Desperate to grow their product offering as sales of their speakers come under pressure, Sonos has acquired a Company specialising in Bluetooth LE Audio.
They are also shopping for a new marketing and advertising agency, for what the Company has dubbed “one of the most ambitious projects in [its] history.”
The acquisition has been linked with their efforts to launch into the headphone market, a move that some observers claim could be “A struggle” due to the highly competitive nature of the market where consumers are turning back to cord headphones because of problems with buds.
The Company that Sonos has acquired is T2 Software a US start up that in the past has worked with Bose.
Their main business is developing Bluetooth LE Audio, a new standard that delivers ‘Low Energy’ consumption for Bluetooth audio devices.
The technology delivers higher-quality audio over Bluetooth while optimising a device’s battery life.
Sonos could end up licencing the technology to other Companies in the future.
Sonos is tipped to implement the new Bluetooth audio technology in its first pair of wireless headphones which are expected to be launched later this year.
Recently, it was revealed via a patent lodgement that Sonos is investigating making the headphones work over wi-fi as well as Bluetooth.
A Sonos spokesperson has confirmed the acquisition of the business.
“Occasionally, we will acquire teams, talent, and/or technology that augment our existing and future product roadmap,” the spokesperson said.
Sonos has also acquired UK headphone maker RHA Audio.
Currently T2 is working on implementations of Bluetooth LC3, an audio codec for the new Bluetooth LE Audio standard.
LC3 is designed to transmit higher-quality audio at lower data rates than currently possible.
This will have a major benefit to the battery life of all devices involved, including smartphones, wireless speakers and, yes, wireless headphones.
LC3 can also send out multiple audio streams simultaneously for better stereo pairing and more seamless voice assistant integration. And it can stream to multiple devices at once – so more than one pair of headphones could listen to the same audio simultaneously – much like a multi-room system working over wi-fi.
