It’s no secret Sonos and IKEA have been working on integrating Sonos speaker technology into IKEA home furnishing designs. With the latest news from these two companies, it has been confirmed consumers can now purchase the first fruits of the collaboration through the new IKEA Symfonisk line. And in what may be music to the ears of consumers, one of the first Symfonisk products costs under $100.
Symfonisk Bookshelf Speaker
While Sonos has set the bar with their multi-room, high-fidelity audio platform, their speakers have always been priced well beyond the lower-fidelity smart speakers available from Amazon and Google. With the launch of the $99 Symfonisk WiFi bookshelf speaker, consumers can enjoy the full range of Sonos music services in their homes and control the flow of music with the Sonos app—at a lower cost of entry.
The bookshelf speaker can be placed on a shelf or countertop, or hung on the wall horizontally or vertically with an included bracket. It will be available in black or white, quite comparable to the colors offered in current Sonos speakers.
Symfonisk Table Lamp Speaker
In what is probably the more interesting product, the Symfonisk table lamp with WiFi speaker bridges IKEA modern design aesthetics and Sonos speaker technology. The table lamp speaker combination sells for $179, and has a single power cord.
The compact table lamp has an Apple HomePod-shaped speaker module on the bottom and a lighting fixture on the top. It will also be available in black and white variations.
IKEA had earlier demonstrated what appeared to be production-ready examples of these new products at the Salone del Mobile exhibition in Milan, which concluded on April 14.
“We knew from the start that we wanted to challenge the traditional high-tech aesthetics,” said Iina Vuorivirta, one of the IKEA designers involved with the project. “The lamp-speaker partly springs from the idea of the fireplace—one single piece that spreads warm light as well as sound.”
Seamlessness With Sonos
These new IKEA products will seamlessly appear in the Sonos app as individual speakers, and in doing so gain all the benefits of other Sonos speakers. They can be paired other Symfonisk speakers to form stereo pairs, or selected to play the same music in all rooms.
Better yet, for consumers with existing Sonos-branded audio products, the Symfonisk speakers can be paired or grouped with Sonos speakers. For instance, if you already have a Sonos Beam speaker connected to your TV, a pair of Symfonisk WiFi bookshelf speakers could be integrated for left and right audio channels.
IKEA + Sonos: Long Team Partnership
As the IKEA speakers were announced, Sonos voiced their apparent long-term support for the collaborative program. “This partnership has always been about our two companies’ shared passion, values, and knowledge. IKEA and Sonos recognize the importance of great sound and its potential to positively affect life at home for the many people,” said Tad Toulis, vice president of design at Sonos.
“We set out to create products neither of us would or could develop independently,” continued Toulis. “To this end, since music and light are both instrumental in creating a sense of place, we developed a product that can deliver both—the Symfonisk lamp speaker.”
So how well do these new speakers sound and perform in your connected home? We will let you know as soon as we test them. Stay tuned.
