The Sonos App is the controller for Sonos speakers, soundbars, subwoofers and portable speakers. It sets up new products, plays audio from connected streaming services, groups rooms and adjusts sound settings. The full app runs on iOS and Android (including Fire OS), and a web app gives basic control from a browser.
Streaming services in one library
Instead of switching between music apps, the Sonos App connects accounts from services such as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, YouTube Music, Pandora, TuneIn, iHeartRadio and Audible. You can set one service as preferred. It then appears first in lists, and its results rank higher in search. Sonos Radio, with curated and live broadcast stations, works without a separate account.
Search covers albums, artists, genres, playlists and radio stations across every connected service at once. You can filter results based on what content each service offers. You can save playlists, artists and stations from any service to Sonos Favorites.
Home screen and playback
The Home screen holds collections such as Recently played, Sonos Favorites and pinned content. You can reorder them. A Now Playing bar stays visible while browsing, with a play button whose ring fills to show progress. The full Now Playing view shows the track, artist, album, source service and, where available, audio quality. It has shuffle, repeat and a timeline for scrubbing. A queue lets the listener add, remove and reorder upcoming tracks, though some content types do not support it.
Rooms, groups and volume
The System view lists every output in the home: single rooms, groups, home theater setups, stereo pairs and portables. You can pin rooms and sort them alphabetically, by frequent use or by current playback. Content moves through the output selector, which sends audio to another room or joins several products into a group that plays in sync. Holding the volume slider reveals each product’s level inside a group, and the bar moves in 1% steps.
Speaker tuning and sound settings
Trueplay adjusts a speaker’s output to how sound reflects off the walls and furniture around it. Quick tuning uses the speaker’s own microphones. Advanced tuning has the user walk around the room with an iPhone or iPad while the device’s microphone picks up test tones. Most products need an iOS device for Trueplay, though several newer models support quick tuning from Android. Portable speakers with a microphone can tune themselves automatically.
Each room’s sound settings in the Sonos App also include bass, treble, balance and loudness, which apply on top of Trueplay. Other room settings cover:
- surround and height channel levels for home theater setups
- subwoofer level, crossover and phase, with up to two subwoofers connected at a time
- a maximum volume limit, stereo or mono output, and spatial music
- microphone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and battery status, depending on the product
Alarms, voice and system settings
System-wide settings in the Sonos App handle alarms that start content in a chosen room or group. They also handle parental controls that block explicit content, AirPlay grouping with non-AirPlay products and automatic software updates. You also configure voice assistants here. Sonos Voice Control responds to “Hey Sonos” and can group rooms and save favorites; Amazon Alexa can run on the same product.
Web and desktop control
The Sonos web app runs in a browser, including away from home, and handles starting and stopping audio, grouping products and choosing content. A desktop app for Windows and macOS offers similar basic control. Product setup and system settings require the mobile Sonos App. Older products that cannot run current Sonos software use the separate Sonos S1 Controller app.
