We really rate the Sonos Move, the firm's portable – if hefty – smart speaker. But it's getting on a bit, and a replacement is due. A new report says that the second generation model, the Sonos Move 2, is planned for a September 2023 launch – and that there are some significant improvements to the spec.
The Sonos Move was one of the best smart speakers when it launched back in 2019, but this is a fiercely competitive market and it’s even more crowded than it was back then. So Sonos has taken some key features from the new Sonos Era 100 and 300 speakers to freshen up the Move. It has also upgraded some key bits of the spec and should sound considerably better too.
What’s new in the Sonos Move 2?
According to The Verge, the Sonos Move 2 gets the same redesigned controls that we’ve already seen on the Era 100 and 300 speakers. Its USB-C port supports line-in audio for extra flexibility, and you can also use it to charge your phone.
The new Move won’t be significantly lighter – it’s definitely more transportable than portable – but according to the report Sonos has made it sound significantly better, and the battery life has been improved dramatically.
The second generation Move will deliver true stereo audio thanks to dual angled tweeters (the current generation only has one) and as with the current model there’s a woofer to handle the low end and Automatic Trueplay to adjust the sound to the speaker’s current location.
Battery life is up from 10 hours to a whopping 24, and the report also says that the Move 2 uses less energy when you’re not playing tunes or podcasts. And like the Sonos Roam, the Move 2 will be able to play Bluetooth audio to the rest of your Sonos speakers: the current Move can’t use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth simultaneously, but the second-gen can.
The Move 2 follows the lead of the Era speakers in another way: it’s dropped support for Google Assistant, although Alexa and Sonos Voice Control are still there.
If the Move 2 sounds as good as reports suggest, Sonos could be onto a real winner here: we described the current Move as a “truly excellent speaker”, and the upgrades in the second generation make it even more attractive.
