Sonos has long been rumored to be working on its first set of headphones, but if they are truly coming, it might not be for awhile.
During Sonos’s quarterly earnings call Wednesday, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence told investors that in the coming fiscal year, the company will be “focused on launching new products in our existing product categories.”
That statement would appear to rule out headphones, which would be an all-new product category for Sonos.
Sonos’ fiscal year begins in September, so based on Spence’s statement, it could be at least seven months before Sonos unveils a new product–such as headphones–in a new category.
During the call, Spence noted Sonos’s “commitment to launching at least two new products per year.” Given that Sonos released the second-gen Sonos Beam soundbar at the beginning of the company’s 2022 fiscal year, we can “expect to see at least one additional product launch from [Sonos] later this year,” Spence said.
Among Sonos’s existing product categories are connected speakers, soundbars, amplifiers, and network audio streamers. The last time Sonos made a big push into a new category was in 2019 with the Bluetooth-enabled Move, Sonos’s first portable speaker, which can also connect to Wi-Fi.
Reached for comment by TechHive, a Sonos rep said the company did not have “any additional information to share at this time.”
There have been rumblings for years about Sonos going into the headphone market. The rumor mill went into high gear earlier this month after Sonos acquired a Bluetooth audio startup that specializes in LE Audio, a new Bluetooth standard that offers a boost in SBC (the default Bluetooth codec) audio quality while using the same amount of bandwidth.
Late last year, Sonos acquired RHA Technologies, a British tech firm that was working on a high-end noise-canceling headphone that could be the basis for an eventual Sonos headphone.
Here is Spence’s full statement about Sonos’s product plan for the coming fiscal year:
As we look forward, we have a robust and exciting future product road map. As a reminder, we refresh existing products, release new price points in existing categories and also have opened up new categories and services over time. With general availability in early 2021, Beam Gen 2 marked our first product introduction of fiscal 2022. Beam Gen 2 is the newest version of our industry-leading compact smart soundbar for TV, music, gaming and more. The new Beam delivers a refreshed and upgraded more immersive sound experience with greater depth and clarity as well as support for Dolby Atmos. Given our commitment to launching at least two new products per year, you can expect to see at least one additional product launch from us later this year. In fiscal 2022, we are focused on launching new products in our existing product categories.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he covers smart speakers, soundbars, and other smart and home-theater devices. You can follow Ben on Twitter.