It has already been a busy year for Sonos, with the multi-room giant launching new Era 300 and Era 100 smart speakers, which based on our testing are two of its best to date.
Jump on over to our Sonos Era 300 review and Sonos Era 100 review and you’ll see, after hours upon hours of listening, our expert testers were impressed to award both perfect 5/5 scores.
But, as ever, if the tech rumour mill is to be believed, then the Era 300 and 100 are only the start of Sonos' plans this year, with fresh rumblings suggesting it may launch yet more hardware in the not-too-distant future.
Here to help make sure you stay on top of all the latest rumours and don’t fall victim to some of the less credible reports doing the rounds, our team of experts has compiled this guide detailing all the latest rumblings about new Sonos hardware in 2023.
Sonos Era 300 and Era 100 - official
The Sonos Era 300 and Era 100 speakers are the latest smart speakers from Sonos. They hit the market in March following a sea of leaks stemming from The Verge, which first started hitting the headlines the month before in February.
We've since had both in our testing rooms and if you jump over to either our Sonos Era 300 review or Sonos Era 100 review, you'll see we were very impressed, with both scoring a perfect 5/5.
The Era 300 is the larger and more expensive of the two, retailing for £449 / $449 / €499 / AU$749. The Era 100 costs £249 / $249 / €279 / AU$399, by comparison.
The Era 300’s direct rival is the five-star scoring Apple HomePod 2, which we tested earlier this year. This is largely down to the fact that, unlike the 100, the 300 is being marketed by Sonos as "specifically designed" to offer the best experience playing spatial audio with Dolby Atmos tracks.
The device features a new hourglass design that’s shorter and more oval-shaped than its direct rival’s. Within, it houses an atypical speaker arrangement that combines six drivers (four tweeters, two woofers) with custom waveguides that fires audio out forwards, upwards, as well as left and right to create the directional quality expected of Atmos tracks. The drivers are each powered by the Era 300’s own class D amplifier.
As an added bonus it’s also been designed to work as a rear unit with Sonos Arc and Beam Gen 2 soundbars, which could make it an alluring upgrade for home cinema fans as well.
The Era 100 is the smaller option and is effectively a replacement for the Sonos One - which is no bad thing in our opinion as, while we loved the One at launch, it has started to show its age recently. Unlike the 300 it doesn’t support spatial audio, but if you’re coming off a Sonos One then there are a number of notable upgrades.
For starters, it delivers stereo sound. This is a big change to the One, which was limited to mono. The internals have also been completely changed with it housing two angled tweeters with custom waveguides that according to Sonos deliver "detailed stereo separation". Sonos has also added a woofer it claims is 25 per cent bigger and thus capable of delivering deeper bass than the One. Three class D amplifiers power the drivers.
Though it doesn’t support spatial audio, the 100 can still be used as rear speakers with a Sonos: Arc, Beam Gen 1 and Beam Gen 2, and Ray.
These are the only two new products to arrive from Sonos thus far in 2023.
- Read our full Sonos Era 300 review
- Read our Sonos Era 100 review
- Sonos Era 100 vs Sonos One: which Sonos smart speaker should you buy?
- Sonos Era 300 vs Apple HomePod 2: which smart speaker is better?
Sonos Move 2 - rumoured
The Move 2 is the next product Sonos is expected to release this year. There haven’t been lots of credible-looking reports, outside of a 'leak' from The Verge back in February 2023, where it also revealed the existence of the Era speakers.
Considering all the information it showed off about the Era 300 and Era 100 turned out to be true we’re taking its claims of a Sonos Move 2 fairly seriously - though until Sonos confirms the currently fictional device’s existence we can do little other than guess around certain specifics like what changes will be made, or when it’ll actually appear.
That said, considering the current Sonos Move’s focus on being a Bluetooth wireless speaker for use outdoors, as well as a wireless smart speaker, a release in time for summer would make logical sense. This is especially true as having been originally released in 2019, the first-generation Move is beginning to show its age and there are plenty of easy upgrades Sonos could make.
Two key things we’d love is an upgrade to aptX Bluetooth support for higher-quality streaming direct from your phone and general improvements to the speaker’s sound. Testing the original Move, our experts found it was outperformed sonically by the first-generation Apple HomePod. With the Apple HomePod 2 out and offering excellent, 5/5 audio quality during our checks, the Move 2 would have to be a serious update sound-wise if it wants to keep pace.
Sonos headphones - rumoured
There have been rumours flying about Sonos' plans to release a pair of headphones for years.
The first credible rumblings hit the headlines all the way back in 2019 when Bloomberg reported “sources” confirming the Sonos headphones’ existence and that they’ll retail for around £220 / $300 / AU$400. Even if true, given the state of the global economy that price is likely now out of date.
Outside of that, the only other rumour we’re giving any credence came in 2020 when Sonos filed a patent for two different over-ear wireless headphones, one of which looked a lot like the Apple AirPods Max.
We’ve not seen a lot since then, but the patent, Bloomberg's report and Sonos CEO Patrick Spence’s promised expansion into new categories make us think we may well see Sonos headphones arrive this year.
A Sonos TV or projector - rumoured
Last year a number of job listings at Sonos appeared for a new “home theatre” OS project. Protocol followed these up with a report that “multiple sources” had confirmed the project was part of a wider objective for Sonos to play a bigger role in TV streaming.
For us at What Hi-Fi? this indicated that Sonos may be working on an app or new TV OS for other tech manufacturers to use. But the tech world being what it is, the report snowballed into a number of unsubstantiated reports that the firm is working on an actual TV or projector.
We personally don’t think this is very likely given the lack of credible reports on the topic and the fact a company rep laughed when our editor-in-chief mentioned the idea during the Sonos Roam’s launch in 2022. But, given the reports and fact that, even if the headphones exist, Sonos is meant to be expanding into three new categories in the near future, we felt we should at least mention the possibility of a Sonos TV.
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