- Sonos customers have generated AI alternatives to the Sonos app
- Some have a very attractive design and offer easy access to functions
- However, not all of them will be easy to set up and run yourself.
The Sonos app remains a controversial point for people. After a 2024 app patch annoyed basically every customer with bugs and missing features, and the 2025 fixes barely fixed the problems, owners of the best Sonos speakers started looking for alternative solutions.
A groundbreaking update to the Sonos app in March fixed many of the problems, and the company’s new CEO, Tom Conrad, explained to us what went wrong in the first place. But the app doesn’t go far enough for some users, who want to create their own alternatives, either to improve functionality or simply because they’ve gotten an idea about the tool.
Using the power of vibe coding (or regular coding in some cases), there has been a flurry of Sonos owners posting on Reddit creating their own alternative control apps or tools, and some of them look pretty cool.
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Homemade Sonos Apps
Some user-created Sonos apps are simple and have specific functions. Take, for example, Hello Atmos, created by user u/AdrianTubbly. This scans your Spotify playlist to see which of your songs are available in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music, so you can choose to play spatial audio tunes through the Sonos app.
I created a web app to scan Spotify playlist for Dolby Atmos songs. from r/sonos
Others are graphic reviews. I like u/chatMueller’s Sonoshaus, which updates the Sonos app to look like an old stereo receiver. Sure, the designers themselves admit it’s a bit AI-like, but it’s a nice alternative way to control speakers without changing how the app works, and who wouldn’t prefer to play with a physical-looking control instead of sliding a dot along a line?
Sonoshaus – Vibe Coded, a vintage Sonos Controller stereo receiver from r/sonos
There are some apps that are blatantly alternative to Sonos apps. A user named u/SenseChoice7969 used Claude Code to create an app called Arc Controller, which provides many features for Sonos’ high-end soundbar: You can set up sound profiles with custom combinations of volume, equalizer, and subwoofer usage, all of which can change when you toggle them or at specific times.
The user explains how they could have added more features, but “they just needed quick access to the settings that actually changed.” And now they promise to “never open the Sonos app again unless you apply a software update.”
I used Claude Code to create a custom Sonos Arc controller and I will never go back to the Sonos app! from r/sonos
For MacOS users, another user named u/UnTraditional_Speed built a Sonos controller that manages your speakers and playback through your computer (and, I should note, it doesn’t appear to be coded according to what the creator has said. But it seems appropriate to include it here anyway). The app supports multiple languages, dark mode and accent colors, and works with multiple music sources.
macOS Sonos Native Driver – Open Source, Apple Silicon, v2 update from r/sonos
The Sonos app is making leaps and bounds, but because it’s so easy to turn your preferences into an alternative using AI, we’ll likely still see people making their own.
But Sonos would do well to take a look at some of the above, to see if there are any features it can take advantage of for its own software. However, it’s unlikely that people will flock to swap the app for these tools; most are available through Github, which means you have to build them yourself to run them on your computer, and that’s not most people’s speed. But, for enthusiasts, it may be worth it.
Vibe coding, like any other use of generative AI, is fraught with dangers: studies suggest that the quality of Vibe-coded apps is low, the practice has been accused of killing open source software, and there are reports of Vibe-coded apps having massive security flaws. But if you want functionality that the base app doesn’t provide, you have to do what you have to do.
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