Report: Next Sonos smart speakers will be called Era 300 and Era 100

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Sonos is gearing up to launch its next-generation smart speakers. The Verge reports that it'll be called Era 300 and Era 100. The flagship Era 300 is reportedly built to showcase spatial audio music tracks and Dolby Atmos content. But both will feature a completely new look compared to existing Sonos products.

You can reportedly expect the "richest fidelity" on a single speaker from Sonos with the Era 300. It's likely to offer USB-C line-in, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and possibly Bluetooth playback. Less is known about the Era 100, but it's expected to have an Era 100 SL model without built-in voice mics. It could end up being a Sonos One successor with up-firing Dolby Atmos support. 

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Nine of 10 smart speakers in the US are either from Amazon or Google

Strategy Analyitics conducted a new survey on smart speakers in the US in July and August and it revealed that 9 out of 10 smart speakers are either Amazon Alexa or Google Home devices. The results of that survey show that in the 50 million installed speaker market, the Echo and Google’s Home speaker occupy the top eight slots on a list of the ten most popular speaker models. The outlier is Apple’s HomePod, in the number nine spot, with a 4 percent market share.

Canada, a much smaller market, has seen the availability of Amazon, Google and even Apple's HomePod these past two years although there's no telling how well these devices are selling here. Google Home has been developed partly in Canada and has had the French Canadian language built-in since its inception. Amazon just unloaded new devices in the US and Canada.

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