Sonos is opening early access to its new voice assistant, and U.S. customers can now get on the waitlist. Sonos 27voice, the company's rebuilt assistant, goes on the waitlist November 6, with access starting November 12. The rollout comes through an app update that began this week.
The assistant was one of several features Sonos promised when it unveiled its new Sonos 27 software in September. At the time, the company talked mostly about support for third-party AI assistants such as ChatGPT and for custom agents built on its platform. Sonos 27voice is the homegrown piece of that plan, and the company says it can handle more than the basics.
What can Sonos 27voice do?
Like the company's previous Voice Control feature, Sonos 27voice can control playback across Sonos speakers. Users can start music, move playback to another room, group and ungroup speakers and set timers. It can also check the weather and interact with supported smart home accessories. The difference, according to Sonos's support page, is that the assistant understands natural language and can answer a much wider range of general knowledge questions.
Sonos offered several examples. Users could ask for “the Bowie album about an adventure in space” and get the right record. They could ask who won the Super Bowl this year and receive an up-to-date answer. The assistant can also play music based on a mood or genre in a specific room, with a single request. Sonos gave another example that combines both skills: asking who sang at the Super Bowl and then playing that singer's latest album in a particular room.
Who can get early access to Sonos 27voice?
Sonos is keeping the rollout small. Early access is limited to the United States and English-language use. Access to Sonos 27 itself is restricted to hardware that runs on Sonos's S2 platform. The company is testing the feature with a smaller group of users ahead of a full release in 2027, using their feedback to refine the product.
What do Presets do in the Sonos app?
The update also adds Presets, which group music and playback settings so they can be started from a Sonos device with a single tap. Sonos's example involves a listener who wants a specific album playing at full volume in the garage. That setup can be saved as a preset and launched from the homescreen.
Other changes in the update include the ability to swipe on the Now Playing screen or the mini player to skip tracks, along with a way to rearrange favorites. The Sonos app can also work with System Health, a feature available only on iOS. System Health shows information about the system at a glance, including the connection status of individual speakers and the Wi-Fi network each one uses. If part of a setup isn't working correctly, the feature flags the problem so the user can fix it.
The changes are part of a larger push to win back users after the disastrous 2024 app redesign. Sonos CEO Tom Conrad has promised to reverse that setback. The company's latest software, launched in September, also allows users to connect AI agents to the app, and Sonos plans to let users create up to 10 custom agents. Whether the new assistant performs as described will determine how much those promises help rebuild trust with customers who are still weighing the company's app.
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