If you’re waiting on Sonos to announce the next generation of its venerable wireless speakers, wait no longer. The Verge has received lifestyle marketing images of at least part of the new lineup, which has yet to be unveiled by Sonos itself.
The two new speakers that are featured in the leak (and which also have been referenced by an accessories manufacturer) are said to the be Sonos Era 100 and Sonos Era 300. They’re meant to replace the aging Sonos One and, presumably, the discontinued Sonos Play:3 and are said to be headed for a late March release.
The Era 100 looks roughly like the Sonos One — more cylindrical than a rounded box — and is expected to cost somewhere around $250, which is just a little more than the current Sonos One. But it will gain a good bit of functionality with the addition of Bluetooth audio, as well as a line-in function via USB-C — both of which you’re not able to do with the current generation of speaker.
The Era 300 is the big brother, both physically larger and with better audio, including support for up-firing audio for Dolby Atmos support when connected to a TV, and spatial audio otherwise. It’ll cost around $450, which would be about a 50% increase over what the Play:3 originally went for, but also about $100 less than the current Sonos 5.
There’s a lot more left to learn about technical specs, though apparently neither the Era 100 nor the Era 300 have Ethernet ports — that duty would be handled by an adapter. There will still be microphones for voice control — recall that Sonos has its own implementation these days.
We’ll also have to see what sort of deals Sonos might make available if you want to buy these speakers in pairs, which is the sort of thing you’ll have to do if you want to use them with your home theater setup, or even as a strong (if not inexpensive) stereo pair.
And we’ll also have to wait and see just what else Sonos itself has to say about things.
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