Sonos is planning a 2024 full of new products – including headphones and a set-top box

As the company has strongly hinted in recent weeks, Sonos will indeed release its first-ever pair of headphones next year. That depends BloombergMark Gurman, who pegs the release as early as April. Over-ear headphones are rumored to cost between $400 and $500, which is very premium territory for a brand new company in this category.

At least one notable feature will be its ability to sync music with other Sonos products in your home. The headphones will also include Sonos Voice Control, which actually focuses heavily on music-related commands, unlike other broader voice assistants from Amazon, Apple, and Google. Bloomberg Sonos says it has been working on headphones since 2019 but has canceled previous versions of the product, so the company’s previous patent filings will likely have little impact on the final devices. Sonos could follow up on headphones with its own set of wireless earbuds.

During Sonos’ quarterly earnings call last week, CEO Patrick Spence confirmed that the company plans to enter a “new multi-billion-dollar category in the second half of the (fiscal) year,” which will represent the majority of the $100 million Sonos expects to make from new product launches in 2024. .

Bloomberg It also indicates that Sonos plans to release a streaming TV device in late 2024 or early 2025. The company has telegraphed its interests in video in recent years with job postings related to a “home theater operating system,” as protocol Reported in March of last year. Voice control will play a prominent role in the device, which is described as a small black box, like all other streaming tools nowadays. Sonos is already in discussions with entertainment providers like Netflix to develop apps for the platform, but it may also launch its own service as it has already done in the audio space.

2024 will also see the introduction of the second generation of Sonos Roam portable Bluetooth speakers. It will be updated to be compatible with the top-side controls of the Era and Move 2 speakers. Some customers of the first-generation model complained about reliability and were disappointed with the speaker’s battery capacity over time, so hopefully Sonos will also make some improvements to that ahead.

according to BloombergAccording to our report, other upcoming products include an updated version of the Sub, a business-oriented version of the Era 100 with built-in Ethernet, and a new soundbar — a sequel to the Sonos Arc — scheduled toward the end of 2024. Sonos only recently resolved its “pop” bug ​Noise” has plagued the $900 Arc for some owners since its release in 2020. The revamped speaker will incorporate technology from Mayht, a startup acquired by Sonos in 2022, and could cost significantly more than the Arc at about $1,200. This would put it up against pricier Dolby Atmos speaker sets from Samsung and other tech brands.

The wave of suspended products is intended to jump-start revenues for Sonos devices after consumer demand for the company’s products saw a serious decline in 2023. This led Sonos to lay off 7 percent of its employees in June. And just last week, after Spence said 2024 would mark “the beginning of a multi-year product cycle where we expect to reap the rewards of our R&D investments,” Sonos made further job cuts in its product development team — exactly the group it expects. To be relatively safe as the company pursues new device categories.

“We feel good about the size of the team we have now,” Spence said at the end of the fourth-quarter earnings call. “We see no need to add more people to meet our long-term growth goals.” These goals revolve around what Sonos constantly refers to as the “flywheel,” which is the idea that existing customers will routinely add more products to their Sonos system, occasionally replace old equipment with the latest model, praise the company to other people and continue to expand. Sonos customer base.

The biggest challenge ahead for Sonos when it eventually gets into the headphone and set-top box businesses is to clearly differentiate itself from hugely successful competitors.

Photography by Chris Welsh/The Verge