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Sonos looking to add smart headphones to its lineup, report says

Sonos may dominate the high-end wireless speaker market, but it's reportedly hoping to extend its influence to mobile use.

Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Ty Pendlebury
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Sonos' next set of speakers may be ones you put on your head.

The multiroom audio company is looking to add headphones with an integrated voice assistant to its existing portfolio of wireless speakers, Bloomberg reports.

According to the report, Sonos has approached overseas manufacturers about producing headphones to compete with models costing $300 or more.

Like its in-home Sonos Beam and Sonos One speakers, the headphones will reportedly "work with multiple music services and digital assistants" but other details were scant. The company is in the process of adding Google Assistant to the existing Alexa integration on supported devices.

While Sonos is a leader in multiroom audio, the premium headphone market is crowded, and dominated by established brands such as Bose , Beats, Sony and others, so a new headphone would have to offer some sort of competitive advantage. One would hope that it would have both Bluetooth and a home wireless component that would allow you to add to your Sonos network at home.   

When contacted by CNET about the report, a Sonos spokesperson said the company doesn't comment on future product plans.

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