We’ve seen leaks and details about an upcoming new speaker from the partnership of Sonos and IKEA but now it’s official. The SYMFONISK Picture Framespeaker doubles as artwork for your room and a smart speaker for your listening needs. It has all the usual features built into a Sonos speaker with the added minimalist decorative value of IKEA furniture. However, it is not a customizable frame and you’ll have to make do with the design that comes with it plus a couple of other options available later on.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that these two have teamed up. There’s already an existing line of SYMFONISK speakers that aims to marry IKEA’s renowned style and Sonos’ speaker prowess with a relatively affordable price range. There was the Bookshelf speaker priced at $99 and a more expensive variant that integrated a table lamp and was available for $189. Both speakers were able to integrate into the Sonos ecosystem and the sound quality wasn’t too bad.
The latest addition is the SYMFONISK Picture Frame speaker and it comes with a tweeter topped with a waveguide and a woofer, all located behind the artwork that comes with it. The frame is 2.36 inches off the wall and comes with a magnetic hook so you can mount it easily. The art that comes with it is designed by artist Jennifer Idrizi and is supposedly inspired by visualizations of music and inter-connections. There will be a couple of other designs that will come later on. The bad news is that you can’t put your own design since the material is some kind of special mesh and not your usual paper or canvas.
You probably will not buy this device for its artistic merit but of course, it would be nice if you could personalize something that you’ll be hanging on your wall. Speaker-wise, it will support all of the features that Sonos speakers have, including access to Sonos Radio and Apple AirPlay 2. You can also group them in mixed Sonos/IKEA rooms and you can set up two Picture Frames as a stereo pair. You’ll find manual buttons on the back edge to adjust volume and play/pause but most of the controls will be through the Sonos app.
The SYMFONISK Picture Frame speaker is priced at $199 while the two extra designs will cost $19.99 each. It will be available by July 15 in North America and Europe with the other designs arriving by August.