Sonos has bought a company specialising in Bluetooth LE Audio, stoking the rumour fire concerning the highly anticipated first pair of Sonos wireless headphones.
T2 Software is a startup based in Louisville, Kentucky. Its specialism is implementing Bluetooth LE Audio, a new standard of Bluetooth Low Energy that promises higher-quality audio over Bluetooth while optimising a device's battery life. Speculation is rife that Sonos will implement the tech in its first pair of wireless headphones which are rumoured to launch soon.
Recently, a patent also revealed that Sonos is investigating making the headphones work over wi-fi as well as Bluetooth, which is another possible solution to the bandwidth issues that come with traditional Bluetooth transmission.
A Sonos spokesperson confirmed the acquisition to Protocol. While they didn't confirm how it would use Bluetooth LE Audio, they also didn't deny it would be used in a pair of headphones.
"Occasionally, we will acquire teams, talent, and/or technology that augment our existing and future product roadmap," the spokesperson said.
The acquisition was completed in November, but has only just been revealed. At the end of last year, it also emerged that Sonos had bought UK headphone maker RHA Audio.
T2 had previously worked with Bose. More recently, it had been working on implementations of Bluetooth LC3, an audio codec for the new Bluetooth LE Audio standard. LC3 is designed to transmit higher-quality audio at lower data rates than currently possible. This will have a major benefit to the battery life of all devices involved, including smartphones, wireless speakers and, yes, wireless headphones.
LC3 can also send out multiple audio streams simultaneously for better stereo pairing and more seamless voice assistant integration. And it can stream to multiple devices at once – so more than one pair of headphones could listen to the same audio simultaneously – much like a multi-room system working over wi-fi.
Throwing even more petrol on the rumour inferno, Sonos recently posted on networking site LinkedIn that it was searching for an advertising agency to help with "one of the most ambitious projects in [its] history." Now what could that be?
It seems a Sonos headphones launch could be getting closer by the day.
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