Sonos S1 Controller Reviews

Okay... we had a 10 year old Sony 46” Bravia TV and Bose Acoustimass 15 home theater speakers run through a Sony amp. So we decided to move up to a LG 65” c8 television. Love it, but that’s another review. The Bose was great for music but was always problematic trying to get it working properly for surround sound. The Sony and Bose never really jived with each other. So as a result we seldom used it. Anyway, friends told me about Sonos speakers and since we had the new TV I decided to purchase the Beam sound bar, the sub woofer and two play 1 speakers to make a surround system for the new LG. Man it sounds great. We are very please with the system and the ease of setup and use. It is pricey when it comes to the sub woofer. However the sub really completes the system so I would say if you can swing it $$$, go for it. We chose the Beam over the larger Sonos sound bar because the Beam has a HDMI hook up with “ARC” and Alexa built in if that’s important to you. I just didn’t want a optical connection that the bigger Sonos bar only comes with. However I would guess the larger sound bar probably sounds better.??? However don’t let the size of the Sonos Beam fool you, it's impressive. Anyway I can’t wait to add more speakers to our house later on. Very satisfied customer.

I’ve been a Sonos user since very early on. I have two Play:1 speakers that I use as a stereo pair. I was very disappointed when the v9.0 update, which apparently enabled Air Play on the One (plus other current models), disabled the home screen controls for those of us using the legacy speakers. I’ve also experienced the same as others where the last ~20 seconds of each track would be cut off when I was playing from a locked iOS device. I keep nearly all my audio on my iPhone & iPad and generally play straight from those devices’ libraries instead of from my Mac, as the latter spends most of its time in sleep mode.

Surprisingly I just accidentally got the lock screen controls re-enabled and the end-of-track cutoff seems to have gone away. For some reason one of my speakers dropped off the system and I couldn’t get it to reconnect, so I did a full-on controller reset on my iPhone. I also unplugged both speakers and then basically set my system back up, as if it was new. No idea why, but like I said this has caused the end-of-track dropout to go away and my lock screen controls to come back (even though Sonos says explicitly in their release notes that this function has gone away for those without Air Play compatible speakers).

Very weird, but now my system’s back to how I’ve used and loved it for the past 6-7 years and it’s great! Hopefully some others might try this and have some luck getting full functionality back.

Over the years, I have built a Sonos system with speakers throughout my home, a significant investment. I have also accumulated a library of thousands of titles, expecting to listen to my purchased music via Sonos, a functionality that made the hardware investment worthwhile. On the positive side, Sonos has gradually solved most of the bugs that would inexplicably fail to connect or randomly break connection with my WiFi or with my iphone. But the unwelcome news that Sonos would cease to play titles “on this phone” felt like a real ripoff - a classic bait and switch. It is redundant and wasteful to pay dues to a music streaming service when I already “own” the music I want to hear. Had I known that Sonos would block me from listening to my own music, I would never have invested in the system. This is why, when friends ask me whether they should buy Sonos, I now recommend rather that they purchase a set of high end Bluetooth speakers. I will be surprised if the good folks at Sonos publish this review, as it is anything but the hands-down accolade I’m sure they would prefer. But if they are serious about building consumer loyalty and serving and growing their customer base, they will thank their subscribers for their invaluable feedback and reinstate the “on this phone” functionality.

Revised 10/14 on new version. I hate the new layout. I do not find it intuitive and still struggle to figure out how to pick music to play in a particular room. Also, My favorites used to scroll vertically, making them easy to sort through as I could see many of them on the screen at the same time. Now they scroll horizontally and have huge icons, meaning I can only see one station at a time. SonosS1Controller used to be 5star worth and set it apart from the crowd.

Original review:
I seem to keep finding reasons to expand my system, it gets pretty addictive. I mostly use Pandora or other internet radio type stations. Streaming music to a speaker via Bluetooth is not the same! The speakers are more like today's smart TV's, with apps built in that run autonomously, the phone is just a remote control. Software navigation is incredibly easy and the speakers all sound amazing! I have a Play 1 in both my bedroom and home office, a Play 5 in my living room, a Playbar/Sub/Play1 surround system hooked to my Sony Bravia TV in the family room, and am waiting on a connect amp to arrive for my outdoor speakers. They can all play different stations, or group them together as needed during house parties.

Updated: I don't know that I'll ever love the new app design but they've definitely improved it since my last 2-star review. The Sonos experience as a whole is 5 stars. I love these devices, plain and simple.

Original Review: I'm split on this review, obviously. It's tempting to defiantly throw up a 1-star review and walk away without explanation but that would be unfair to a product that really is a standout. I've been a Sonos evangelist for years and years. The system has always been rock solid and SonosS1Controller intuitive -- flawless hardware and software. That all changed with the latest major version of SonosS1Controller . It's so confounding to those of us that have loved this product for years. I don't care that it's white -- stupid quibble. People can get over that. But the actual interactions I have with it while trying to play music in different rooms never seem to get easier. I eventually get what I want but it's not before cursing the new app several times for tricking me into the wrong area.

I want so badly for Sonos to acknowledge their error and revert to the older-style navigation. It would be an easy 5-star review from me again.

I love the sound I get from my speakers, but the review isn’t really about the speakers. It’s about SonosS1Controller , which needs some work. The ability to access multiple audio sources is great. What it is missing though are the small details that make the apps from those services it is drawing from a better option almost every time. For instance, the Pandora app lets you view songs that have already played - so, if you were away from the device and heard a new song and want to know more about it, you could check later to see what it was. With the Sonos app, if you don’t check while the song is playing you will never know. With the Books from Audible, it’s great that you can play it in multiple rooms but losing the ability to speed up the playback means I won’t use that service here. The same (or worse) with Apple podcasts. The only way to access them is via the On This Phone option. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tap into the organization that the iPhone uses and just puts everything out there in a mess so if you have multiple episodes to listen to, it’s just a huge mess. This also needs the speed up option that the regular podcast apps offer. Again, I love my speakers and the music I play on them sounds amazing. However, I really hope SonosS1Controller gets some good upgrades soon.

It’s a shame when you haven’t even had the chance to use the speaker and your already having problems. It just so happens that Sonos doesn’t have tech support available on the weekends to assist when the average human is needing it. I’m disappointed at the fact that I thought it would be a nice touch to bring the speaker to a bridal shower at a friends house for entertainment purposes. Connected it to the WiFi at her house, finally got everything setup and then couldn’t even use it because the speaker couldn’t just link to pandora without having my password. I couldn’t remember it to save my life. So I get it home the next day, and try to re-setup the speaker on the network in my house, thinking that this wouldn’t be so difficult according to the instruction video in SonosS1Controller /controller. I’ve unplugged the speaker, the router, plugged the Ethernet cable into a wireless router and the Internet box directly from the ISP, and nothing will work to have the speaker setup on my own network. SonosS1Controller /Controller instructs you to plug the Ethernet cable up and then wait for the mysterious green light that never comes on or to go to advanced settings which doesn’t appear anywhere in SonosS1Controller , or my personal favorite when SonosS1Controller tells you to select the SONOS wireless network that doesn’t appear. So lesson learned don’t take your Sonos anywhere and set it up unless you plan to leave it there!!! Because you won’t be able to set it up anywhere else!!!

My family has been a frequent costumer of Sonos, with over 5 speakers all over our house in a variety of sizes. For the past 6 years since we’ve gotten our first speaker, the sound bar, we have been very pleased with our (expensive, yet) great quality speakers. They will cut out every now and then, most noticeable during movies, but that was only a slight annoyance compared to what we are dealing with now. Perhaps it is part of a new update (we have the latest version, so SonosS1Controller being outdated should not be an issue), or simply SonosS1Controller crashing, meaning it will be back up and running within a week hopefully. But, since this morning, Sonos has let us down. An overall irritation, disappointment, and not what we paid for! The speakers (rooms) have been unable to group, and some speakers are silent, despite the loud volume it is set on (they are also all plugged in). We could select a song or artist or radio to play, but the speaker will simply not react whatsoever. Being a loyal patron of Sonos, my family and I are frustrated and hope this issue is resolved quickly, especially with the holidays.

But to those interested in purchasing one or more Sonos speakers, they have overall been a great investment for our family. We have been spoiled with these great speakers scattered around the house, making it so that when they suddenly fail to do what they are supposed to, it is especially aggravating.

I have owned Sonos from it’s inception. My two dozen speakers are used at my home, office and vacation home. Until now I have had ZERO complaints- only praise! In fact, I have encouraged my friends and family to buy Sonos and given the speakers as gifts - until now.
The new interface is non intuitive and confusing. Actually, it is COUNTER INTUITIVE. My friends, family and office staff have turned against me for providing them a monster of a music system. I am now the one asked to tune in the music that they desire because no one can figure it out (or don’t have the time to try to figure it out). Then I embarrassingly struggle to fulfill their request, and screw it up anyway.
However, not all hope is lost! Sonos, if you want me to give you the five stars that you really deserve, fire the individual in charge of this most recent downgrade. Please post a photo of them exiting the building carrying their personal items in a cardboard box.
Then get SonosS1Controller back to the way it was, with a few interface tweaks that are intuitive.
Sonos, this is the “New Coke” of the 21st Century (look it up Millennials). You can fix it!

The latest one simply removed the ability to play anything anywhere. Awesome!

Update: one of my favorite features is that Sonos can almost never process any command without restarting SonosS1Controller . And even more fun, the play/pause button is unreliable after it restarts. It may be playing but only offer “play,” or it may be paused and only offer “pause.” Leaving the house and want to turn off the music on the way out the door? Better sit down, maybe pour a drink. I left the music on all night recently because of this. I left convinced that it was off after at least a minute of toggling and waiting. Silly me. One must, I guess, use multiple devices to verify that a simple “pause” command was evaluated correctly.

Another great feature is the frequency of updates. I wish the updates would fix the problems, but they only seem to compound them. The annoying update notification inevitably lists something I don’t care about and then breaks some basic functionality. Whom exactly are you catering to, Sonos? Your customers? Someone else? What gives? Great, now Sonos works with all this stuff I don’t have or even want, but can’t manage any single task without a complete restart. You are optimizing for the wrong priorities. Take care of your customers or we will leave and never come back.

The Sonos system used to be great but the latest updates have totally screwed my system. Although my ZP100 is wired, streaming radio drops out all the time when it never did before. The volume sometimes goes to zero, no input required. I haven’t been able to access the music library on my home server for years even though every other system in my house can access it. And now they’re going to disable the Sonos remote that I own because apparently they own it. I was a Sonos fan from the beginning but no more.

Update: Sonos has lost their way. With each successive release of the software more features are removed. I used to be able to see Sonos on my lock screen and adjust the volume. No more. (Yes I’ve seen the remarks about having other audio programs open which I closed although I didn’t have to do this before.) I used to be able to open SonosS1Controller and adjust the volume with the hardware buttons but now they’re stupid buttons and need to be pressed multiple times before they recognize they’ve been pressed. Changing rooms, overly complicated now. If you’re on the fence about buying a Sonos system I recommend that you don’t do it. What was once the best sound system available, bar none, is now an also ran due to the way they’ve crippled their app and forced you off the physical remote which still worked perfectly.

We put Sonos in our new construction home three years ago, and while the concept is fantastic, we’ve had several issues in the three years since it’s installation. The two most frustrating issues have been:
1) It does not sync perfectly with the music library on the device from which you’re operating it from; for example, I tend to use my iPad Pro with my ENTIRE music library on the device in iTunes, yet there are several songs that cannot be found through the Sonos app, and after spending several hours and multiple calls to Sonos tech support they blame iTunes and threw their hands up. The music is clearly on my device yet the Sonos app can’t “see” all of the music “on this device”, very frustrating!
2) Often when we go to use the Sonos app on any of our devices (2 iPhones and 1 iPad) it cannot connect to the network and will not come up on the device, suggesting that you reboot the router. This is a hassle and inconvenience, and it happens about 50% of the time.

Overall, love the concept and it’s great WHEN it works, but it’s quirks and functionality have made me question whether it was truly worth the investment we made when there are so many Bluetooth devices and streaming services available on the market.

So far I’m very impressed with the capability of SonosS1Controller itself. The Sonos Playbar I bought is a dream when listening to music and watching movies. SonosS1Controller itself is limited but I can totally get by with what it offers for the time being. I mostly use Apple Music, Pandora and Soundcloud. So it’s kinda weird but they are apps within an app. It’s confusing to describe but it feels like second nature when navigating thru SonosS1Controller . Best part is while I’m playing music on the Playbar I can still watch videos on my phone so not to disrupt anyone else listening to music. I usually pop in my AirPods and watch a quick video on FB or FaceTime and the music still plays. This is probably my favorite feature. I have no regrets and I’m sure it only gets better from here. By the way the sound quality is absurdly wonderful. I hear things I usually don’t ever hear on just about anything else. I have an open concept living room and it fills the entire room effortlessly! I must purchase the subwoofer to complete the ensemble but I have to recover from the grip I just let go of on the Playbar but it is definitely in the near future!

I’ve used Sonos speakers for well over 5 years now and simply love the sound and audio. High quality speakers thought your home is a game changer. SonosS1Controller on the other hand, could use some renovation. If you search for a popular artists name to find a specific album, you’ll be greeted with a cluster of disorganized censored albums, uncensored albums, song singles, and song features. Nothing is organized by year or date. It would be nice to be able to click an album, then have a toggle button that changes it from censored to uncensored. It would make things more user friendly. My second recommendation would be about the layout. For such a smooth speaker product line, SonosS1Controller seems really square and blocky. Lastly, a touch of Dark mode to make the inter interface black might just be a personal preference, however we’ve all seen the success Apple has had implementing a dark mode for their devices. It’s more pleasing on the eyes and would also make the entire app look like the logo. Again, I love the speakers, however when it takes me more than 3 minutes to find a single song (in this world of instant gratification) it doesn’t make me too happy.

I am a father of four boys and waited a long time (goodbye diapers!) to buy my home audio solution. I own five (gen 1) Ones, a Playbar and a Connect Amp and have been very happy with all of them. The Amp drives two Bose 301 outdoor speakers out by the pool and it effortlessly fills the entire yard with sound. The Playbar and two of the Ones are my “home theatre” and surprisingly provide a lot bass for the bass-starved flatscreen in our living room. The other Ones hang in our home gym, if that’s what you call a room with a treadmill and a weight bench, and provide awesome audio for those few and far between workouts.

Long story short, these components provide excellent audio quality at a nice price and are modular so a guy on a budget can add pieces little by little. Pure audiophiles may snub their noses at these, but the increasing quality of audio sources make these an excellent choice for any room, situation and budget. I have a recommend Sonos products to anybody looking to get into this space at a reasonable price. The cost may be entry-level, but the quality is much greater. I can’t wait to get my Sub!

While the Sonos speakers themselves sound good for what they are, that quality was the second priority behind my purchase. The value in Sonos lies in SonosS1Controller and the SonosNet that the speakers create and cast. The system is remarkably convenient and has allowed to me enhance and rejuvenate a very good but aging setup. On this aspect alone I would contribute five stars.

The rub, however, is in the application. While, for the most part, SonosS1Controller /SonosNet interface and communication work well, there are irritating moments of dysfunction. The problem that I most often encounter is that SonosS1Controller will fail to communicate with the speakers for intermittent periods of time during which I cannot remotely control the components of my system. Less often, but proportionally more irritating, is when the sound from my Sonos Connect (which I use to port my home theatre into the SonosNet) will drop out repeatedly during a Netflix binge. This usually coincides with the previous problem and the two together constitute a significant disruption to the system’s functionality.

While SonosS1Controller works well and (for the most part) easily, small but significant interludes of instability lead me to lower my rating alongside my satisfaction.

Have used sonos for seven years and really really love it. But, I hate the new app update Oct 2017. Used to be smooth and seamless but SonosS1Controller on my iPhone is now awkward, hard to read, difficulty finding and searching the music and get it going, difficult to get the rooms playing together, and requiring extra steps making playing music from my phone something I don't want to do anymore. If I want to change music I get up and go to my desktop. Please please change this back to what it was.

Update: just got another update hoping this would fix everything and now it's worse. All my pandora stations are sorted by the date I created them and not in alphabetical order. I went to the settings to change this back to alphabetical and changing the settings does not fix the problem. I have to scroll through all of my stations and read everyone in order to find the one I want to because I do not know and do not care what date I created a station. Ugh! My sonos love is all gone.

Listen, you’re shoehorned into using SonosS1Controller; regardless of whether you like it or not. That’s the price we pay I guess, for the luxury of having some of the best sounding speakers on the market.

SonosS1Controller has multiple functions beyond just controlling your music. It’s also the tool used for calibrating your speakers and adding new ones to the ecosystem. It handles these tasks fairly well. When it comes to navigating your music, it’s just... okay. I can fairly simply choose to play different music in different rooms, which is cool. However I noticed I regularly just end up using AirPlay instead of SonosS1Controller ; all because the search functionality is just awful.

I could go into iOS music app, search for an artist, and be delivered literally everything I want from that artist. If I do the same in this Sonos app, I often scroll until I get so frustrated not being a old to find a song or album I want that I just end up going back to AirPlay again through the iOS music app. Same frustrations go for every style of search, be it album, song, playlist... the Sonos app very rarely offers me the music I want to hear from a simple search.

The concept of Sonos is great. Adding any/all music services to 1 platform that can play through the wifi and in sync sounds amazing … If SonosS1Controller ever connects. I’ve had Sonos for several years and the entire time I’ve had the same problem and they haven’t seemed to fix it. SonosS1Controller is extremely unreliable. “Can not connect to your Sonos network” is the message of my nightmares that I see 5 times a day. I will literally turn on a station on Sonos, walk away for 5 minutes and when I come back I can’t use SonosS1Controller because it won’t connect. (I’ve had this problem in multiple house with different WiFi’s) The system is working because music is playing it’s just SonosS1Controller says it cannot connect. It’ll take me 10-15 minutes of hopping off and on the wifi and closing out SonosS1Controller to try an troubleshoot the problem before anything’s works. But to be honest I think that’s actually doing that thing cuz it doesn’t always work. SonosS1Controller is just extremely unreliable when it comes to connecting with the system. At list point I just walk away and come back in 20min to see if it’s working again. Please fix this Sonos. I will buy an entire replacement product if I find one before this is been fixed. It’s literally been happening for years...

I want to love my Sonos system, I really do. Unfortunately, the inability to use AirPlay 2 as intended (initiate listening session and control all aspects of playback, discovery, library manipulation etc from the individual native apps or, more importantly, assign playback location directly from iOS Control Center instead of through the slightly lacking Sonos app) is frustrating.

Tried everything including a two hour “support” session with Sonos. Nothing but an admission that AirPlay is “hard to implement AND yet maintain control over the data”. I know it’s getting old to complain about but the insatiable business model focused more on how to monetize users and user’s data than simply developing a good product is getting ridiculous and it’s preventing consumers from getting what they expect and pay for.

AirPlay 2 support for Airport Express is going to really hurt Sonos if they don't get this figured out quick! I just dusted off a few I had laying about. Saved me $600 (and lost Sonos the sales) since I already have good “dumb” speakers. My advice to Sonos: worry less about trying to make speakers “smart” and worry more about putting audio playback in its modern form (read:digital/streaming) first!

Update: Changed my rating from 2 stars for v. 8 to 4 stars for v. 8.3.1. Especially impressed by your response to user feedback. There is zero chance of my buying a HomePod or whatever it’s called now.

Archive this: Disappointing update people. I cannot understand how you’re getting 5 star reviews from anyone who’s used the controller for any length of time. First, and forgetting the UI’s appearance for a second, the move to privilege songs over albums is misguided. Choosing an album now gives me a mountain of icons for individual songs to choose from that album. It’s unclear how to just play an album or add an album to the queue with one click or a hard press as in prior versions. Also, the Rooms navigation is awful. There used to be immediate access at the top of the screen to individual rooms. Navigating to the list now, even with the button on the bottom is aggravating. It should always be available on screen. You have complicated the controller in many ways under the guise of simplifying the look of the interface. The interface is cleaner, yes, and I don’t mind the white as others do. What bugs me is that the cleanliness of the look destroyed the ease of use that was there up to now. I don’t want to fumble around relearning how to use the controller effectively. I just want to listen to music quickly and easily. I especially want to be able to play albums quickly and easily. Looking forward to version 9.

The Sonos system is fantastic and the speakers high quality. I have owned them from the beginning and have 7 speakers and 3 amps and constantly telling my friends to get Sonos. HOWEVER; SonosS1Controller has always been somewhat of an issues. For year the community has been asking for a better volume adjustment that is more precise yet we never got it - check online message boards. It was a pleading request but on deaf ears. The latest upgrade is another example of the software side of the house not understanding their users desire for simplicity. I’m sure there is a lot of complexity behind the scenes that make it all work but there is tremendous value in making that invisible to the user. The new upgrade is not intuitive at all and has lost its ease of use. It’s a shame that I have to use SonosS1Controller to control what is otherwise a great sound system. On top of the poor user experience in SonosS1Controller there is no Apple Watch version. I am using a 3rd party called Zone Play to operate my speakers in my watch. It works but why isn’t there a simple version for watch 2 years after its intro. I always thought Apple should have bought this company but now with Home Pod coming out soon I guess it’s only wishful thinking. Sonos leadership needs to hear their most ardent supporters and fix SonosS1Controller and the way we operate out substantial investment