplay for now.

Thanks very much for the offer - I may take you up on it, but for now I think I managed to get it working. Fortunately I had a decent bit of time available on Sunday so was able to go round and round in circles until I found the magic series of swipes that got me to the answer. I've now setup a routine that sets the volumes of all speakers in the house which I can trigger from my watch. When it ran it did ask me to confirm each step in turn but think I found a way to stop that. The interface is pretty terrible and buggy - if I'd known I would have to go that deep into shortcuts to do anything I probably wouldn't have bothered, but I'm glad I made the effort. I might try extending it later if it works well enough.

I noticed that one of the example routines it suggests when you open up the app is to be able to share podcasts from the Apple podcasts app to Sonos. I've not tried it yet so don't know what it does. Maybe it's just air play.

it grabs the URL and plays it direct through sonos. I'd not really say it's worth it. The one I found most useful is the favorites shortcut which I added to my action button which gave a quick access to my sonos favorites, playlists and radio stations. Again, you have to include the open app shortcut at the start and set it to shortcuts and launch homescreen at the end, but it's a much quicker way of doing things.

shortcuts are pretty good so I don't think it's time wasted getting familiar with them though I'm hoping for something more user friendly in the updates, IE, you say in natural language what you want and it puts the shortcut together for you. Chat GPT can give instructions on it already, so it doesn't seem too far fetched.

I know this has nothing to do with the OP but I thought I'd follow up as I complained about my Sonos system doing weird things before. Well I finally braved the Sonos forums and am hoping I may have the answer. Well it's been 2 weeks without an issue. If it makes it to a month then I will start to feel like it is fixed.

Anyway my problem seems to be that I set up my speakers in the Apple Home app. But once I'd done that I never really found much use for it, so they just sat there unused. Since then I bought another speaker and renamed a couple. Anyway I just deleted them all from the Home app and so far it's working a lot better. I guess it might be the name changes that confused it, so maybe I could set them up again. But don't think I'll bother.

Regarding the app, have Sonos now finished with the accessibility updates? I mean, it's fine now but I was still hoping for a little more.

Last update to the app was almost a month ago. While it is useable as it is, like you, I am still hoping for more. Glad you seem to have gotten your issue fixed.

For anyone stil disatisfied with the Sonos app, either because of accessibility or just how buggy it is in general, there is a third-party controller called SonoPhone that has been gaining in popularity. It is mostly accessible, and the developer is very receptive to making improvements. The most glaring issue in the currently released version is regarding grouping speakers and determining which speakers are grouped. When I emailed the dev requesting improvements, he immediately invited me to a TestFlight beta where he had already fixed one of the issues, and within a couple of weeks had fixed the other issue. There's a version for iPad called SonoPad, but I don't have an iPad, so I can't verify if the same applies.

I did see that when scrolling around the app store recently. Have you tried it? Does it allow you to play music from all sources (especially Spotify) or is it restricted to a few things like Sonos favourites?

I think Sonos must still be getting flak from users as I got an apology email which I'll paste below in case anyone hasn't seen it. No mention of accessibility specifically.

My gut feeling is that the app redesign was to give them an easier way to push ads at us. Somewhere on the home screen is a headphones advert and they have been pushing that so, so hard.

Anyway, email:

 
To our listeners,

We know that too many of you have experienced significant problems with our new app which rolled out on May 7, and I want to begin by personally apologizing for disappointing you. There isn’t an employee at Sonos who isn’t pained by having let you down, and I assure you that fixing the app for all of our customers and partners has been, and continues to be, our number one priority.

We developed the new app to create a better experience, with the ability to drive more innovation in the future, and with the knowledge that it would get better over time. However, since launch we have found a number of issues. Fixing these issues has delayed our prior plan to quickly incorporate missing features and functionality.

Since May 7, we have released new software updates approximately every two weeks, each making significant and meaningful improvements, adding features and fixing bugs. Please see the release notes for Sonos software updates for detailed information on what has been released to date.

While these software updates have enabled the majority of our customers to have a robust experience using the Sonos app, there is more work to be done. We have prioritized the following improvements in our next phase of software updates:

July and August:
Improving the stability when adding new products
Implementing Music Library configuration, browse, search, and play
August and September:
Improving Volume responsiveness
User interface improvements based on customer feedback
Improving overall system stability and error handling
September:
Improving Alarm consistency and reliability
September and October:
Restoring edit mode for Playlists and the Queue
Improving functionality in settings

We plan to continue releasing new software updates on a bi-weekly cadence. With each release, we will share detailed notes on what we’ve addressed and what we’re working on next in our Community.

We deeply appreciate your patience as we address these issues. We know we have work to do to earn back your trust and are committed to doing it. I am always open to your feedback. You can find me via email at ceo@sonos.com.

Sincerely,
Patrick Spence

CEO
 

Oh just accidentally found that the letter I posted above is on the Sonos home screen. It's in the prime screen space used for their marketing. Also known as just dumped randomly in the middle of all the clutter.

Every two weeks for an app update? Something tells me there have been more than two weeks between June 30 and July 26. Just thought I'd point that out. grinning

All of the services I've linked to my account show up and work. According to the website, last.fm and Google Play music are the only ones that aren't supported. The app is also only a player - setting up and adjusting speaker settings has to be done in the official Sonos app, as does things like setting alarms.

Well I was all set to post this, then found that Applevis was shutting down, so thought I'd have another go.

The Sonos app now has headings on the home screen which has made all the difference to getting around the system. And the settings app no longer has weird chevrons all over the place.

It actually seems fine now. I'd still say the old app was a tad better, but there's no longer much in it.

I still find that I get a tad confused with rooms and grouping, but I think much of that is because I use it so rarely. I found myself in the slightly ridiculous situation of wanting to ungroup one of my speakers so I could put Radio 3 on it for my labrador. and maybe I was just getting a bit flustered but I couldn't figure out how to ungroup the speaker and play something on it. I eventually found it under Your System at the top and not at the bottom where my head kept telling me it must be. I guess you get used to it, and my labrador was nice and quiet over night so I think she appreciated it.

I also tried Sonophone but it didn't quite gel with me. Honestly I'm not sure why you'd bother with that over the official app.