Sonos Playbase could be the company's next 'big' thing, leak reveals

By Kris Wouk February 21, 2017

Sonos has been moving more and more into the world of home theater lately, and while its products are easy to set up and configure, they’re not the most space-saving. Now it seems a more compact offering is on the way in the Sonos Playbar, which has been revealed by leaked images as well as both FCC filings and retail listings.

If you’ve been following Sonos for a while, this may not come as a surprise. The Playbar name has been floating around since 2014, according to David Zatz of Zatz Not Funny, who spotted the Playbase in a retail listing on BH Photo, which has since been pulled down. That retail listing wasn’t the only place that the Playbase has been spotted either — it has also appeared in an FCC listing and a deleted post on the Sonos forums.

Judging by the name and images leaked on Twitter by Jon Maddox, the Playbase looks to be a more compact alternative to the Sonos Playbar, meant to sit underneath your TV rather than in front of it. This type of product is commonly known as a soundbase, with products like LG’s SoundPlate and the recently released Fluance AB40 also adopting this form factor.

Despite the leaks in various places, there still isn’t much to go on in terms of what features the Playbase will offer. It looks like there are no HDMI ports, with only an optical input, as is the case on the Playbar. Sonos told Digital Trends last year that it plans to support its TruePlay automatic calibration on all speakers going forward, so that will likely be supported out of the box.

While the product has yet to be officially confirmed by Sonos, the pulled retail listings point to a March release date, with both black and white models available for $700. If the product will indeed ship this soon, we would expect to see an official announcement from Sonos in the near future.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

Audio / Video

The next generation of Sonos speakers has leaked, again

If you're waiting on Sonos to announce the next generation of its venerable wireless speakers, wait no longer. The Verge has received lifestyle marketing images of at least part of the new lineup, which has yet to be unveiled by Sonos itself.

The two new speakers that are featured in the leak (and which also have been referenced by an accessories manufacturer) are said to the be Sonos Era 100 and Sonos Era 300. They're meant to replace the aging Sonos One and, presumably, the discontinued Sonos Play:3 and are said to be headed for a late March release.

Audio / Video

New Sonos speakers apparently confirmed by accessory company

Rendering of a reportedly unreleased Sonos speaker created by The Verge.

If a document published by accessory maker Sanus is accurate, Sonos' next speakers will be called the Era 100 and Era 300, according to a report from Chris Welch at The Verge. Welch claims that The Verge had already learned from its sources that "Era" will be the public-facing name of the as-yet-unreleased smart speaker that he had previously reported on under the code name "Optimo," and that the Sanus document offers further evidence of this claim.

Sanus is a company that makes a variety of mounting solutions for AV products, including many Sonos models such as the Sonos Beam, Arc, and Sonos One. The discovered document, which was posted to the site device.report, is entitled "Sanus Elite - Adjustable Speaker Wall Mount for Sonos Era 100 and Era 300 Speakers."

Audio / Video

New leak hints at Sonos’ future: Bluetooth, spatial audio, and lots more home theater

Rendering of a reportedly unreleased Sonos speaker created by The Verge.

You have to imagine that Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is getting a little tired of leaks originating from within the company's walls. For the second time in 2022, The Verge's Chris Welch has published details of an unreleased and unconfirmed Sonos product that Welch claims is code-named Optimo 2. According to this information, which he claims was gleaned from work-in-progress images of the Optimo 2, it's a speaker that will likely take over from the current Sonos Five, a product that hasn't been meaningfully updated since it debuted as the Play:5 in 2009.

If the report is accurate -- and it's worth noting that Welch's prior reporting on the Sonos Ray ahead of that product's debut was very close to what was eventually announced -- the Optimo 2 could represent the beginning of a new era for Sonos. It reportedly contains the mics needed for Sonos Voice Control, as well as plenty of RAM for future updates. A wireframe render of the speaker created by The Verge (which is what you do when you need to protect the source material) illustrates an unusual mirror-image shape -- it looks vaguely like a VR headset -- which appears to be designed to direct sound outward in at least two directions -- forward and backward -- though Welch says that some of the Optimo 2's drivers will aim sound upward, too.