Sonos says its new app's missing features will be '100% restored in the coming weeks' – and it's extending warranties as part of its apology tour

80% of missing features are already back

News By Matt Bolton published 1 October 2024

Sonos has announced that the company isn't far from bringing its troubled new app up to the level it arguably should have launched at (or, at least, closer to), while also promising some changes in the company's approach to ensure that it won't have the same woes again in the future.

The two headlines for existing Sonos users here are that the company is extending the warranties of existing products still under warranty by a year, and that Sonos now says: "More than 80% of the app’s missing features have been reintroduced and the company expects to have almost 100% restored in the coming weeks. The reliability and speed of the app has improved with each release."

That's good news for everyone who's been struggling with the lack of particular features, though the reliability will be an equal concern for anyone who's invested a lot into a wide range of the best Sonos speakers, and there's a less clear measure for that (after all, anyone who promises you that a network-based app is going to work 100% of the time is someone you can never trust).

Sonos also says it's making four commitments with the goal of "addressing the root causes of the problems with the app release", some which are fuzzier than others. These are [presented unedited – all Sonos's words]:

"Unwavering focus on the customer experience. To ensure that we deliver the highest level of customer experience, we will always establish ambitious quality benchmarks at the outset of product development and will not launch products before meeting these criteria. We will also enhance the tools necessary to measure the quality of the experience actually being delivered to customers to ensure that we maintain the standards our customers expect.

"Increase the stringency of our pre-launch testing phases. Our beta testing program will include more types of customers and more diverse setups for a longer testing period. This will allow us to find, diagnose and solve customer concerns more quickly before going to market.

"Demonstrate humility when introducing changes. In contrast to the all-at-once automated app release we issued in May, any major change to the Sonos app will be released gradually, allowing customers to adjust and provide feedback before it becomes the default. For new features smaller in scope, we will introduce an opt-in experimental features option in the app for customers who would like to participate in testing them.

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