New hardware coming? August 27 & 28 Press events

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/cr8hd2/picture_of_sonos_sl_leaks_rumored_to_be_a_micless/

Leaked via photoshop 😂

I'm sure there's a market for this if it's real, people buying 2 to pair together and people with no interest in voice control.

Thanks @chicks. I'm a little less inclined to believe reddit, but there is some logic to it. We shall see.

Plenty of logic for Sonos. If all but the top cover are identical between the One and SL, production costs should be lower vs Play:1; marketing confusion goes away; AirPlay support on both makes the Apple fanboys and fanzines very happy. Hopefully the One and SL will be pairable, as only one of a stereo pair needs the microphone array.

Plenty of logic for Sonos. If all but the top cover are identical between the One and SL, production costs should be lower vs Play:1

Possibly so. It would not be as cheap as not creating that version at all though. Hence why I think such a move would signify Sonos believes there is a strong market for it, vs just keeping the regular Sonos One.

; marketing confusion goes away;

It goes away by simply stopping production of play:1 too.

AirPlay support on both makes the Apple fanboys and fanzines very happy.

Does it? The Apple folks already have the Sonos One as an option.

Hopefully the One and SL will be pairable, as only one of a stereo pair needs the microphone array.

Yes, but that's not helpful to folks who already have a play:1. It helps new customers only.

Really, I think it all boils down to the question of whether there is a market for people who want Sonos One quality, but don't want mics, or believe that mics are worth the extra $50 (or whatever it ends up being). The rest of the reasons really wouldn't matter since this new SL won't do anything that the Sonos One doesn't already do.

For those who (beats me why) still want to use AirPlay, they’ll have three options: $99 for the IKEA, albeit with inferior sound, $149 for the SL, or $199 for the One. Lots of examples of these stair step product offerings out there. Look at cars, for example. People love choices.

If you have audio apps on your iDevices that don’t have a native Sonos streaming app, then Airplay is very useful.

For those who (beats me why) still want to use AirPlay, they’ll have three options: $99 for the IKEA, albeit with inferior sound, $149 for the SL, or $199 for the One. Lots of examples of these stair step product offerings out there. Look at cars, for example. People love choices.

True...along with the lamp and others.

I wonder if Sonos considered this SL product when Sonos One was released, but worried it would impact Sonos One sales negatively and wanted to give it a couple years to establish. Does that also possibly mean that the Sonos Move can possibly be considered a play:3 replacement? And then, assuming the Connect is being replaced, that means play:5, playbar, sub and possibly playbase are all that remains of the 'old line' of products. Does that mean they are next?

play:5 may actually be up to date enough. It has the black/white color scheme, airplay 2 compatibility. What it lacks is voice assistant and auto true play, if that becomes available. Perhaps not enough to warrant an upgrade, but also seems rather important for your best speaker.

playbar, it could use an upgrade for sure, but it feels like it should get more than just colors, hdmi-arc, airplay, and voice control...if atmos or some other advancement is in the near future. I'd say the playbar needs more than just getting the bar up to date, it needs new features.

sub...nothing really to change excpet maybe the finish.

playbase. It's pretty similar to the play:5 really.

I'd assume if there's anything that they need to update in the PLAYBAR, it would include a processor update. Being designed so many years ago, I suspect you could get multiples of the speed of that processor, at a cheaper price these days. If they're going to add any of those things you mentioned, it will certainly need that additional update.

playbar, it could use an upgrade for sure, but it feels like it should get more than just colors, hdmi-arc, airplay, and voice control...if atmos or some other advancement is in the near future. I'd say the playbar needs more than just getting the bar up to date, it needs new features.

We all know that's not gonna happen, but that was said 12 months ago about a wireless speaker so who knows.

Maybe the Sonos Move is the first step to creating a Damson wireless home cinema competitor?
https://www.damsonglobal.com/homecinemav2

playbar, it could use an upgrade for sure, but it feels like it should get more than just colors, hdmi-arc, airplay, and voice control...if atmos or some other advancement is in the near future. I'd say the playbar needs more than just getting the bar up to date, it needs new features.We all know that's not gonna happen, but that was said 12 months ago about a wireless speaker so who knows.

Several months ago, it was leaked that Sonos had sent out customer questionnaire's, under NDA, whether or not they would be interested in atmos. That's not a definitive yes, but certainly not a no either.

I think maybe one could make the argument that Sonos is patient. They don't want to release a product before the technology is ready and then have to put out another product.Going with this theory, it makes sense that they waited to produce a portable speaker until they could 'do it right'. They wanted battery tech to advance enough, they want USB-C cables to establish to transfer enough power, and they wanted bluetooth specs to improve in sound quality. Likewise, you could argue that Sonos wants/wanted to be patient with the playbar till they could do a sound system they felt was good enough. But I speculate.

Maybe the Sonos Move is the first step to creating a Damson wireless home cinema competitor?
https://www.damsonglobal.com/homecinemav2

I've heard of that product before. Looks interesting. No wifi, all bluetooth. I don't know if Sonos really looks at them as competition just yet, since they don't seem to be well known, and have a very different price range. I have no idea what these speakers sound like, so can't comment on that. And I'd say it's very, very unlikely Sonos is going to start doing HT with bluetooth instead of wifi. None of their existing speakers would be compatible with the system, and the HT stream wouldn't be shareable with the rest of the speakers in your home. Maybe some sort of hybrid between 5G and bluetooth is possible, but I doubt it.