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- Major changes to navigation and volume control
- Available in a new beta this week
- Opt-in rather than enabled by default
Sonos has announced a suite of new changes to the Sonos app, and you'll be able to try the new version this week as a beta — if you want to.
Posting on Reddit, Sonos CEO Tom Conrad says that after "hundreds of hours watching real customers use the Sonos app" his team has identified lots of irritants and sticking points. "We've learned a lot about what hangs people up, what's confusing when you're new to the system, and what slows you down when you're just trying to change the darn volume."
In response, Sonos is making lots of changes to the app, including how you turn the volume up and down.
The post has so far generated a lot of positive responses, including the current top comment by Daveintausend: "Never thought I'd say this but I'm hyped for a better volume control."
What changes are coming to the Sonos app?
A new beta will be released this week, with significant changes to the interface. As Conrad put it: "What kept showing up was this: a lot of friction came from proprietary patterns we built that made the app harder to learn and use than it needed to be. Stacks on stacks on stacks of content cards. Swipe-up gestures to switch speaker orientation. Close boxes where any other app on your phone would have a back button. Custom interface elements that never quite felt like part of iOS or Android."
The plan is to change all of that, and Conrad has highlighted three key areas: better tabbed navigation, a "totally new" volume interface, and more control over how your players are listed and displayed.
He also promises "dozens of smaller quality-of-life fixes everywhere" including swipe to delete in playlists, new views on iPad, and a refresh to the Now Playing screen.
The main interface will be divided into three tabs: Home, System and Search, which will be styled in a way that's native to your phone's operating system, and that replace "the hidden gestures and content cards".
And the volume control will have "a core mechanism that is easier to grab and fine tune, buttons to tap up and down if that’s your thing and a new way to synchronize a across group of rooms."
The changes aren't rolling out to the main app just yet, and they're actually not even mandatory in this week's beta either — but if you install the new beta you'll be able to see the changes by enabling "Enable Improved Navigation" in Settings. It will remain an opt-in toggle post-beta, with Sonos soliciting feedback "until it's fully polished up."
The beta program is here, if you want sign up and try the changes out, but bear in mind that using beta software always comes with the risk of bugs or other problems.
I think it's fair to say that Sonos is doing things very differently since Tom Conrad took the helm in early 2025, and he was up-front about the app debacle when my colleague Matt Bolton interviewed him earlier this year.
In that conversation he told us that "In the aftermath of [the problems], you just have to show up in people's life with some humility and do the hard work of earning their trust back through great execution, great product, great software, great experiences, and never forget what you put people through". It's great to see him delivering on that promise.
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