Sonos appoints software veteran Hugo Barra to its board following app issues.

Sonos is making changes to its board of directors as part of a recovery effort following issues experienced with its app last year. In a recent announcement, the company confirmed the addition of Hugo Barra to the board, who will replace Mike Volpi, who is stepping down after serving for 15 years, the longest tenure of any member.

Hugo Barra has an extensive professional background, including senior positions at various companies, such as Google, where he was instrumental in the early growth of the Android ecosystem. He later worked at Xiaomi, overseeing global operations for the well-known Chinese phone company. He also had an important tenure at Meta, where he served as Vice President of the Oculus virtual reality division.

Currently, Barra is a co-founder and product lead at /dev/agents, a company dedicated to developing a next-generation operating system for artificial intelligence agents. Sonos has expressed its satisfaction in having Barra on the board, as his experience and skills are highly valued, especially in the field of technological innovation, which could benefit the company in the future.

The company is committed to improving the performance of its mobile app by fixing bugs and adding new features, as well as some functionalities that have yet to be implemented. In this context, Sonos has decided to cancel its next hardware product, a streaming video player codenamed Pinewood, an announcement that was made last month.

Although the product roadmap is undergoing changes, there are other projects underway, such as a dedicated audio and video receiver, as well as a sequel to the Era 100 smart speaker, which recently received a price reduction. According to sources close to the company, the work environment has been improving in recent months, as interim CEO Tom Conrad is taking steps to realign Sonos's direction and refresh its management team.