Just putting it out there. Hope option for Front speakers happen soon.

Sigh.  Sonos wouldn’t explicitly disable a feature which would sell more speakers unless there were actual problems with the implementation under some conditions.  Problems which are specifically stated in the reddit post quoted above. 

Who in their right mind, surrounded by kith and kin, spends $1,000 on a wireless soundbar only to use it as a center speaker?

One thing mentioned in the post was the of 6Ghz. Let’s say Sonos finds the right formula to make having left/right speakers flanking the Arc series and/or Beam2. The elephant in the room become a network issue requiring those that support 6Ghz. Today that maybe a ask for a user to upgrade their network maybe not so much further down the road as 6Ghz become a standard.

Someone that uses soundbar for just TV watching (mainly during the week with sub and surrounds off) and also for part of home theater setup when watching movies (mainly during weekends with full speaker utilization). Especially 4k movies.

It is called flexibility and options. Many consumers enjoy it. 

I doubt, and don’t think it’s possible for tuning to be accurate when there are speakers present that are not actually tuned. Those 2 front speakers may have no tuning applied, or they may just get copy of the tune for the soundbar.  Not sure, but I can’t see that really being good enough for Sonos to just pass off as being an actual tune of the speakers.

You’re missing the point.  If you have front Era 300s in your setup, much the Arc Ultra is overkill and wasted in your setup.  The upfiring speakers, side firing speakers, and wider front stage of the Arc  Ultra have no value in this setup and very likely sound better with them turned off than on.  Given the backlash Sonos received for turning off the front speakers of Era 300s when used as surrounds, it’s hard to imagine this will be ok with consumers.

Yes, there would potential be up to 6 upfiring speakers, with potentially 2 pair of speakers providing the same audio location from the ceiling. The pairs could maybe share the load, or turn them off, which as I mention before doesn’t go over well with consumers.  Again, this is a big reason why a Beam makes a lot more sense for this configuration than an Arc.

A system isn’t neutered when it already has all the features that it was designed and marketed to do. Yes, they may get more speaker sales, but they may also get more dev and support costs and could hurt an already damaged reputation with consumers if it does not work as well as it should, which seems to case.

As far as other manufacturers go, I’m not aware of any other product that allows wireless front 3 speakers, 2 wireless rear speakers, 2 wireless subs, with multiple upfiring and side firing speakers.  Wired?  Yes.  And that has also been an option that existed.  

It would very likely be a win for me personally, and a lot of others who already have a lot of Sonos gear and don’t mind experimenting.  There are good reasons to believe it would not be a win in the eyes of consumers at large.

Will touch more on the above in next day or so. Busy with work. But I just wanted to add this for all to see.

“Going forward, Sonos will focus on nudging customers to add more of the brand’s core devices to their existing setups, rather than branching too far into new product areas. “We see a $5 billion revenue opportunity in driving devices per multi-product household higher to six per home, and another $7 billion in converting single-product households to current multi-product levels,” said CEO Tom Conrad on Wednesday following the release of the company’s fiscal 2025 and fourth-quarter results.

Sonos aims to “unite every dimension of sound” into “one cohesive and radically easy system,” he added. It also views artificial intelligence and conversational chatbots as a “new frontier” for its platform.”

To me? That sounds like an amazing and wonderful opportunity and plan for not only front speakers but definitely  have a way for DTS:x to finally enter the home theater setup.

I think Sonos would be better off designing a “Super Connect” device that enables customers to piece together an individual Sonos system.

Highly support your idea. Believe that is part of what Pinewood device was going for. Sadly, it was canceled.

The completely avoidable and unnecessary App disaster still has Sonos little scared and reallocating resources. It is possible may not see a new product in 2026. At least not until 4th quarter.

Why are you doing all this speculating?  Everything you want to know about this feature; why it was pulled, what the problems are, what are the possible solutions, and even a hint on whether or not it is coming and when, are spelled out quite clearly by the CEO himself in the reddit link given in this very thread.

To me, it sounds like Sonos is looking to convince customers to add a sub, surround sound speakers, or additional rooms. 

I think that the previous CEO was under the believe that Sonos needed to constantly release new features and software, even if it wasn’t ready or was prone to issues. The new CEO is taking a much more measured approached, without making any big splashes, and although the stock hasn’t been doing great, it’s been ok.  

I believe Conrad was hinting at the 1st half of 2026.  I would link the article, but I believe it was in bloomberg that let me read it one time, and then put up a paywall.  I actually think it’s the same article that has your quote above.  Either way though, I expect this ‘new product’ to be more of a refresh/update of an existing product. The Ray for example, could probably benefit from updating hardware, ARC support, and perhaps add voice control.  It would also make sense for Sonos to make a low end bookshelf speaker to replace the ikea/sonos bookshelf speakers that are going away.

I'm waiting for the Era-500 to show up, the best of the Era-300 and Five plus a bit more. 

​@melvimbe Pretty sure it was Bloomberg, so we’re on same article. They are notorious for paywalls. Really thinking on set my browser up block Bloomberg just to avoid giving them a free click for nothing.

Former Sonos CEO was really tone deaf to customer wants and needs at the end and ultimately lost job or was pushed out. That CEO I really like compare to Don Mattrick with how, in span of 15 mins, he single handed hurt Xbox tremendously and destroyed what incredible momentum the Xbox 360 era had to the slow descent of joke Xbox has become today. Really is a shame.

Agree, the current Sonos CEO wanting have higher attach rate or add-on sales for products. Every CEO tries for that, of course. Have to figure selling 4 Era 300s for surround sound would absolutely make stock holders smile. Yes, there are the small contingent of usual suspects on here that absolutely do best play Negative Nancys to anything a person here suggests, and ever constant in saying no one wants front speakers (or other options) but they are grossly incorrect.

Lot people want a front speaker option -- it’s all over forums that are beyond Sonos -- then factor in good many people not even realize is “possibility”. Given that option customers will want jump on it. Just like lot people not know now or even think 2 subs are possible -- they LOVE it once have 2 subs -- heck, I’m looking to add second sub in near future. So the market is there and waiting for front speakers. That untapped and unrealized potential of customers should not be ignored or casually dismissed at all. It is just leaving money on the table.

Sonos should be taking advantage of customers having excellent Sonos home theater setup that is centerpiece to other Sonos speakers in customer’s house. It will multiply sales when friends and relatives see that Sonos home theater centerpiece and want their own … and other Sonos speakers in their house. Free advertisements, basically.

I’m also 110% with ​@Stanley_4 on seeing some Era 500s show up soon. Maybe Beam Gen 3, too. Would love see them release like yesterday, I’ll buy for sure. Have figure both will support Atmos and customers using Fives now for front speakers say is amazing. Imagine Era 500s would not only be more expensive (more revenue for Sonos) than Era 300s but also step-up in quality, that’s more speaker sales. More speakers going out the door to customers. More stockholders happy. One CEO with more job security.

It is a win-win for everyone -- the stockholders, the customers. And it hurts no one.

If want front speakers? Great! Buy them. If not want front speakers? No big deal. Don’t have buy them. If like setup way it is? Keep it way it is. It’s beautiful situation be in.

Good grief.  Do I need to quote and bold the entire post? 

https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/1kl50g0/comment/msb0ou4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Oh boy, same. I’d love to be able to set up Era 100s or 300s as discrete front left and right channels too. It’s one of those ideas that just feels right. And I want you to know that posts like this - direct, passionate, clear - are one of the reasons we pay close attention to Reddit. You help point us toward the kind of experiences people are hungry for, and this is a great example.We’ve actually done a fair bit of work on this over the years, including an external beta where we let people try out a front L/R setup using speakers like the Ones. The bones of that effort are still buried in the software, which is how tools like SonoSequencr can recreate the configuration today.

But what we learned in the process gave us some humility. It turned out that pushing discrete front channels over wireless, especially that close to the soundbar in some homes could cause a lot of packet drop and bandwidth issues. That created dropouts right in the front soundstage. That kind of thing is unforgiving. It’s super noticeable and totally undermines the experience.We also found that tuning the front soundstage in those configurations was tricky. Without precise positioning, getting the balance right between the soundbar and the extra speakers was harder than you’d expect. And when you add in multi-channel speakers like the Era 300, the challenge only grows.

That said, we’re investing here. Arc Ultra and the latest Era speakers support 6GHz WiFi, which gives us more bandwidth to work with and helps reduce interference. We’re also getting smarter about how we understand room layouts and speaker positions, which should go a long way toward making these kinds of setups more feasible and better sounding.

We’re not going to get there in 2025, but this is definitely something we want to bring to life the right way. We know how much flexibility and richness this kind of configuration could add to home theater. And we want to build it in a way that doesn’t just technically work, but feels magical.

My guess is their testing was quite a while ago and home wireless network bandwidth/speed is much improved, since. I’ve been running the front L/R setup via SonoSequencr with Arc, two Sub Minis and rears on a wireless network with about 30 other connected devices and it works great!

So are they going to require everyone who wishes to add fronts to own the most up to date wireless network?  I guess that works . . . sort of . . . for some. 

Depends on how old their testing is. If it’s years old, most people probably already have better Wi-Fi that will handle more devices. That said, Sonos has always required decent Wi-Fi, so it would be nothing new.

I would guess that the volume of returns they would get of people who bought speakers for front but had to return them because it doesn’t work for them, would outweigh any additional sales.  Not to mention that selling products/features that ‘might work’ isn’t good for your brand image.

It’s also my personal opinion that it’s not a good look to sell a $1000 soundbar that needs additional front speakers to sound as good as it could be. No other company does this for a reason.

“Most people”?  “Probably?” I’ve been in software development for 30+ years, and if I ever suggested we develop our software so that it is reliable for “most people” who “probably” have the required hardware, I’d have been fired a long time ago. 

Were I Sonos, I’d be willing to hedge bets people in the Sonosphere are already running ample Wi-Fi setups for the modern connected world. Again, though, that assumes their testing was at least a couple years ago or more. And the issue he mentions may be more due to placement than Wi-Fi capacity. Bottom line, people are already doing this, albeit with SonoSequencr, and loving the results. Pretty easy to caveat it with “must have at least Wi-Fi version blah and front speakers should not be placed closer than blah feet from soundbar.” They could even solve the other issues he notes (tuning/multi-driver speakers) by simply adding center-channel adjustment, which needs to happen anyways, and limiting which speakers can be used as fronts. Era 300s seem better served as rears. After having tried my Era 100s as fronts, I moved those to be rears, where they are MUCH better suited, and put my Symfonisk bookshelf speakers up front. Those are absolutely ideal as fronts. Simply no need for multi-driver speakers, there, the soundbar and rears will still provide immersion effects.

And how long after those disclaimers are published would you see the first post that says “I shouldn’t have to upgrade my entire network just to add speakers to my system!!!!!” and “I should be able to place my speakers anywhere I wish!!”

My bet is under 2 minutes . . .  Matter of fact, I could probably name the poster who does it. 

I’ve also been in software development for 30+ years. Minimum system requirements are nothing new. 

There will always be cranky “get off my lawn” types who will say those things, yeah. The bottom line is Sonos, if not hard-wired, has always required a decent to good Wi-Fi setup. And it’s always been a potential issue placing disparate Wi-Fi devices too close to each other. These things are nothing new, and as Wi-Fi continues to evolve, so too can complexity of capabilities. 

And I think the CEO’s message on reddit is quite clear that they are not at the point where the functionality can be released to the general public.  He did say they are close, though.  So there is that.

Thus the reason for my caveat regarding when their testing took place. I’ve been running the following setup via SonoSequencr for a bit now, and it’s working perfectly: Arc, Symfonisks for fronts, two Sub Minis, Era 100s for rears. Granted, I have FiOS 2GB w/Wi-Fi 6e, but I also have like 30+ devices connected, wirelessly. I’m doing it now, so it can be done, now. Anyways, thanks for the spirited discussion and Happy Holidays!

There’s a bunch of anecdotal evidence of it working.  Unless we were in on the discussions held during the beta, we don’t know how those anecdotes relate to the aggregate.  We also don’t know how Sonos evaluates the effects of an unreliable implementation on brand image, support costs, etc.  

Anyway, Happy Holidays to you too.