What’s the story so far?

It doesn’t feel like all that long ago we were writing about the Sonos Era 100 and Era 300 speakers, which are the latest devices to join the Sonos portfolio. They won’t be the last we hear from the company this year though, especially not if the rumours are anything to go by.

There have been several leaks pointing towards a second generation of the Sonos Move portable Bluetooth speaker, but what might it offer and how could it change? We are rounding up all the rumours and leaks surrounding Sonos Move 2 right here to give you an idea of what to expect.

Sonos Move Gen 2 release date and price

The original Sonos Move arrived several years ago now, gracing us with its presence in September 2019. It was the company’s first portable speaker, and the first offering Bluetooth too, so it was a pretty big deal at the time for Sonos fans. The Sonos Roam followed in April 2021 as a much more portable offering, though the Sonos Move remains a compelling option with superb sound performance. It doesn’t even feel dated – not by any stretch of the imagination in fact – though Sonos seemingly thinks it needs a refresh.

Rumours are suggesting the Sonos Move 2 – or Sonos Move (Gen 2) as it is more likely to be called will launch in late summer. If this is the case, it’s possible we could see a September 2023 launch, with an announcement sometime around trade show IFA. Sonos doesn’t typically exhibit at the show, though it has been known to launch devices around it.

When it comes to price, the current Move is $399 in the US and £399 in the UK so we’d expect the 2nd generation to be around a similar ballpark. It would mean it remains between the Sonos Era 100 and the Sonos Era 300 in terms of price, which makes sense.

Sonos Move Gen 2 design

• Similar to predecessor
• White and black colour options?
• Integrated handle?

Based on the rumours, the design of the Sonos Move (Gen 2) isn’t expected to change all that much compared to its predecessor. That’s not a bad thing though. The Sonos Move has a solid and sturdy design, with a clever integrated carrying handle at the back. It’s pretty heavy so it’s not as portable as the much smaller and more versatile Roam, but it’s a great speaker to use in the home and then bring outside for a BBQ or pool party.

If reports are accurate and the design remains similar, we would expect the integrated handle in the rear to remain. It’s likely it will have a similar oval look too, with touch controls on the top. We’d love to see the second generation Move offered in different colour options, like the Roam, though if not, we expect to see black and white variants like all Sonos speakers.

There will no doubt be a couple of differences in the Move 2 though, and reports suggest that it could make switching between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth automatic rather than require you to push a button as you do with the current Move. If that’s the case, it might mean the button that exists on the rear of the current Move is removed for the next model. It’s also possible that Sonos will introduce a microphone off hardware switch, as it does for the Era 100 and Era 300.

A report from The Verge claims the Sonos Move 2 will also get the USB-C line in port that is offered on the Era 100 and Era 300 too, which would make sense. No other reports have surfaced around the design of the Move 2 as yet, so it’s still a little bit of a guessing game, but we suspect more rumours will appear over the summer.

Sonos Move 2 features

• Amazon Alexa, Sonos Voice Control
• Bluetooth
• USB-C line in?

The Sonos Move 2 is likely to offer everything the current Sonos Move does as a minimum, though we fully expect new features too. The current Sonos Move offers the usual Sonos features when connected to Wi-Fi, including compatibility with over 100 music services, the ability to adjust EQ settings, the ability to stereo pair two Sonos Move speakers together and plenty more, like grouping speakers together for seamless listening in different rooms. We’ve got a Sonos tips and tricks feature that dives into plenty of detail on everything Sonos speakers are traditionally capable of.

The Sonos Move offers compatibility with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, though given the Era 100 and Era 300 both dropped support for Google Assistant, we suspect it won’t be offered on the Sonos Move 2 either. It is however, expected that we will see Sonos Voice Control and we also expect to see automatic Trueplay tuning again, like the current Move offers. The Era 100 and Era 300 have the option to use their built-in microphones in order to adapt the sound to room rather than requiring an iOS device (though its not as advanced) so we’d expect to see this on the Move 2 as well.

Elsewhere on the features front, we’d like to see Sound Swap from the Sonos Roam come to the Move 2. We suspect it’s unlikely you will be able to use two Sonos Move 2 as surrounds to a Sonos Arc or Sonos Beam Gen 2, as you can with the wired products, but Bluetooth capabilities and hopefully automatic switching between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will be on board the second generation, as well as the USB-C line-in port we mentioned.

It’s worth mentioning, there have been reports to suggest the Sonos Move Gen 2 won’t be compatible with the legacy Sonos S1 software that speakers like the original Play:5 run on. Instead, it will be a Sonos S2 speaker only, which means it wouldn’t work with the original Play:5 and you wouldn’t be able to group them together, for example.

Sonos Move audio

When it comes to acoustic architecture, there haven’t really been any reports detailing what we might see in Move 2 as yet. We fully expect this to be an excellent speaker like its predecessor is, but whether it will wow us with Spatial Audio support like the Era 300 or whether it will simply be the same as the original Move but with some extra processing power and memory remains to be seen for now.

For reference, the original Sonos Move has two class-D amplifiers, a mid-woofer and a tweeter, along with custom waveguides and as we mentioned, it is superb in its performance. We’d therefore expect the Sonos Move Gen 2 to deliver in the sound department but for now, it is not yet clear what will change from the 2019 Move, if anything. The Sonos One didn’t change the sound architecture of the Play:1 for example, so it is entirely possible things could remain as they are.

Sonos Move 2 rumours: What’s happened so far?

This is everything we have heard about the Sonos Move 2 so far.

24 March 2023: Sonos Move 2 portable speaker tipped for summer launch

The Verge reported that a second-generation Sonos Move (model number S44) is in the works and could launch in late summer 2023.