There is a video from Ikea that’s been making the rounds over the past few months that says the Swedish furniture company’s speaker collaboration with Sonos, known as Symfonisk, will be arriving in stores in August. The video, initially discovered by Variety, runs three minutes and 17 seconds. It alternates between shots of a live orchestra playing in front of a large video screen, and shots of Ikea and Sonos product people speaking earnestly about what music means to them on the screen itself. What the video lacked, surprisingly, are any shots of the actual Symfonisk products.
That glimpse will finally come on April 9, when Sonos will show off the new speaker line in Milan.
We may not know the look of the new speakers yet, but we do have some idea when you will be able to buy one. The video ends with a subtitle that says, “Symfonisk, available at Ikea from August 2019.”
“We for sure wanted this speaker to be a full-fledged member of the Sonos family, without any compromises on sound quality and the user experience,” says one of the lines spoken by Stjepan Begic, a product developer for Ikea Home Smart, “But we wanted the price level to be where we can reach the (sic) many people.”
It’s been speculated since news of the product line emerged in 2018, that Ikea’s contribution to the Sonos experience would be priced lower than what Sonos charges for its products, but this statement confirms that consumers can expect Symfonisk products to be significantly more affordable. In the first half of 2018, Ikea debuted a line of affordable, design-inspired Bluetooth speakers called Eneby, a continuation of the company’s tech-focused product direction that really began when it said it would introduce wireless charging into some of its products in 2015. At CES 2019, the company said it would be adding motorized smart blinds to its growing catalog of smart home products.
We definitely hope that the video’s promised August launch date is real, but it’s worth noting that the video does not appear when you view Ikea Today’s Vimeo channel, and the official Symfonisk page on the company’s press site still says, “The Symfonisk range will be available after summer in 2019.”
Nonetheless, if you’re as intrigued by this new product as we are, mark your calendars for April 9, when you’ll get a first look at the new speaker line. Then check back with us — we’ll have the full details when they emerge, and a product review as soon as we get our hands on one.
Updated on March 15, 2019: Added information about the Sonos/Ikea event in Milan that’s scheduled for April 9.
