Here’s your firmware update for May 25, 2024
This week we were treated to new Microsoft AI and laptop announcements, the arrival of Sonos’ first-ever headphones, and the launch of the new Sonos Roam 2 speaker.
To get you caught up to speed on these and others, we’ve rounded up the top seven tech news stories that happened in the last seven days.
Scroll down to read them, and we’ll catch you next week for another quickfire tech news round up.7. The Sonos Ace landed with Dolby Atmos and ANC
In a week that saw the multi-room audio pioneer deal with criticism from fans over how it handled its recent controversial app overhaul, Sonos would much rather you focus on its shiny new product additions – including its first-ever headphones.
They’re called the Sonos Ace, and they are wireless, over-ear cans with nice slimline ear cups. Yes, the aesthetic is remarkably similar to the Apple AirPods Max, but with more pill-shaped ear cups and a softer Sonos-white finish. However, as you’d imagine, the feature set is quite different. They have Wi-Fi built-in and can connect to a Sonos soundbar to play all your TV’s audio from it, in head-tracked spatial audio. That said, this feature only works with Sonos Arc at launch but will come to the Sonos Beam, Sonos Beam Gen 2, and Sonos Ray in the future.
What can’t they do? Surprisingly, they cannot work with your Sonos multi-room system. To explain, they can’t do what the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 lets users of Bowers & Wilkins Formation products do: easily switch between listening at home – maybe on their Zeppelin or Formation Wedge speakers – and listening on the move, with their B&W headphones. That was an industry first, but given Sonos’ admirable collection of speakers, it’s surprising not to see some sort of audio handoff solution in its debut headphones…
Read more: Sonos announces its first headphones with noise cancellation and Dolby Atmos 6. Sonos casually released the Roam 2
Sonos also unveiled a follow-up to its Sonos Roam – one of the best Bluetooth speakers – this week with the Roam 2, though there was much less fanfare for this product than the Ace headphones.
Perhaps because, save for a couple of small design changes – the logo now matches the color of the speaker; there are more color options with green, blue, and red options joining the original’s black and white; and there’s a dedicated Bluetooth button – the Roam 2 doesn’t seem all that different.
The $179 / £179 / AU$299 price, IP67 waterproof rating, and meager 10-hour battery life all remain. We’ll have to test its audio abilities to see if they’ve improved, but if you already own a Roam, it looks like a Sonos Move 2 might be a better upgrade option.
