Ikea and Sonos are continuing their collaboration with a new floor lamp speaker available in January 2023. It will be added to their popular, and affordable, Symfonisk lineup of Sonos-powered Wi-Fi speakers.
The Swedish furniture icon and American wireless home speaker maker began their partnership in 2019 with the original Symfonisk table lamp speaker, and have since added to the range with a bookshelf speaker, a picture frame speaker, and even a second generation of the table lamp last year, all aimed towards the budget-conscious audio fan looking to get in on Sonos’ ecosystem of network speakers.
The Symfonisk floor lamp is new territory for the two companies, who hope to improve the versatility of the line, allowing people to “furnish with light and sound,” and put the floor lamp wherever it’s needed, solving the “challenge of not having enough room for a table to put the lamp on,” said Stjepan Begic, range design leader at Ikea of Sweden, in a press release.
Quite similar in design to the gen-2 table lamp, which our reviewer praised for its room-filling ambient sound quality, the floor lamp instead sits atop three slender legs and comes with a weaved bamboo shade that, according to the pictures in the press kit, appears to give off a soft, warm light. Additional shades can also be purchased if that one doesn’t match your decor. The speaker base itself appears to share the same play and volume up/down controls as the table lamp, as well as a similar fabric cover.
As with the table lamp and bookshelf speakers in the Symfonisk lineup, as well as many of Sonos’ own speakers, the floor lamp can be stereo paired with another floor lamp (as per Sonos, they must be identical speakers to do this, though — you can’t mix and match speakers). It can also be used in a multiroom setup, or added as rear surrounds in a Sonos system with a soundbar such as a Sonos Arc, Beam, or Ray for room-filling sound for movies and TV.
Sonos users will be familiar with the simple setup process with the Sonos S2 app, through which the speakers can also be controlled, connected with various music streaming services, and configured. Although the Symfonisk lineup does not support Alexa or Google voice assistants like many of Sonos’ latest speakers, they are AirPlay 2 compatible and can be sonically optimized for your room with Sonos Truplay — if you have an iOS device, that is. Symfonisk devices can also be added and controlled through Ikea’s own Dirigera smart home hub and accompanying Ikea Home app.
“The Symfonisk floor lamp speaker is a great example of how our collaboration continues to challenge the traditional idea of sound in the home,” said Sara Lincoln, principal product manager at Sonos. “We created the floor lamp speaker to sound great on its own, but also to be versatile. It works seamlessly with all our Sonos speakers and is a great option for those who are looking to add rear speakers to their home theater setup.”
The Ikea-Sonos Symfonisk floor lamp speaker will be available at Ikea for $260 on January 30, 2023.
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
Audio-Technica, a brand well known for making some of the best studio and professional headphones on the market, has just come out with the ATH-AWX7000, which the company itself claims to be its "finest headphones ever." The new flagship closed-back headphone has debuted at an eye-watering price of $3,799. It combines hand-finished Japanese woodwork with a newly developed 58mm driver.
The earcups are made from Kiso cypress, a prized wood historically used for Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. Each housing is finished by hand with traditional Echizen lacquer, which brings out the grain and is expected to darken over time. The frame and sliders are finished in a deep navy kachi-iro shade traditionally associated with samurai.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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