Sharing your home with kids can mean playing movies with the sound on low so you don’t wake them. A feature rolling out from Sonos might just keep the volume up.
Upgrades are always a welcome thing, particularly when they offer new features designed to make your gear better. This week, we’ve heard about a few of these, as Apple looks set to upgrade iPhones with call assist and some other features, while Android looks set to bolster phones with more emoji and greater security overall.
So what else is being updated this week?
If you own a pair of the Sonos Ace headphones, you’re also getting new features, at least one of which was hinted when the Ace was originally launched last year.
The feature drop includes improvement to the noise cancellation technology, which now adapts to glasses, hair, and hats, essentially using sensors and algorithms to account for the fit of the headphones. The same is true with the calling system, which Sonos says is clearer now thanks to this update.
While these are handy, they’re not the cool features Sonos has hinted at previously.
Something missed at launch is support for the home theatre sound being transferred from a Sonos soundbar to not one, but two pairs of headphones. That’s changing this week, as Sonos looks set to sync its soundbar sound with two pairs of Sonos Ace headphones, provided you have two pairs on your person.
That could be handy if you’re trying to watch a loud movie while the kids are in bed, and you’re doing what you can to not wake them. However, it does mean both adults staying up and watching movies need a pair of the Sonos Ace each, making the solution a touch costly.
When you do decide to watch something and listen through the Ace headphones, the other big feature addition will see Sonos use the True Play room analysis for your headphones, recreating the surround sound experience from your home (where the soundbar sits) and tuning the headphones to match. It’s a concept called “TrueCinema” which is like True Play, but made for cinema sound, providing a 3D spatial sound based on the room your TV is in, but encased in your headphones.
“Our goal has always been to create products that earn their place in people’s lives for years, and this Sonos Ace update is a great example of that,” said Jason White, Head of Software at Sonos.
“It proves that your best tech investment doesn’t need to be your newest, it just has to be built right,” he said.
The features are rolling out now across the world, though you will need a recent and compatible soundbar such as the Sonos Arc or Arc Ultra to take advantage of these technologies.
