Sonos has officially revealed their new Ace headphones that are expensive at A$699 and they look very similar to what is on offer from arch rivals Bose, Sony, and Bowers & Wilkins with similar features to their competitors except one.
The US audio Company who are struggling to sell their speakers is trying to turn themselves into a broader maker of consumer technology with the Company also releasing a new Roam speaker on the same day that arch rival Bose has delivered a portable speaker. The difference between the two is significant with Bose supporting wireless connectivity and Sonos relying on Bluetooth for their Roam speaker offering.
The new Sonos Ace is an over-ear model that’s also going to have to compete with Apple who recently dumped Sonos speakers from their stores.
The device will go on sale June 6th in black or white options.
There is not a lot of difference between the new Sonos offering with only price accelerating them into the premium market, however they do have a feature which allows you to swap TV audio from your Sonos headphones to another source.
The first switch over button is used for pairing with smartphones, notebooks, and other devices, while the second delivers the “swap” feature that lets the headphones stream audio from a TV.
The company has also made sure that it won’t work with Sonos’ cheaper sound bars or speakers for engineering reasons, but will link up with newer models over time, Spence said.
In the past Sonos has tried to force owners of perfectly good Sono’s speakers to buy new ones because their earlier software was proprietary, and they don’t want to invest anymore in proprietary networking which was a big early mistake with competitors using Bluetooth and Wireless to connect with content and other devices.
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence claims that the swap feature will set the Ace headphones apart from the competition and will be used to try and get people to buy more Sonos devices.
The new headphones look radically different than rival products with the business punting on their name to carry the brand in the hope that their original consumers who purchased their speakers will actually come back and pay a premium price for a Sonos pair of headphones despite the Company having no history in the headphone market and are currently wallowing in losses.
“This has been the most requested product from our customers of all time,” Sonos Chief Executive Officer Patrick Spence said in a recent interview.
“Tens of thousands of customers have reached out asking for headphones, and that’s pretty amazing.” he claims.
He claims that he sees a $5 billion market opportunity for the Ace and believes Sonos can succeed in the space, even with entrenched rivals.
Analysts are less enthusiastic about Sonos’s ability to deliver anywhere near this level of revenue with sales of headphones set to fill a revenue gap caused by falling sales of Sonos speakers.
“We are winning in categories that are declining — like sound bars — and now we’re entering a category that is growing double-digits,” Spence said.
“There are a lot of reasons why this is good for our customers and good for our business.”
He made no mention of the fact that revenues in the last quarter declined 16.9% and the company’s Net Loss more than doubled 127%.
Sono’s speakers, by far its largest category only managed to deliver revenues of $187.3 million which was down by $53.9 million or 22.4% compared to revenues of $241.2 million in the same quarter last year.
Even sales of their third-party products via the lies of IKEA were down.
This division only managed revenues of $16.1 million which was down $2.8 million or 14.6% compared to revenues of $18.9 million in the quarter last year.
Sonos is betting on $1.7 billion in total sales during fiscal 2024, which runs through to September.
Their new Ace headphones have both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity built in.
