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Sonos rolls out fix for iOS battery drain issue

If the Sonos app has been eating away at your iPhone or iPad battery, you should install the latest update ASAP.

If the Sonos app has been eating away at your iPhone or iPad battery, you should install the latest update ASAP.

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A marketing image of someone using the new Sonos app.
A marketing image of someone using the new Sonos app.
Image: Sonos
Chris Welch
Chris Welch is a senior reviewer who has worked at The Verge since its founding in 2011. His coverage areas include audio (Sonos, Apple, Bose, Sony, etc.), home theater, smartphones, photography, and more.

The hits just keep coming. As Sonos works to get its app back to a better place, it managed to introduce a pretty nasty iOS battery drain problem with last week’s update. Customers were quick to notice and were none too happy with the company for yet another foul-up. Some reported battery usage of well over 50 percent, with the Sonos app running in the background for hours and hours and gradually draining their phone’s charge.

Today’s update to the Sonos app should resolve the battery issue, according to the release notes. The company has committed to rolling out improvements to the software on a biweekly cadence, but according to Sonos community manager Keith Nieves, the team wanted to get this fix out ASAP.

Some customers have embraced third-party apps like SonoPhone while the official app continues through this rough patch. In last week’s letter from CEO Patrick Spence, Sonos laid out planned improvements that it plans to deliver through October. Those include things like improving volume consistency, alarm reliability, and restoring the ability to edit playlists and the upcoming queue from within the Sonos app.