Multi-room speaker specialist is planning an expanded audio assault
2024 looks like being an absolute bumper year for Sonos launches; that’s if a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman rings true.
Published as part of his weekly Power On newsletter, Gurman claims to have the inside info an a barrage of new devices from the multi-room audio specialist, with not only new wireless speakers to land, but also a couple of devices that will see Sonos enter new categories.
One of those categories is headphones and Sonos has been rumored to be entering this space for a few years now, ever since these patent drawings landed in 2020:
The heat on the headphones rumors was turned up recently during a Sonos earnings call when CEO Patrick Spence stated that 2023 had been a “challenging year” and said they would address that next year by entering a “major new product in a new multibillion-dollar category,” where he expects new devices to contribute a “large portion” of revenue by the second half of the year.
Gurman claims that these headphones are going by the codename ‘Duke’ in-house at Sonos HQ and will arrive in the first half of next year.
They are purported to be over-ear-style headphones, that will costs between $400 and $500 and will be available in black or white.
Presumably these headphones will be able to group and sync with other Sonos speakers and, as per the Bluetooth-portable Move or Roam Sonos speakers, will be able to handoff their audio to nearby speakers too.
Gurman also claims that Sonos is “exploring a follow-up product, the people said: an earbud model that would look similar to Apple’s AirPods.”
The next new category for Sonos could be the set-top streaming box one. The newsletter claims that a TV set-top box codenamed ‘Pinewood’ is scheduled for a late 2024 or early 2025 launch.
Designed to work with your Sonos home theater setup, Pinewood is said to boast Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision.
As well as the new category arrivals, there’s also – less surprisingly – a bunch of new speakers on Gurman’s alleged road map including:
- New in-ceiling 8-inch speakers
- Sonos Roam 2
- Sonos Era 100 for businesses
- High-end Sonos Amp
- Flagship sound bar
- New Subwoofer
Exciting times ahead then for Sonos fans.