I am so glad this is happening — for the hack value itself, but also because a genuinely useful application might result.
I love Sonos, their devices are way ahead of the competition. But their app just plain sucks. What is the most important function of a remote control app? Adjusting volume — and yet the useful range for the volume control occupies less than a percent of the entire touchscreen. It is very difficult to adjust the volume. And Sonos gives you no way to set the useful range, so you often end up blasting your ears with monstrously loud music, because you didn't tap the control just right.
This has been reported to Sonos numerous times and yet we still have to suffer with the crippled volume control.
The volume control is pretty bad, but the insult added to that injury is that it actually used to be better. You used to be able to click anywhere in the range and jump right to that spot on the range.
Further, it is not very granular at all. If you have a playbar, you may have noticed that the difference between mute and the very next volume up from mute is pretty high.
Sonos is not going to fix any of this. They do not care about your complaints about the app. People have been complaining and filing bug reports and pointing out simple UI improvements for years and it does nothing. They have made it clear that they do not care.
I am an early adopter (2005) and own about 12 of these devices and I have been disappointed and dismayed by the UI and the capability of their apps since day one.
> The volume control is pretty bad, but the insult added to that injury is that it actually used to be better. You used to be able to click anywhere in the range and jump right to that spot on the range.
Actually, that solution was horrible for people like myself. I have a player connected to an external amp with no volume control. The amp is big. Which means that the useful volume range on the sonos is up to about 20% (perhaps), at which point the music becomes really loud.
Accidentally tapping the volume slider (and setting the volume to 85%) is a recipe for disaster in that case.
Yes, they work much better — but not when you want to adjust the volume of one particular player in a group. Also, in some cases, the useful range of volume is 5-15% (a zoneplayer connected to an external amp), which is when the jumps using the hardware buttons are just too large.
I just don't get it: volume control is the #1 task for any remote control. If it were up to me, I'd dedicate 25% of screen space to it and tweak it endlessly to get it just right.
I love Sonos, their devices are way ahead of the competition. But their app just plain sucks. What is the most important function of a remote control app? Adjusting volume — and yet the useful range for the volume control occupies less than a percent of the entire touchscreen. It is very difficult to adjust the volume. And Sonos gives you no way to set the useful range, so you often end up blasting your ears with monstrously loud music, because you didn't tap the control just right.
This has been reported to Sonos numerous times and yet we still have to suffer with the crippled volume control.
Here is hoping that there will be an alternative.