Sonos wireless headphones: release date news, rumours, and all of the leaks

A sketch from a Sonos patent filing showing a pair of wireless headphones
(Image credit: Sonos (via USPTO))

Multi-room specialist Sonos is rumoured to be branching out into headphones. This is big news, given Sonos' prestige in terms of wireless speakers, and the fierce competition in the wireless headphone market.

The rumours have been brewing for a long time – we originally expected its wireless headphones to launch in 2021, and Sonos has reportedly been working on them since 2019. So there's a lot to get through. Here we've rounded up all the most credible rumours and leaks, and buttressed them with our expert industry knowledge.

In brief, they're rumoured to launch in June 2024, to cost $449, and to support wi-fi and Bluetooth, as well as offer next-gen wireless audio. 

Excited? Us too. Here's everything we know so far.

Sonos headphones: release date news

A Bloomberg report pegged them for a launch by April 2024, but that has reportedly been pushed back due to a snag during testing. Industry insiders claim a problem with how the headphones connect to wi-fi has delayed production. Sonos hopes to launch them in early June, the report says – something that CEO Patrick Spence recently said was still the plan.

In an earnings call with investors in February, CEO Patrick Spence mentioned "the launch of our highly anticipated new product, which we will announce and ship in [financial] Q3." Considering how long they've been rumoured, we would say Sonos' wireless headphones are definitely "highly anticipated."

He went on: "This launch will give us a foothold into a new multibillion dollar category, expanding the number of categories we play in from five to six, and further diversifying our business." Sounds like wireless headphones to us.

We had hoped that the Sonos headphones would show up as far back as 2021. In a call with investors that February, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence promised "to deliver innovative new products", and said a new device would launch in March.

That device turned out to be the (rather good) Sonos Roam Bluetooth speaker. And then the Beam Gen 2 Dolby Atmos soundbar arrived in October. As Spence also promised to launch "two new products a year", we were hoping to see the Sonos wireless headphones show up next, sometime in 2022.

They didn't, but we did see the Sonos Era wireless speakers launch in March 2023, followed by the Move 2 portable speaker in September of that year. So Sonos has kept busy. Now rumours say Sonos is working on the wireless headphones, the Arc (Gen 2) soundbar and a video streaming box to boot. Let's hope it's not spreading itself too thin.

Sonos headphones: price rumours

Sonos's consumer audio products tend to go for premium prices, whether its wireless speakers or soundbars. We'd expect any Sonos wireless headphones to be no different, with potentially a more affordable product further down the road. That's certainly the way Sonos approached the speaker and soundbar categories – in the former, the Sonos Move was followed by the Sonos Roam, while in the latter, the Sonos Playbar was followed by the Sonos Beam (though the most premium Arc followed that!).

The rumoured Sonos headphones might not come close to the cost of the Apple AirPods Max (£549 / $549 / AU$899), but we expect them to be similar to well-respected and well-established rivals from Sony, Bose and Sennheiser. This was bolstered by a recent Bloomberg report which suggested a price of $449 (around £355, AU$689), and a previous report which said they would retail for around $400 to $500. That would pit them as a direct rival to the five-star Sony WH-1000XM5, as well as the pricier Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. Tough competition for a firm that's new to the headphones market.

For Sonos, it's a fine line to walk. Price them too low, and consumers won't expect great sound quality. Too high, and they will turn off some potential buyers. Sonos has a large and dedicated following, but it's not quite at Apple levels.

A previous Bloomberg report had the headphones costing around £220 / $300 / AU$400 – way less than the more recent report says. Would Sonos charge that much less than the current industry best? We're not convinced.

Sonos headphones: design

An early sketch of the Sonos wireless headphones from a patent filing

Early sketches of the Sonos headphones (Image credit: German Patent and Trademark Office)

Headphones come in all shapes and sizes: in-ear, on-ear, over-ear, wireless, wireless with noise-cancellation, sporty models, and so on. It seems like Sonos is going for an over-ear wireless model, as detailed by a patent that emerged in September 2020.

The patent shows two designs, both of which take an over-ear, wireless form. They both have oval ear cups that are angled slightly so that the lower part sits a little further forward on the wearer.

As you can see from the image above, the headphones look like a pretty standard pair of over-ear cans, but the devil is in the detail. Apple's AirPods Max raised the bar somewhat in the design stakes – not only do they feature premium materials and an "obsessive craftsmanship", but they also let you swap the ear cups for replacements. Handy if yours wear out, or you just want to sport a different colour for a change.

Replaceable parts are of course more sustainable and something we're also seeing in wireless speakers such as the B&O Beosound Level, and indeed the Sonos Move (Sonos now sells a replacement battery kit for the Move). 

Given that Sonos previously pledged to deliver "innovative new products", and that it has already adopted a culture of replaceable parts in its other products, there's a high likelihood that its first headphones will look to play on this.

This was bolstered by another patent. As well as mentioning interchangeable ear cushions, a USB-C port and a 3.5mm headphone jack, it shows a sleeker look courtesy of headband rods that flow directly into the outer ear cups (the original design relied on a more traditional rocker bracket).

Another neat new touch is the Sonos logo, which looks like it could be proudly displayed on the ear cup. Though as it's printed in broken line text, it's not fixed in that position.

But hold your horses. Will Sonos' headphones actually be an in-ear pair? The US firm recently took a controlling stake in Glasgow-based RHA Audio (recently renamed Origin North Ltd). RHA was founded in 2011 and specialised in wireless in-ear models like the TrueConnect 2. Would Sonos really buy an in-ear specialist if it was going to make over-ear headphones? Were the past patents misleading? Or will Sonos launch both over-ear and in-ear designs with a full range of headphone styles?

To add to the intrigue, a May 2021 Sonos patent spotted by Zats Not Funny describes two different wireless earbuds designs, including one with detachable battery plates that look to be roughly the size of a thumbnail and attach (possibly magnetically?) to the outer body of each bud. Consider the waters considerably muddied in the design section of the rumour mill.

Bloomberg claims that Sonos has been working on the cans since 2019, but scrapped its earlier designs. Our bet? It's working on an over-ear wireless pair, with a pair of true wireless earbuds to follow a year or two down the line.

Sonos headphones: features

Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones lying on a red bag

The Sony WH-1000XM5, which would undoubtedly be one of the Sonos headphones' main rivals (Image credit: What Hi-Fi?)

The first leaked patent points to some pretty cool new features. Chief among them is Swap, which lets the cans work seamlessly with your home Sonos speakers.

Here's how it works. You come home listening to your headphones, and can 'swap' the music to your home Sonos system, so the same song switches to play from your Sonos multi-room speakers. It happens seamlessly, so the song doesn't miss a beat.

It debuted in the Sonos Roam, activated by a long-press of the play/pause button.

It's not something we've seen in headphones before, though we have seen something similar in other devices – for example, apps that let you start watching a TV show on your phone and pick up where you left off on your TV when you come home. Some headphones can also detect when you take them off and pause what's playing. Sonos' feature would seem like a natural evolution of these two functions.

The recent Bloomberg report backed this up. It says the headphones will be able to synchronise music with the Sonos speakers in your home, so you could listen to a song through your Era 300 while getting ready, then carry on on your Sonos headphones as you leave the house without missing a beat.

Another patent – spotted in August 2021 – suggests that Sonos's headphones will support wi-fi and Bluetooth. The addition of wi-fi would presumably allow the headphones to stream music directly from the internet, rather than via Bluetooth device. It could also enable truly lossless streams at 24-bit/192kHz.

It seems that Sonos' engineers are still grappling with the problem of how to cram two wi-fi antennas (and the extra batteries needed to power them) into a pair of headphones. If Sonos could crack it, it could give the company's first cans a nice USP.

But there could be another USP in store: next-gen Bluetooth audio. In 2022, Sonos acquired T2 Software, a Kentucky-based startup whose specialism is implementing Bluetooth LE Audio, a 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.

T2 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.

Sonos Roam on a blanket as someone controls it with their phone

The Sonos Roam introduced the 'Swap' hand-off music feature (Image credit: Sonos)

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.

If this comes to fruition, the Sonos headphones could have quite the feature set.

The August 2021 patent also detailed all the usual bells and whistles: voice assistant control (as seen on the firm's multi-room speakers and soundbars), a volume slider (as on the Sonos Era 300), playback controls and a mic for hands-free calls.

We would also expect active noise cancelling (ANC), though how many levels and whether – and how much – control the wearer has over it remains to be seen. One of the patent designs mentions a rotating knob, which would give the wearer control over the ANC. The Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 give you 10 levels of ANC to choose from – Sonos doesn't have to match that necessarily, but some control would be nice.

Lastly, battery life. The AirPods Max manage 20 hours between charges, while the Sony WH-1000XM5 manage 30. We would expect Sonos to match or deliver somewhere between these two figures, though a lot depends on what kind of feature set it offers. No noise cancellation? Then there's no excuse for not giving us more than 30 hours of playback on a single charge, thank you very much. But then if its next-gen Bluetooth audio saves battery as promised, we could be looking at much, much more, maybe even equalling the 60 hours offered by the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless.

Sonos headphones: initial verdict

Launching a premium pair of noise-cancelling wireless headphones is no mean feat – competition is fierce at that end of the market, with Sony, Sennheiser and Bose all vying for supremacy, not to mention the likes of Apple, B&W and Focal now offering premium premium wireless headphones. But if anyone could muscle in on such an established market and make an impact, it's Sonos.

In its 20-odd years in the business, Sonos has built a solid reputation as an audio pioneer, so a move into headphones could be a very smart one indeed. If it can marry a desirable design, great sound, wi-fi and industry-first features like Swap and next-gen Bluetooth audio, it could be a real game-changer.

Fingers crossed the multi-room mogul doesn't keep us waiting too much longer.

MORE:

New AirPods Max incoming? AirPods Max 2: release date rumours, potential price, features and spec leaks

Get the full skinny: Which Sonos speaker should you buy?

Sonos: everything you need to know about the multi-room king

Shop today's best Sonos deals

Joe Svetlik

Joe has been writing about tech for 17 years, first on staff at T3 magazine, then in a freelance capacity for Stuff, The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Men's Health, GQ, The Mirror, Trusted Reviews, TechRadar and many more (including What Hi-Fi?). His specialities include all things mobile, headphones and speakers that he can't justifying spending money on.

With contributions from