SONOS announced major updates to app

[Skull]

And still not fixed.

‘A profound mistake’: Sonos’ CEO talks about its broken app and why it’s been so hard to fix

Tom Conrad tells us about his first 100 days as Sonos CEO, and why he's optimistic the disastrous app launch is finally a closed chapter.

www.digitaltrends.com

Let this be a warning for WiiM on how to not make product software.

Still using my Sonos speakers on the old software as i never updated last may, however my music is now provided by a WiiM ultra plugged into my 5s and I use Sono+ widget app to control volume and grouping
In fact I no longer have Sonos software on my iPhone just on an old iPad just in case I need tweaking done
They certainly screwed the pooch last year

 

[cc_rider]

Sonos has launched some major updates to their app with a focus on UX and maintaining their lead in this area over competitors!

I think! WiiM needs to move in this direction - things like universal search that works properly, web app that can be run on any device, and of course the way sonos manages favourites and metadata...

Sonos Launches ‘Reimagined’ App with Customizable Home Screen

Sonos launched a new mobile app, merging content and controls on a customizable home screen, providing users a faster, better, personalized experience.

www.audioholics.com

This certainly didn’t age well…

 

[Wiimer]

And still not fixed.

‘A profound mistake’: Sonos’ CEO talks about its broken app and why it’s been so hard to fix

Tom Conrad tells us about his first 100 days as Sonos CEO, and why he's optimistic the disastrous app launch is finally a closed chapter.

www.digitaltrends.com

Let this be a warning for WiiM on how to not make product software.

What do you mean?
(Sorry if I misinterpreted your words.)

To begin with, Linkplay is a software company and has the WiiM app; Sonos' failure has nothing to do with WiiM...

 

[hgo58]

What do you mean?
(Sorry if I misinterpreted your words.)

To begin with, Linkplay is a software company and has the WiiM app; Sonos' failure has nothing to do with WiiM...

No of course not.

I just say that the bad experience with working in silos that Sonos got shall not be repeated by WiiM and WiiM can learn from it.

What did you think I was saying?

 

[Wiimer]

No of course not.

I just say that the bad experience with working in silos that Sonos got shall not be repeated by WiiM and WiiM can learn from it.

What did you think I was saying?

I may have misinterpreted or mis-translated it, but it sounded like you were saying "don't make software".

 

[hgo58]

I may have misinterpreted or mis-translated it, but it sounded like you were saying "don't make software".

Ok. I see.

No. WiiM makes good software and I don't want to see them fail as Sonos did.

It's hard to make good software, trust me. And end-user software, as WiiM is doing, is always a compromise between complexity and user requirements, that can result in failure if not handled carefully.

 

[Wiimer]

And end-user software, as WiiM is doing, is always a compromise between complexity and user requirements, that can result in failure if not handled carefully.

Agreed.
I wish you had said that first .

 

[rubato]

This certainly didn’t age well…

It ended well for me. After twelve years of using Sonos, I switched to WiiM and have never been happier

This is really one for the books. The initial mistake was bad enough, but then Sonos compounded it by denying and stonewalling, refusing to roll back to a working version, and promising fixes that apparently still haven't materialized. The new CEO seems to understand all of this, but as far as I'm concerned anything they can do now is too little and far too late.

 

[BowsAndArrows]

This certainly didn’t age well…

Yeh, i guess i was overly optimistic. Never used Sonos anyways. But some of the ideas i still think, if implemented better, could be useful additions to a music app...

 

[Danny Linguini]

Ok. I see.

No. WiiM makes good software and I don't want to see them fail as Sonos did.

It's hard to make good software, trust me. And end-user software, as WiiM is doing, is always a compromise between complexity and user requirements, that can result in failure if not handled carefully.

The problem here is, you can’t compromise too much on the user experience. The irony is that the simpler you make it for the user, the more complex the software is. I think WiiM has struck the perfect balance; when a tech dinosaur like myself can pop it open and do everything I need to do without having to dig through a manual, that’s a sign of good, solid design and execution. Apparently Sonos missed the mark on both counts. Lucky for me and others like me, WiiM came along at just the right time with a rock-solid product.

 

[johnsmallberries]

The problem here is, you can’t compromise too much on the user experience. The irony is that the simpler you make it for the user, the more complex the software is. I think WiiM has struck the perfect balance; when a tech dinosaur like myself can pop it open and do everything I need to do without having to dig through a manual, that’s a sign of good, solid design and execution. Apparently Sonos missed the mark on both counts. Lucky for me and others like me, WiiM came along at just the right time with a rock-solid product.

Sonos is still better if you have your own Music library, since it can keep 64K songs in the playlist.

 

[dudu]

Sonos is still better if you have your own Music library, since it can keep 64K songs in the playlist.

I am unable to manage a playlist with 64k songs.

 

[slartibartfast]

Sonos is still better if you have your own Music library, since it can keep 64K songs in the playlist.

I believe you want to play your whole library on shuffle. There are other ways to do that if you are open to using alternatives to the WiiM Home app. I expect all of the commonly recommended media servers can do it.

 

[johnsmallberries]

I believe you want to play your whole library on shuffle. There are other ways to do that if you are open to using alternatives to the WiiM Home app. I expect all of the commonly recommended media servers can do it.

Well the thing about Sonos is that the device holds all the songs, so no app is required. I just load the 21k or so songs that I have into the Sonos, shuffle, and then hit play whenever I want to listen to something. It probably isn't a pattern that most people use these days though, but I would like to get rid of my Sonos Kinda strange that WiiM can't take a list of 64k songs, which on the surface doesn't seem to be all that large in this day and age. Just to be clear I don't "manage" the playlist. It's just there to randomly pick a song.

 

[slartibartfast]

Well the thing about Sonos is that the device holds all the songs, so no app is required. I just load the 21k or so songs that I have into the Sonos, shuffle, and then hit play whenever I want to listen to something. It probably isn't a pattern that most people use these days though, but I would like to get rid of my Sonos Kinda strange that WiiM can't take a list of 64k songs, which on the surface doesn't seem to be all that large in this day and age. Just to be clear I don't "manage" the playlist. It's just there to randomly pick a song.

In another post you said you were using an always on server. Can't you install a decent media server on that?

 

[simbun]

In another post you said you were using an always on server. Can't you install a decent media server on that?

I think he means that each speaker holds a copy of the index (hence the limit). The music will be on a NAS.

 

[johnsmallberries]

In another post you said you were using an always on server. Can't you install a decent media server on that?

I think he means that each speaker holds a copy of the index (hence the limit). The music will be on a NAS.

Yeah, the music server is irrelevant imho. The WiiM Amp has a 1000/2000 song limitation depending on whether or not those songs references hold a upnp or SMB path. It's just not enough if you want to use the device as a "jukebox" and just randomly play stuff. While not the use case today, this is the use case that brought Sonos to life, back before streaming was a thing. Some of us just predate streaming yet want to get rid of our Sonos

 

[slartibartfast]

Yeah, the music server is irrelevant imho. The WiiM Amp has a 1000/2000 song limitation depending on whether or not those songs references hold a upnp or SMB path. It's just not enough if you want to use the device as a "jukebox" and just randomly play stuff. While not the use case today, this is the use case that brought Sonos to life, back before streaming was a thing. Some of us just predate streaming yet want to get rid of our Sonos

The music server is only irrelevant in your case as you aren't running decent music server software on it. Minimserver and Lyrion are just two examples. Then you don't need to rely on the WiiM Home app.

 

[johnsmallberries]

The music server is only irrelevant in your case as you aren't running decent music server software on it. Minimserver and Lyrion are just two examples. Then you don't need to rely on the WiiM Home app.

My use case is that I hit the Play button on the WiiM (or send a PLAY command) and it plays the next item from a large random queue. In the case of SMB alone (no music server), nothing else is required other than network protocols. I did look at some of the posts on LMS but it was unclear if that even worked without plugins or if I had to do something with the music server api first, rather than just sending the renderer a PLAY. Just from a standpoint of migration from Sonos, it's not apples-apples because there are some additional hoops to go through, to get what was automatic with Sonos. Yet this use case is probably not very important to most users these days. I would point out the use case is actually solved by WiiM it's just limited to 1000/2000 items in the list..... The queue just needs to be increased to 64k for parity with Sonos.