When the Sonos Ace headphones launched in June, we praised them as a decent first effort. The company made a lot of choices we liked, including the understated design, premium materials, physical controls, and surprisingly good transparency mode.
They also have a party trick up their sleeve that helps set them apart from the competition – a feature called TV Audio Swap. Unfortunately, the feature was very limited at launch. It was only available to iPhone users who also owned a Sonos Arc, the company’s high-end soundbar. In South Africa, that’s a small pool.
Now, two months after the Ace launched, the company has expanded the feature to the rest of its soundbar line and Android devices.
TV Audio Swap for everyone
The feature isn’t entirely available to everyone. You’ll, unfortunately, still need to own a Sonos soundbar. But now, it’ll work with both Beam generations and the company’s entry-level Ray soundbars from an iPhone or Android device. Provided you have the latest version of the Sonos app installed (iOS/Android).
Sonos’ TV Audio Swap feature uses a direct Wi-Fi connection to stream TV audio to your Ace headphones. That isn’t just TV audio but anything plugged into your TV that makes a noise – like a console. The feature even supports spatial audio with head tracking (both of which can be toggled separately) to provide more immersion.
Read More: Sonos Ace review – Good first shot, but could’ve been better
Whether you plan to use the TV Audio Swap feature or not, it’s a good idea to update your app anyway for your own sanity. After the ‘courageous’ move to completely redesign its companion app, ditching most of its useful features in the process, Sonos eventually acquiesced and CEO Patrick Spence issued an apology in July for disappointing customers.