[ryanianian]

FWIW there are several third-party mobile applications that work just fine to operate Sonos equipment.

The speakers expose a few SOAP-based APIs to any clients on the LAN. Those allow for track control, grouping, etc. They don't allow adding new music services, but they can do the vast majority of daily interaction. These APIs continue to work nearly flawlessly even for my Play:1 devices that are 10 years old.

Streaming via AirPlay is indeed hit-or-miss, but it hasn't gotten worse in the past couple years.

I control my Sonos from a jQuery-based web application I wrote nearly 10 years ago that runs on a raspberry pi in my closet. I have not had to change anything in several years, and I use my 15+device Sonos system all the time.

The new app is indeed a dumpster fire. Somehow the company managed to make their first-party application worse than any of the third-party applications.

[mandibles]

Any links to good third-party apps?

[fidotron]

I've been using Sonophone on iOS since all this kicked off. Not great, but it works. (For me Sonos breaking NAS media server support was killer, and Sonophone can handle it).

Had this not happened sledgehammers would have been going through speakers.

I would still prefer they rolled back to the old app, or made it as an optional re-release.

[killion]

You can roll back to the old app and firmware. It does take awhile to do but it is listed as "Sonos S1" in the app store.

Because it is older it has problems with dark mode/light mode. But it is as fast and reliable as ever.

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/downgrade-a-sonos-pr...

[fidotron]

Wow I had no idea you could actually “downgrade” things to be compatible with S1. (My units all came with the later app that force updated itself, but appear to be compatible with S1). They had given me the idea the device firmware was ratcheting forward, so once upgraded no way back.

Did this change during all the noise? (Entirely possible I was oblivious)

[reverend_gonzo]

I’ve been using SonoPhone and SonoPad.

It now works instantly. Even my customsd sources work, and they work better than the previous app too.

Only thing is I had to go to the desktop app to get the customsd sources working on a new network.

I haven’t used the official App in months now.

[jeromeparadis]

Thanks for your recommendation! With Sonophone, my group of one Sonos Outside + 2 old Play:3 speakers now reacts almost instantly instead of waiting minutes for that group to be ready to be controlled. Awesome.

[aksss]

If you run Home Assistant already, there are some good Sonos solutions in there.

The actual Sonos integration still works (IIRC) with most of my speakers, in that I can use them as targets in automations involving audio (sees them on network and integrates directly).

The AirSonos add-in makes the Gen1 devices show up on your network as AirPlay targets. IME, AirSonos can be a little buggy since you're going through a bridge but not enough to really matter. It's functional value far exceeds the frustration (90% of the time it works 100% of the time).

With all this, you might be stuck with the old room names set when you had access to the Sonos native app. I think AirSonos lets me mask those names, but every now and then I have to remember that, oh yeah, the Play3 labeled Kitchen is actually now actually bedroomxyz. But again, it works for all intents and purposes. I can airplay from sonos, audible, etc to my gen1 sonos equipment, and that's waaaay better than tossing them into a chinese river (recycling) or a local landfill.

The EEVBlog video about the "Fronos" project (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeIk-4ItQ70) involved embedding a new amp with bluetooth into the Play:5 chasis, and there are certainly amps these days you could consider that have built-in airplay. Something for the project queue. For me, using the above with Home Assistant keeps this project at the bottom of the queue, though it's probably the "right" solution long term.