Our home lives are shrinking. Last year, the average size of new houses built in the US fell for the third straight year, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Worldwide, the UN expects more and more people to gravitate toward urban areas over the next 30 years. The smart homes of the future, then, may not involve thousands and thousands of square feet for networked appliances and gadgets, but rather internet-connected products that maximize the space they take up by serving more than one purpose.
That’s part of the thinking behind Ikea’s partnership with speaker maker Sonos, the result of which is a new line of audio products being released under the name Symfonisk. As a result of this new collaboration, your lamp is a Sonos speaker. So is your floating bookshelf, affixed to the wall. I have them both in my apartment. One of them, the bookshelf speaker, nearly disappears, hiding in plain sight. The lamp is much more … noticeable.
Ikea wants to ensure that its reputation evolves as our homes and lifestyles do, and partnering with Sonos a few years ago was part of that. Netherlands-based Ikea is known as much for its streamlined furniture aesthetic as it is for its not-so-streamlined furniture assemblies. As the company got into the smart-home space—first with connected light bulbs, then with smart blinds—it aimed to eliminate inconveniences. Sonos, a pioneer in wirelessly connected, great-sounding audio products, was an ideal match.
Now the speakers are finally here and will ship in early August. They’re affordable, as far as Sonos speakers go: The table lamp speaker costs $179, while the bookshelf speaker costs $99. That price, a full $50 cheaper than the aging Play:1, makes the bookshelf Symfonisk the cheapest Sonos speaker available. Some aspects of these speakers make them feel less premium than other Sonos speakers. But overall, the Ikea-Sonos collab is a brilliant idea. After using these, I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
The Symfonisk lamp should be appreciated for its concept but not necessarily for its execution. Physically, it lends itself well to the shape of a speaker. Its bottom half has a rounded, cylindrical shape. It looks like an Apple HomePod.
Unlike the HomePod, though, the speaker portion of the lamp is covered in an unglued knit fabric. The fact that the fabric can be moved around with your fingers means that it sometimes puckers or looks as though the stitching is not aligned, like the speaker hastily threw on a sock as it was running out the door.
A round, aluminum on/off dial protrudes from the side of the lamp/speaker. Its base is a lightweight, hollow, plastic disc. The lampshade is made of mouth-blown frosted glass. It’s not quite a globe, not quite a muffin top. It’s more like … a mochi? Yeah, that’s it, a glass mochi. It houses a single bulb (one isn't included, but you can put any candelabra-style E12 bulb in the socket).
The lamp is not small. It measures 16 inches tall and 9 inches wide. The white version—there’s also a charcoal version—sits on my end table, and it stands out. At night, it gives that corner of the living room an eerie glow but doesn’t offer a whole lot of illumination across the room.
One of the differences between these two new Ikea Sonos speakers and other recent Sonos speakers is that the Ikea versions use the old Sonos mechanical control buttons. This is a very small thing, but it contributes to the overall sense that these are less sleek than, say, the $400 Sonos Beam soundbar. Which, for what it’s worth, also pretty much disappears in my living room.