When Sonos launched its Ace headphones earlier this 12 months, the corporate promised it will quickly convey prolonged compatibility for it. At launch, the headphones might solely pair to the Sonos’ costliest soundbar, the Arc, however now you’ll be able to pair them with both generations of the Sonos Beam in addition to the entry-level Sonos Ray. This implies you don’t need to spend money on the $900 Arc to benefit from one of many primary promoting factors of the Ace which is its TV Audio Swap function.
Sonos appeared fairly assured about its new headset when it launched them again in Might, and ambitiously priced the Ace headphones at a whopping $450. Whereas we praised the Ace for its eye-catching design and ethereal sound, we critiqued it for being an incomplete product. It featured a TV Audio Swap function that solely labored with one of many firm’s soundbars, the Sonos Arc. With the function, you may press and maintain the Management Key to seamlessly swap audio between the Ace and the Arc.
We weren’t followers of the corporate limiting its vertical integration to a $900 soundbar. It’s one factor to make a walled backyard round your providers; Apple all the time does that with its merchandise. Nevertheless it’s essential to be sensible about it. The combination merely didn’t present sufficient worth to be the product, particularly for that worth. Although the corporate stated it will prolong assist for different sound bars “quickly,” that wasn’t a convincing sufficient cause for me to take a position half a grand again then.
The extension of the compatibility to cheaper soundbars lastly makes the $450 headphones a bit extra usable, as a result of it means I can benefit from the function on the $270 Ray or the $500 Beam 2. Sonos can be working on its highly problematic app to make it extra environment friendly and useful, and I’m trying ahead to seeing how that performs out.
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