As an audio brand, Sonos is pretty well known for its speakers and sound bars. Headphones on the other hand, not so much. But that may change as soon as April next year, as the brand prepares to launch a couple of personal audio products, as well as a TV set-top box.
Bloomberg reports that Sonos has plans to announce a pair of high-end over-the-ear headphones sometime in April of next year. It goes by the codename Duke, and comes with a rough price range of between US$400 (~RM1,867) and US$500 (~RM2,334), so to say that it would be a pretty premium pair of headphones would be underselling it a bit. But then again, that’s about where the brand prices its speakers and sound bars relative to the competition anyway.
Worth noting is that we first saw plans for a pair of Sonos headphones back in September of 2020, in the form of a patent filing. It’s been a fair amount of time since, and the new report indicates that some parts of the plan has indeed been changed. Going back to the report, one standout feature that these Sonos headphones are said to have is the ability to sync with the brand’s hardware, just as described in the patent. It will also support voice control for navigating between songs.
Also mentioned in the report was “an earbud model” that was described as a follow-up model. This appeared in a separate patent granted in 2021, though since it is described as looking similar to the Apple AirPods rather than the AirPods Pro, this likely means that it won’t have tips that go into your ear canals. The report does not mention price estimates for the TWS buds, nor a release window for that matter. But it is also noted to support “the current version of Sonos voice commands”.
Beyond personal audio, the report also mentions a TV set-top box coming at either the end of 2024 or early 2025. As you’d expect from such a product category, this is expected to serve as a central hub for all the Sonos deviced under the same roof, as well as the usual streaming of video on TVs. The brand has plans for including services like Netflix, though today this kind of goes without saying. As for its eventual price, the report pegs it between US$150 (~RM700) and US$200 (~RM934).
(Source: Bloomberg)
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