Ikea, Sonos collab’s first prototype speakers are here

In December, Ikea announced a new partnership with wireless speaker brand Sonos, offering, at the time, no concrete details on what kind of products consumers can expect from the initiative. Today, at Ikea’s annual Democratic Design Days, which acts as a launching point and progress report for all of the company’s projects, the company finally revealed the first prototypes of the line, named Symfonisk and slated to debut after summer 2019.

Photos from the event show non-functional prototype speakers of varying orthogonal and rounded forms. And for an added Ikea touch, prototypes have brackets that, per Ikea, “make it possible to use the speaker as a shelf, or to put it under a Metod kitchen cabinet.” Whatever the final products actually look like, they’re supposed to work with all of existing Wi-Fi speakers from Sonos, as well as Ikea’s Trådfris smart lighting series.

Tom Lodge / Sonos via The Verge

The Sonos partnership is the next phase of Ikea’s Home Smart initiative, which began with a line of furniture featuring built-in wireless charging and then progressed to a smart lighting range. With today’s announcement, Ikea stressed that the partnership is not one off but long term, which means speakers could be just the first—and most obvious—of a series of sound-focused products.

Ikea

Via: The Verge