New collaboration explores the role of colour, sound and design in the home with Sonos One

Yesterday, Sonos launched a bold new partnership with one of the leading influences in home style, Danish design brand HAY to Australian consumers. A mutual commitment to creating accessible, contemporary products with an eye for modern living and sophisticated industrial manufacturing, combined with a curiosity to further explore the dimension of colour, drove this bold expression of the Sonos One smart speaker. The exclusive collection will be released in a new range of colours – vivid red, forest green, pale yellow, baby pink and light grey – that match perfectly with the HAY palette, from November 2018.

Sonos believes and has proven that a home filled with music is a happier home. Its mission, to empower the world to listen better, is deeply focused on the dimension of sound in the home and the aspiration to create a system that fits customers’ home design choices. Every decision, from the materials to its Trueplay room tuning technology, is driven by the desire to make a system of smart speakers thoughtfully executed to fit within any home environment.

“Sonos’ product design philosophy focuses on achieving the elegant integration of domestic life and sound design. We strive toward this goal without compromising on acoustics, connectivity, or the listener experience. Our speakers aren’t designed to claim attention, they are designed to blend naturally into their surroundings,” says Tad Toulis, VP Design, Sonos.

“We achieve this by practising restraint, both in form and in our explicit decision not to follow fashion. This attitude informs everything we do, from our commitment to the black and white colour palette – to our dedication to building the smallest number of products to fit the largest number of needs within the home.”

Toulis continues: “With HAY, a company whose work we greatly respect and whose design philosophy is aligned with our own, we found a partner with whom to explore the evolving role of sound as an architectural element in the home. We are excited to reveal the fruits of this collaboration at the world’s most influential design fair.”

Mette Hay, Co-founder, HAY adds: “Sound plays such an important part in architecture and the experience of life at home, yet we hadn’t found speakers we were happy to have in our home until we discovered Sonos. We were intrigued by Sonos’ philosophy of sound architecture, its approach to contemporary design and sophisticated manufacturing techniques – values, both companies share,”
 
“For me colour is one of the most important tools in the design process, and it was very important we didn’t just create a colour scale that looked beautiful. Colours can hide completely and disappear or provide contrast – creating ranges in more colours produces more impact and opportunities for mixing items in the home. These speakers deserve to be treated like furniture; strong, independent objects that can blend in or stand out – functional accessories for any room that fit different needs and different spaces.”

The HAY for Sonos Limited Edition collection – like all Sonos One speakers and other newer Sonos products – has software that enables Amazon Alexa voice control, AirPlay 2 as well as future-ready support of multiple voice services including Google Assist, which is coming to Australia soon. With just one of these supported speakers, these services are unlocked for your entire home sound system. Priced at AUD $349, the HAY Sonos One will be available in November 2018 on sonos.com, at HAY store in Sydney and Cult Design in Melbourne.

Sonos One Details
Sonos One is the smart speaker for music lovers; capable of supporting multiple voice services and playing music, podcasts, audiobooks, and the best of sonic culture from more than 80 content services. As part of the home sound system, Sonos One works seamlessly with all other

Sonos speakers to play music in any room of your home.
• Delivers surprisingly rich sound from a speaker of its size.
• Driven by two Class-D digital amplifiers, one tweeter, and one mid-woofer.
• Includes a six-mic array and an adaptive noise suppression algorithm to focus on the right person and ensure the voice service understands everything clearly.
• Voice capture technology with echo cancellation allows the speaker to still hear you over the music. The volume also intelligently lowers, or “ducks” when you speak to it, so you don’t have to shout over the music.
• The light on the speaker will be illuminated if the microphones are active. The light is hardwired to the same circuit that powers the microphone array, so if the light is off, it means the microphone is off.
• Owners can use Trueplay to easily tune Sonos One to sound great no matter where it’s placed in your home.