Updating: Sonos has officially unveiled three new colors for the Sonos Roam portable speaker, confirming the first leak. The different color options don’t cost more than the black or white speaker, meaning it will be $179 / £179 / AU$299. Original story continues below.
We’ve had a slew of leaks from Sonos lately, from the imminent launch of a new affordable Sonos Ray soundbar to the the connected audio brand’s own voice assistantand now we can add one more to the pile – new colors for the Sonos Roam†
As discovered herein Reddit threat, subscribers to the Sonos mailing list received a mysterious email with a countdown and a not-so-subtle URL address containing “roamcolors”, as well as an image with the file name “Roam_Colors_Launch.png”. What could it be?
The colors themselves were leaked by Chilean retailer MusicWorld, where all three options were visible onsite at the time of writing, but have since been removed. While we don’t have the official names of the shades, the shades include an olive, a blue-gray, and a red-orange option.
Life in Technicolor
As those familiar with the company know, the vast majority of Sonos products launch in the super exciting black or white color options, with any additions to the palette coming later as a special release.
This happened with the Sonos One when it got red, green, yellow, pink and gray options, all of which arrive with a $30 / £30 (about AU$50) premium on their monochrome siblings. We suspect that’s how it will be with the Sonos Roam, although we very much hope there won’t be a price difference, or at least not that serious.
Since the audio brand’s products were initially designed exclusively for the home, a monochromatic color scheme was a sensible and safe choice – in general, it is much easier to combine black or white products with interior decoration. But as it expands into the portable Bluetooth speaker market, character becomes more important than ubiquity.
This is something Ultimate Ears is more than familiar with, with the ever-popular UE Boom 3 arriving in a wide variety of colors, with more countries over the life of the product. In fact, the company took this to its natural conclusion, allowing customers to fully customize their UE Boom 3 speaker†
In the Sonos Roam vs UE Boom 3 Debatethere are compelling cases for both products (with price being the most important), but with Sonos introducing a dash of personality to its Roam range, the gap may be closing.
As previously mentioned, we suspect these new colors will be roughly the same price as the existing Sonos Roam at $179 / £179 / AU$299, but with no official word on pricing or regional availability, we’ll have to wait until Wednesday, May 11. before the official unveiling.
