At long last, Sonos has unveiled its first-ever pair of headphones, but the Ace will get better over time and here’s why.
The Sonos Ace headphones primarily work with the audio firm’s flagship soundbar, the Arc. You can transfer the audio from one to the other to seamlessly switch to a personal listening experience.
However, it’s a different story when it comes to other soundbars and speakers in the Sonos family. After all, not everyone can afford the Arc.
Sonos says that support for the Beam, Beam 2 and Ray will be added later down the line. I was told “soon after launch” but nothing more specific.
The same is true for Android as the headphones only come with iOS support at launch.
Even after those things are made available, Sonos told me it has no plans to make the Ace headphones compatible with other speakers in the range such as the Roam or Era 100 stating that the user experience wouldn’t be good enough.
You don’t need any Sonos speakers to use the Ace headphones as they have Bluetooth and will work just like rivals from Sony and Bose but these additional features will be a big selling point.
Another one you’ll have to wait for is called TrueCinema, a feature that uses technology similar to True Play to map your living room using both the soundbar and headphones to provide a surround sound experience.
When it arrives ‘later this year’, TrueCinema will be limited to the Arc soundbar with others being added afterwards.
The Sonos Ace headphones go on sale 5 June priced at £449/$449/€499.
The news comes just weeks after Sonos launched a revamped app.
