If you've been holding on for the long-awaited Sonos headphones, your patience could soon be rewarded – the wireless audio giant has dropped a strong hint that its Bose and Sony rivals will land by October.
In a Sonos 2024 earnings call on February 6 (transcribed by The Motley Fool), the company's CEO Patrick Spence teased that "we are just months away from announcing our highly anticipated new product in a multi-billion dollar category, which will be the first major milestone of our multi-year product cycle."
While that isn't too specific about the product or the release window, Spence went on to add that this product cycle will involve entering "new categories" and the launch of new products "starting with the one we will be announcing and shipping in Q3".
A Q3 release means sometime between July and September. And while don't know for sure that this launch will be for the Sonos headphones, it does tally with the latest rumors and the company's previous hints of a headphones launch in the "second half" of 2024.
Last year, Bloomberg reported on a leaked memo revealing that Sonos already had a dedicated headphones team, which had apparently been working on a pair of headphones for "more than four years".
That leak suggested that Sonos is also working on new home products and voice control tech, while we're also expecting to see a Sonos Arc 2 in 2024. But it seems Sonos' new headphones could also be challenging for a spot in our guide to the best wireless headphones in a matter of months.
Worth waiting for?
Rumors about a pair of Sonos headphones have been doing the rounds since early 2019. Considering there are already some excellent wireless headphones out there, from the Sony WH-1000XM4 to the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless, it might seem strange that there's still so much excitement about Sonos entering the space – but there are good reasons for this.
Firstly, there's the obvious fact that Sonos is still one of the most revered and popular audio tech brands out there. But the hype is also rooted in some concrete details like Sonos' 2022 acquisition of Mayht, a Dutch company that developed a new kind of speaker design. That technology, dubbed 'HeartMotion', apparently delivers similar audio power to a pair of speakers, only in a much smaller package.
It seems likely that Sonos will integrate some of this tech in its rumored headphones – and on paper, those ingredients could certainly create some of the best noise-cancelling headphones out there.
As we've discussed in our breakdown of 4 things we want from the Sonos headphones, there's lots of potential beyond outright sound quality too – including audio handoff with your Sonos speakers and advanced ANC (active noise canceling) with spatial audio tricks. So if you're in the market for some premium wireless headphones, it could be worth waiting a few months to see what Sonos has in store.
