IKEA Announces Sonos-Powered Smart Home Devices
Quirky Swedish furniture retailer IKEA has announced a range of Sonos-powered smart home devices that it will begin selling in late 2019.
I can’t find any mention of these offerings on the IKEA or Sonos websites as of this writing. So I’m going to have to go with second-hand reports.
“The products will deliver something that both companies are super proud of,” Sonos CEO Patrick Spence told The Verge. “We’ve given it our uttermost and utter best from the IKEA side and Sonos has done exactly the same from their end,” Ikea global business leader Björn Block added.
Basically, IKEA will be selling at least two smart home device ranges that incorporate Sonos speakers as part of a new and awkwardly-named Symfonisk powered by Sonos range. The Bookshelf Speaker will cost $99 and the Table Lamp, which looks a bit like a Sonos One with a lamp glued to the top, will cost $179. Both will be available in August, and each features AirPlay 2 support but no built-in assistant compatibility. You’ll need an Alexa- or Google Assistant-powered smart speaker, or your phone, to control them. (They will work with the Sonos app and other Sonos-compatible apps like Spotify, too, of course.)
The Symfonisk Table Lamp is apparently “comparable” to the Sonos One when it comes to sound quality, and it features 360-degree audio. And the Bookshelf Speaker can be mounted on a wall vertically or horizontally, where it can be used like a shelf; you can also simply put it on a shelf, of course.
I’m curious to see how good they sound: Sonos speakers are pretty expensive, and still have some compatibility issues, but that latter issue is about to change thanks to coming Google Assistant compatibility. Hopefully these will be a nice addition to the range.