If you like Sonos good news, because the Santa Barbara company plans to compete with Apple in 2024 by launching ‘top’ headphones with headband design, premium audio and advanced connectivity.
After leaving us without new AirPods in its last Keynote in 2023, it seems that Apple is now preparing a complete renewal of its family of headphones that should arrive sometime in 2024, and will feature new AirPods 4 in two flavors that will adopt the USB-C connector and will also give way and prominence to a new generation of AirPods Max for the most premium cut.
In any case, in the next course Apple will grow the dwarfs, and is that the already fierce competition from illustrious firms such as Bose, Sony, Sennheiser or Jabra will be joined, it seems, another of the giants of the premium audio segment as it is Sonos, in his case also very popular for mixing the latest technology and connectivity in their recipes with high quality sound.
The news is not trivial because it was told to us by Mark Gurman himself from Bloomberg, and we already know that good old Gurman is one of the most authoritative voices in the industry in the United States, with sources always well informed and very close to the leading companies in the tech industry.
So, we can almost confirm that Sonos will launch in 2024 its first headphones, and we also have more details such as a price around $ 400 and a ‘top’ approach with the AirPods Max in its most direct horizon, being wireless devices with headband design and specifications of the highest level.
The idea that they move from the Santa Barbara company is, in fact, to compete mainly with Bose and Apple itself, trying the assault on a large market in which they want to take advantage of the synergies of their connected speakers, their synchronization technology and multi-point connectivity, undoubtedly one of the best implementations we have tested for the smart home.
The decision of Patrick Spence and his team is not strange, as Sonos shares had fallen quite a lot after a complicated last few quarters and with drastic reduction in their business volumes, something that the American company intends to alleviate in part by encouraging their fans and customers with a flagship headphones of which for now they refuse to make public comments.
This is the only thing they have said from the direction of Sonos at a conference for investors:
[We will] power a major new product in a new multi-billion dollar category. This marks the beginning of a multi-year product cycle. Patrick Spence, Sonos CEO.
Sonos has reportedly been working on wireless headphones since 2019, though without deciding to enter the segment until now that they have a mature, well-prepared product, with development code “Sonos Duke” and some interesting features: they will sync with other Sonos gear, offer voice control to navigate between songs, and technology from the Irish company RHA Audio that Sonos bought a couple of years ago.
The sound will therefore be tuned to the maximum, there will be total connectivity with the smartphone through a software that internally they call “Passport” and that will allow to control our entire Sonos ecosystem and they will be able to be purchased in black and white, with a design that would be similar to the AirPods Max.
These first Sonos headphones should be ready around next April, although for now the sources do not give us any date that we can take as reliable. We will have to be patient!