The Era 300 will apparently offer support for spatial audio and Dolby Atmos content.
It’s a new era for smart speaker pioneer Sonos. A recent report highlights two upcoming models.
The 300 era and the 100 era
According to The Verge, Sonos is gearing up to launch two new speakers sometime in 2023: the Era 300 and Era 100.
In addition to reporting the names of the speakers, the site also highlighted a recent document from the TV accessory manufacturer Sanus. This documentation mentions the name of the loudspeakers and that wall brackets will be available for both models.
The Era 300 will apparently be the most premium model and will sport an all-new design compared to previous speakers. It also lines up with an earlier report from August 2022 which gave a first look at the high-end speaker.
Here’s more info on what to expect according to The Verge:
The highest-end of these devices is codenamed Optimo 2 – it’s likely the Era 300 – and it’ll be a multi-directional speakerphone designed to make the most of spatial audio. Featuring a completely redesigned acoustic design, the Era 300 will deliver the richest fidelity of any speaker Sonos has ever released. As well as being better suited to immersive spatial audio music tracks, the Era 300 is also likely to offer USB-C line-in, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity and potentially Bluetooth playback as well. These features were all explored during development, although some may change in the final hardware.
It’s possible the Era 100 could be a successor to the Sonos One while still offering capable Dolby Atmos drivers. The Era 100 SL will apparently be the same speaker without voice-activated microphones.
Both speakers would also feature automatic tuning and sound optimization.
When will the new Sonos speakers arrive?
The report offered no additional insight into speaker prices. He only said that the Era 300 and Era 100 will arrive “in the coming months”. Sonos has spent the majority of 2022 introducing lower-cost options like the Ray soundbar and Sub Mini subwoofer.
A more crowded smart speaker market
Sonos speakers have always been known for their high sound quality, at a price. The high-end smart speaker market continues to get crowded with the second-generation Apple HomePod and other options from Google and Amazon.
So it will be interesting to see if upcoming Sonos products can help the company gain a foothold further.
