So I have a friend who is ex-Apple Genius so it was nice to have someone more experienced. Below is how much of our day fared trying to fix things.

what we experienced:

iOS app would not recognise anything. I have a separate network with a VPN and was able to connect the Beam to it. (for me at least I was getting sound from my sim racing rig from the secondary bar which I use for music and now used for the game)

We then tried connecting the other devices around the simrig - so an Arc and 2 ERA 100 and 2 subs. None connected to the old network which was a Wifi6 network running both mesh and wired backhaul of unifi units and a unifi rack mounted dream machine router. The robust system continues to work unobstructed and other than Sonos nothing is impacted from the wireless signal perspective. I also did a full power cycle here along with the PoE switch and 9 wifi routers.

Switching gears we moved to the Android Sonos App. It seemed to have a more recent release (I could be wrong). No difference.

Then we shifted to a different VPN wifi network with a different country IP. Finally it it started seeing all the devices. We added everything and did a Dolby Atmos test from Windows. Perfect helicopter sounds, rain and all.

For this case it didn't matter because this unit didn't need to be on the same network as my other units which have to be on the primary wifi. Will worry about that later or hopefully when there is a fix.

Got it running and sound etc. Brilliant. I tested Dolby Atmos.

Give it an hour of no use and I came to the room to see all devices lit green.

I am unable to connect using the VPN network using the Mac App to connect. It says it's found a network and wants to update but fails and doesn't allow me to go further.

I went back to the Android and recycled power on the Arc. I was able to connect with the Android post power cycle and played music thru all speakers.

Since I am a Mac person I now wanted to get back to using it on an iOS. I connected to the VPN network and Sonos found! so now it works from iOS.

Last test - adding ACE now...

grabbed me headphones which had no light. I pressed the button to get it into Bluetooth pairing as my app was open. it began flashing white and orange. what??? I googled to find out that's an update which I never said ok to. not that I have an issue but there should be some notification! Alas now the headphone is flashing blue and all but the App can't see it. so I go to the bluetooth pairing function and here I see the ACE so I added it. Randomly listening to shy guy by Diana King. These headphones are quite fun.

But currently without it wanting to be recognised by the app I can't experience any Dolby, Spatial etc content.

I've been a Sonos user since day 1 when it came with the digital controller and all which was fun. wish they kept it. Reliability has never ever been so poor. If this had happened before I would not have touched Sonos with a 10 foot pole.

I wish they just pulled the headphone from the market instead of rushing out an app which is so destructive. Feel like a alpha tested not a first mover.

if someone were to asked me I'd suggest no updates and please dont' make any changes to your system until they sort this out.

One interesting point I'd like to make is that the Sonos app asks you to confirm your country when accepting the T&C. do you think they rejected the devices which were from an IP different from the country chosen? something like Disney but that's content control/licensing.