As reported by AppleInsider (and others) earlier, the upcoming ‘picture frame’ speakers from Ikea, will be AirPlay 2 compatible. which in turn seems to have been an inadvertent leak by Ikea themselves, that confirms the aforementioned AirPlay 2 support. This may come as no surprise to many, as these speakers, which are another product borne of the collaboration between Ikea and Sonos, follow on from the previous Symfonisk bookshelf speaker, and table lamp speaker combo that came out in the summer of 2019, which also include AirPlay 2 support. This new product was first rumoured by The Verge about a month ago.
Not too much beyond this is known as of yet, regarding these new speakers, and the images above don’t give you too much of an idea as to what they’ll look like, although given that these are meant to look like ‘picture frames’, chances are they’ll be square or oblong, and fairly flat, as well as being designed to hang from the wall, like a….picture frame (obviously). What we can see is that they’ll be offered in two colourways – white or Black – much like the previous Sonos/Ikea speakers, and the frame will essentially be fabric-covered, with what appears to be a simple two-tone design on the front. the ‘frame’ itself seems to be minimal as well.
Although these speakers are in many ways part of Ikea’s range of smart home products, they don’t use Zigbee, unlike many of their other smart devices, and use regular 2.4GHz WiFi, which is a given when it comes to the need for reasonable bandwidth to transmit audio wirelessly. As this is another Sonos collaboration, the speakers will also work with the Sonos S2 app, and the Sonos Home Sound System, as well as Spotify Connect, in addition to Apple Music using AirPlay 2.
Although the listing isn’t exactly public right now, with stock not listed as being available, the list price shows that these speakers will sell for US$199 in the US, as well as similar pricing in other territories, although when this will actually officially launch, we don’t know.