Sonos audio kit will be getting a dose of Scandinavian design come 2019, as the US streaming speaker company is teaming up with IKEA.
The partnership will see the two companies work on kit that mixes Sonos speakers with IKEA home furniture, hopefully driving the cost of Sonos audio tech down, thanks to IKEA’s history of producing affordable furniture providing buyers assemble it themselves.
“At IKEA we strive to make solutions for life at home by integrating technology into our home furnishing offer that are easy to use and affordable, thereby making smart home technology accessible to the many people.” said Björn Block, business leader of Home Smart at IKEA, seemingly hinting that Sonos tech when combined with IKEA furniture will be less heavy on the wallet than Sonos kit on its own.
“Together with Sonos we want to democratise music and sound in the home, and we want to create products designed for how people listen together at home,” he noted.
So far there’s no clue as to what kind of products the two companies will make. But we’d hazard a guess they’ll involve Sonos speakers integrated into things like table lamps and entertainment units, after all IKEA has already put wireless charging pads into some of its furniture, so adding audio tech into the mix shouldn’t be too hard.
Given some people love music but hate having to find space for speakers and cabling, it’s likely that IKEA and Sonos will work to find ways to hide away cables and speakers without negatively affecting the acoustic performance of Sonos’ audio chops.
IKEA plans to launch the products the collaboration yields in 2019, so there’ll be a bit of a wait until we get to see the fruits of their labours.
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What do you think we can expect to see from the partnership? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
