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Sonos is a leading American audio technology company that is best known for pioneering wireless multi-room audio systems, which make it easy for listeners to stream music and other content throughout their homes. The company continues to innovate, creating wireless speakers, home theatre systems, headphones, architectural components, and integrated home audio solutions that revolutionise how people listen and connect to sound.

Global Head of Editorial

Today, we introduce a new colour for Move: Lunar White. The hue represents months of research, formulating, and testing. It also exemplifies a key tenet of the Sonos experience—that all our products work together as part of a system, not only technically but also aesthetically. It was up to Kitty Suidman, Sonos’s Design Director of Colour, Material, Finish, and her team of experts to find a lighter tone that would allow Move to seamlessly transition between the indoors and outdoors, whilst still harmonising with the rest of the Sonos system. Find out how her international upbringing and life-long obsession with colour prepared her to identify the perfect shade.

Choosing the colour of our speakers is anything but elementary. So Kitty Suidman approaches the challenge with equal amounts of inspiration and technical expertise. Born in the Netherlands, Suidman spent 20 years in Asia before returning to her native country to attend industrial design school. During her studies, she realised that she was more drawn to colours and materials than industrial design. Daring to follow a divergent path, she graduated with a unique portfolio that equipped her to construct a rich and varied career spanning Philips Design, Motorola, and T-Mobile. Since joining Sonos seven years ago, she’s developed a rigorous yet thoughtful approach to colour, rooted in deep technical knowledge that extends into chemistry and manufacturing processes. Her nuanced description of how her team landed on Move’s new shade illuminates how Sonos’s custom colours enable our speakers to seamlessly blend into your home—both indoors and out.

How would you describe Sonos’s approach to product colour?

Our approach to colour starts with our approach to design. And design is about finding solutions to problems. Let’s take Move as an example. As our first portable product, our problem was finding a colour that allowed Move to blend in with a variety of different environments. More generally, though, it’s important that we deliver colour that feels timeless and versatile, something that will last for a long time. We make products that endure, and colour is a part of that equation.

When I first joined, our products incorporated metallic finishes in addition to colour. For example, both the black and white versions of the Play:1 have a silver grille. Starting with the second-generation Play:5, we set out to create clean, simple aesthetics by finishing the product in a single colour. We want our speakers to feel less like technology in your home and more like simple, beautiful objects.

How does Sonos decide which colours to use?

It’s really a simple strategic choice. Our goal is to find colour solutions that blend into their environments. White has a history in the home. Black has a history in audio. Our vision was to create a simplified colour language that is relevant to the way our owners live.

So if you were to put a white Sonos One and Beam next to each other, are they the exact same color?

No, that’s where my job gets interesting. Most Sonos speakers are a custom shade of black and white that we call Sonos Black and Sonos White. Sonos One, for example, is available in Sonos Black and Sonos White. However, we occasionally need to deviate from those two colours. The first time we did so was with 

. With Beam, we had the challenge of working with a fabric grille. White fabric felt cheap, so we landed on a light grey color. However, a key aspect of our design philosophy is that each product should appear monolithic, meaning that regardless of the different materials used, the entire product should look like it’s one seamless object. To match the light grey fabric, we had to tweak the white used on the rest of Beam so that it didn’t contrast as much with the fabric. We call this variation Cloud White. When we developed Cloud White, we made sure it didn’t stand out as a different white against the rest of our products. When you view all of our light colored speakers together, you shouldn’t notice a difference. If we have to tweak a color, the entire portfolio still needs to feel cohesive.

But Move doesn’t have a fabric grille, so why couldn’t you use Sonos White?

We could have. When we tested Move in Sonos White outside, it proved to be very durable. But Sonos White was specifically developed for inside the home. It’s a warmer shade that feels domestic, especially in contrast to the cooler, bluer tones used in many consumer electronics. But if you see something with that same tone outside, it feels harsh and artificial. Bright white is not a “natural colour,” so taking it outdoors doesn’t feel appropriate. It stands out too much. And that’s what led us to Lunar White. Since Move was designed to be used both indoors and outdoors, we needed a colour that could seamlessly transition between the two environments. It needed to feel at home in both an indoor and an outdoor space. Colour should complement its surroundings.

Did you take the same approach to the black version of Move?

Yes. The darker shade of Move is not the same as Sonos Black. It’s actually called Shadow Black. It’s a custom colour we created for the same reasons that we created Lunar White.

What was the most difficult part of developing Lunar White?

There is a translation that needs to happen when you apply a colour to different materials and surfaces, whether that’s plastic, paint, silicone, or anodised metal. With Move, there were 20 different parts that needed colour-matching. All our colour development is done in collaboration with our production suppliers, so we create production recipes. Chemistry is a big part of what we do! There’s also a good amount of work that goes into fine-tuning the way a colour appears in various materials so that we can create that monolithic look for the product. For example, when we were applying Lunar White to Move, the power cable appeared more pink than the rest of the speaker. We had to tweak the recipe so that it all looked cohesive. We also put all of our recipes to the test through hardware verification testing, ensuring that the colour is durable in terms of things like scratch-resistance, chemical-resistance, and UV exposure.

So it sounds like the “material” and “finish” parts of your title are just as important as “colour”?

Absolutely. Most of my team’s contribution to material development is done in collaboration with the mechanical engineering team. We work closely with them to make sure we end up using materials that enable us to deliver the right colour and finish for a product. And by “finish,” I mean texture and gloss level, how shiny or matte a product looks. With 

, our challenge was its curved grille. We actually had to reduce the gloss level on that product because the curvature of the grille made the finish look too shiny. Our products typically have a gloss level between 7 and 15 gloss. For the black version of Arc, it’s 4 gloss.

I have a four-person team with two different kinds of roles on the team. Half the team is based out of Santa Barbara and really focused on strategy. They partner with our industrial design team to identify the colour material finish (CMF) point of view for each product, but also how it fits in with the entire portfolio. They work with a lot of technical cross-functional teams outside of design, including the mechanical engineering, tooling, and acoustics teams. Then the other half of my team is in China, and they are CMF developers, working on site with the suppliers to oversee the recipe development of the colours. They also track the CMF of a product from prototype to a finished product.

What qualifications does one need to join your team? Asking for a friend.

There is no CMF university! Really, the main prerequisite is having an affinity for colours, materials, and finishes. I never hire the same person or skill set twice. Most of the members of my team transitioned into CMF from a different background because it spoke to them. We have a material chemist, a graphic designer, an industrial designer, and an engineer on the team. I look for diverse skills, which brings different perspectives and a much more thorough discussion to the table. The one thing we all share is a keen eye for getting the details right when it comes to colour acuity.

What’s the biggest challenge of your job?

Colour specifically is a very subjective topic. So the challenge is, how do you remove the subjectivity in a space where there is no right or wrong answer? One way of doing that is with trend forecasting. It’s important to understand what colours are going to be relevant going forward and where these colour trends are coming from. But you’re not just taking fashion trends and blindly applying them to your products. You have to put them through a brand filter. You have to determine how these colour trends apply to your products. Another way is to be thoughtful about the story you want to tell with your colours. It’s important that you develop colours whilst keeping in mind how that product will launch and what the story behind it will be.

When did you first realise that you had a passion for colours and materials?

I discovered this during my university days. The school I was attending was really focused on industrial design, but I started to discover during my studies that I was more interested in colours, materials, and finishes. I studied under a woman named Lidewij Edelkoort, who is well-known for trend forecasting and looking into the future. I leaned into having her as my mentor and ultimately graduated under her direction. During my final year, I had to create a project to graduate with and I did something very different than the other students at the time, which was to design materials and colours for window blinds. Rather than taking on a typical industrial design project, I chose to do something that I felt more interested in and passionate about.

How has your international upbringing influenced your work with colour?

When I was five, my family moved from the Netherlands to Japan, so I spent about 20 years of my life growing up in Asia. Design is a big part of the Japanese culture. And Japan is well-known for design, especially graphic design and fabric design. It’s a culture that pays attention to detail when it comes to anything that is made. So I think that growing up there and being exposed to a culture with an eye for detail and design was really influential on my appreciation and fascination with colours and materials.

The result of Suidman and her team’s work, the 

, is available now on sonos.com. With a neutral tone that appears softer in outdoor environments, it complements natural surroundings whilst fitting in with Sonos’s larger system of speakers when indoors. Suidman is already hard at work on her next project, defining the colour of a new Sonos product. “Colour is such a big part of my life. It’s just a part of who I am,” said Suidman. “Colour makes me happy.”

Lunar White Move: A Conversation with Sonos's Design Director of Colour, Material, Finish

Our Global Head of Editorial, Steven Saftig, managed to get his hands on the new Sonos Arc right before we closed our offices. He couldn’t stop talking about our newest soundbar, so we finally told him to just write a blog post about it. From setup to Dolby Atmos, he shares what it’s like to have an Arc in your home when you’re spending the entire day there.

I was on a train, coming back to Santa Barbara after visiting my family, when I got the email from our head of HR: “All employees, please work from home.” We were a little under two months away from announcing Sonos Arc to the world and I hadn’t even heard what it sounded like yet. Whenever I write about our products for the blog, I immerse myself in the experience because I want to be able to share what it’s like to actually live with them. How was I going to write about our new home cinema speaker without ever having heard it? And, to be honest, I still didn’t fully understand what Dolby Atmos was—one of Arc’s most exciting features. So when I received that email, asking us to get everything we needed out of the office by the end of the day, I panicked. So I started texting. Desperately.

Hey, does anyone have one of our new, top secret speakers lying around? Just, you know, waiting to be picked up? Like, right now?

Fast-forward through a cinematic montage of secret closets, product handoffs, and I finally had an Arc in my hands—an hour before our offices shut down.

Unboxing Arc: A shape-defying design. And 76,000 individually-drilled holes.

Back at home, I began one of my favourite parts of setting up a new Sonos product—the unboxing. The experience with Arc is as exciting and dramatic as I had hoped. More importantly, though, we’ve continued to look for ways to minimise the environmental impact of our products. As Michelle Enright, Senior Design Manager, Packaging Experience describes, “For Arc, we had a clean slate opportunity to design packaging from the ground up. We created a 96.1% paper-based construction—moving away from foam-based cushions, which would have been the easier and more cost-effective path.”

I peeled back the final layer of protective packaging and there it was. Now, by that point I’d seen a ton of photos of Arc, but because of the subtlety of its design, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I finally saw it in person. I carefully carried it over to my media console, placed it in front of my TV, and stood back. (You can also mount Arc to the wall.) Here’s the thing about the design of Arc: It’s actually quite difficult to describe its shape. It’s not a box. It’s not a rectangle. It’s not even a cylinder. It almost appears like it’s in motion, as if undulating. The overall effect is that Arc doesn’t feel like it’s trying to compete or stand out from the rest of your home cinema setup. As Kitty Suidman, Director, Colour Material and Finish says, “[Arc’s] design is purposeful, delivering a seamless, soft, familiar profile. It feels like a piece of furniture in your home.”

I started to circle around Arc. And with each angle from which I observed, a new dimension of the design was revealed. There are no harsh edges, clunky protrusions, or jarring cavities. In short, it’s stunning. Turns out, this is all very intentional. “We take a 360-degree approach,” says Philippe Vossel, Industrial Designer at Sonos. “It doesn’t matter where you first look at the product—it all matters. If you look at it from the side first, that’s where it matters. If you mount it to the wall and look at it from the bottom first, that’s where it matters.” Vossel and the Industrial Design team were also thoughtful about how your eye travels along the product. “We want to make sure you don’t get hung up or distracted by unrefined details,” he said. “And in the end, it’s how these details all tie together that allows us to create a visual story about sound.”

There’s one more thing you should know about the design of Arc. Every Sonos product is the result of a creative, collaborative balance between what the hardware and software teams want to put inside the speaker and how the industrial design team wants it to look. There is a lot of technology packed into Arc. (More on that in a moment.) And the grille is the bridge that brings these two interests together—the piece that encases all of this incredible technology, whilst allowing the product to look as seamless and beautiful as you expect from all Sonos products. Building on the success of technological advances we made with the grilles on Play:5 and Playbase, Arc’s grille is a single seamless sheet, carefully moulded and drilled with more than 76,000 holes to ensure exceptional sound and wireless performance. “It’s the latest version of something we’ve been working on for years,” says Dana Krieger, Senior Director of Design, Product.

I set up Arc in the middle of a work day, so I couldn’t immediately sit down to watch a full film. But I was so anxious to hear what it sounded like that I decided I had to at least listen to a song. And, as anxious as I was, I still used Trueplay™ to tune Arc to my living room, which is not a uniform shape. (Trueplay is, by far, my favourite Sonos feature. Not using Trueplay is like riding around in a new car without adjusting the seat and setting your favourite radio stations. You’ll still enjoy the ride, but you’re missing out on an experience that’s customised just for you.)

I queued up my test song. (You have a test song, right? I play the same song whenever I test out a new speaker: “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac. I’ve been listening to that song since I was a baby, so I know every corner of it. If you don’t have a test song, check out this playlist of tracks we created to show off your system at its best.) I then sat down on my couch and listened the way that Greg McAllister, Sound Experience Manager at Sonos, taught me how to listen.

Two things were immediately obvious to me—spaciousness and clarity. What do I mean by “spaciousness”? I don’t just mean that the sound fills the room, which it does. But imagine that you were given a one inch by one inch piece of paper, 6 colours of paint, and then told to paint a picture of your house using all of the colours. With a steady hand, you might be able to create a crude depiction. But there wouldn’t be much definition to the front door. You wouldn’t be able to draw the flowers in the window boxes. And some of the colours would blend into a pool of muddy brown. Now, imagine that you were asked to do the same thing, but with a five foot by five foot piece of paper. This is the type of spaciousness that Arc gives to music. For me, it meant hearing additional layers to “Rhiannon” that I’d never heard before. And alongside that spaciousness is remarkable clarity. The vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass, and drums all sound crisp, clean, and pure. In short, the song sounded glorious.

As you can tell, I was beyond thrilled with my experience of Arc, completely on its own. Without Sub. Without rear surrounds. Without Dolby Atmos. But Arc was designed to evolve along with the rapid advances in home cinema technology. And that means playing Dolby Atmos, the new gold standard of home cinema audio. I had to see what Arc could do with a full Atmos setup.

But first, what is Atmos? Whilst there are lots of videos and explanations on the internet describing this technology, I’ll describe it in my own words here. Prior to Atmos, elements of sound from a film or show had to be assigned to a particular channel (left, centre, right, rear left, rear right, etc.) With Atmos, though, sounds are treated as objects—and all of the channels work together to project those sounds into different parts of the room. Here’s where it gets cool—Atmos also adds height to the equation. (Arc achieves this by utilising upwards-firing drivers that bounce sound off the ceiling.) This allows those projected sounds to be heard—not just along a horizontal plane—but anywhere in the entire three-dimensional space of your room. What does that mean for your listening experience? I was hoping you’d ask.

Films with Arc: The Dolby Atmos Experience

I paired Sub and two Sonos One SL rears to Arc. I used Trueplay to tune my system again (to account for the addition of the rear speakers). I popped popcorn. And then I sat down to watch Mad Max: Fury Road. From the very first scene, it was immediately obvious to me why Atmos is the new standard in home cinema sound. In the opening sequence, a flood of voices and ambient sounds swirled around me. It’s surprising and thrilling and has made me completely rethink the way I’ve used the word “immersive” in the past. Over the next two hours, I felt completely a part of what was happening in the film. The sound design of the film is bold and vibrant—and watching it in Atmos adds so many layers to the experience. At the same time, I could hear every word of dialogue perfectly—even amidst a thunderous score and barrage of epic sound effects. As Chris Jenkins, Oscar-winning sound engineer and Sonos Soundboard member, would later tell me, dialogue is the backbone of every film. Even without Speech Enhancement turned on, Arc delivered the dialogue with detailed clarity. And then there are the quiet moments in the film—serenely beautiful scenes that offer delicate sounds and whispers. With the sonic precision of Arc, I found these scenes just as engaging as the action sequences.

But perhaps the most interesting and respectable aspect of the Atmos experience is that nothing comes across as gimmicky. Whilst sounds do occur around you, nothing feels out of place or like a trick. You’re not suddenly pulled away from what’s happening on screen because of a random noise behind you. It all feels seamless and, ultimately, allows you to become all the more immersed in the world on your TV screen.

As this post goes to publish, we’re still working from home. And over the past several weeks, I’ve been listening to a lot more vinyl and re-watching films I love—which feels really comforting. But hearing them with Arc has made revisiting favourites feel fresh and inspiring.

I Got a Sonos Arc and Then Didn’t Leave My Home for Weeks. Here’s What Happened.

In celebration of global Pride, we’ve launched a new station on Sonos Radio called Full Spectrum. The limited-edition station, initiated by a group of LGBTQ+ employees at Sonos, includes songs from artists in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as music considered integral to the LGBTQ+ experience. Along with personal liner notes recorded by Sonos employees, the station features exclusive interviews by Rita Houston with beloved LGBTQ+ artists, including Brandi Carlile and Laura Jane Grace. Below, we tell how the station came to fruition and why it may sound different from what you’re used to hearing during Pride season.

Our personal stories are what bond us together. Even in the workplace, it’s the human connections we create with colleagues that make it possible to get the job done. Built by sharing stories of our weekend activities, family life, and hopes for the future, these bonds reinforce trust, provide outlets for stress, and help us dig deep when it’s midnight and we’re trying to get a project over the finish line. Now, imagine trying to build those relationships whilst hiding major aspects of your life. It’s next to impossible to really get to know someone if they can’t tell you about their struggles, the songs that make them want to get up and dance, or the person they’ve chosen to spend their life with.

Whilst the LGBTQ+ movement has made increasing strides in the past decade, for many in the community, the workplace is still a challenging place to be their most open, authentic selves. With that in mind, a small group of employees at Sonos joined together in early 2018 to establish an employee resource group (ERG) to help the entire company work towards creating a more welcoming, supportive atmosphere for all LGBTQ+ employees.

Named Pride@Sonos (but often referred to by its shortened moniker “Pride@”) the group joined other ERGs at Sonos, including Black@ and Women@. (Since then, employees have founded Latinx@, Veterans@, and more.) One of the early decisions the planning committee needed to make was whether Pride@ would only be for members of the LGBTQ+ community—in order to provide a safe space to talk about challenges the members may be having—or whether it would be open to everyone at Sonos, including allies. Ultimately, the group felt that the LGBTQ+ community has always been about being open and that the ERG should reflect that. This decision also ensured that those who were questioning their sexuality or gender identity could receive the support of the group without calling attention to themselves simply by being a member.

From the outset, the group found support from Sonos leadership. Dmitri Siegel, VP Global Brand, extended his support into an official capacity, becoming Pride@’s official executive sponsor. “I am so grateful to have the opportunity to be an ally in the Pride@ group,” he said. “As a straight white male, it’s common to feel intimidated or uncomfortable engaging on LGBTQ+ issues because you feel like you are going to say the wrong thing or be offensive in some way. Being a part of Pride@ has given me the opportunity to do my work—listen and learn. Getting over insecurity and discomfort unlocks all these amazing people and a whole aspect of the human experience that I would otherwise miss out on.”

Pride@ has continued to grow its size and impact at Sonos. Since its founding, the group has brought in presenters to increase awareness of LGBTQ+ issues, donated to local and national charities, organised employee participation in local Pride events, and hosted an LGBTQ+ youth group in Santa Barbara for a lab tour and Q&A session with Sonos employees.

As Pride@ began preparing for Pride season this year, it became increasingly clear that an in-person activation or event was unlikely. “When we started discussing ideas, we weren’t even sure that anyone would be back in the office by June,” said Shelby Branam, Pride@’s current chairperson and a software engineer at Sonos. “So we started to think, how could we do a really meaningful activation in a way that felt inclusive, even if we weren’t together in the office.”

At the same time, excitement was growing within the company for the launch of Sonos Radio. From its inception, Sonos Radio was designed as a way for Sonos to provide owners with an incredible radio experience, whilst at the same time sharing more about who we are as a company. Members of Pride@ realised that doing something on Sonos Radio would enable them to support Sonos employees, as well as the community at large. So they reached out to the Sonos Radio team to see what was possible.

“Now that we had this amazing platform of Sonos Radio, doing something with Pride@ felt like a perfect fit,” said Saidah Blount, producer on the Sonos Radio team and curator of Sonos Sound System. “And it started out very simply—let’s get a whole bunch of tracks together and have this be a representative station. But Pride@ is a crazy-talented, cross-organisational group of people, with diverse interests outside of what they do at work. We realised that this could be an incredible discovery moment for Sonos Radio, whilst at the same time tapping into the emotions of what global Pride is all about.”

A defining element of the Sonos Radio experience is hearing from artists themselves—from entire stations curated by music industry icons including Thom Yorke, Brittany Howard, and David Byrne, to Radio Hours on Sonos Sound System with Nancy Whang, JPEGMAFIA, and Phoebe Bridgers. As Pride@ began gathering song recommendations and recording stories from its members, Blount and the Sonos Radio team got to work adding the voices of artists from the LGBTQ+ community. But first, Blount wanted to find the right person to do the interviews. At the top of her list was Rita Houston, Program Director at WFUV in New York City and the host of The Whole Wide World with Rita Houston. “Rita is known within the radio community as one of the best interviewers in the business,” Blount said. “She has a rapport with artists that makes it feel more like a conversation than a promotion. Additionally, she’s been out and very vocal about being a member of the LGBTQ+ community.”

With Houston on board, the station began to fall into place. “We reached out to some of the team’s favourite LGBTQ+ artists and invited them to pick the songs that meant ‘Pride’ to them and share about their experience as a member of the community,” said Rita Houston. “They responded as enthusiastically as we could have hoped.” Throughout the three month-long global Pride season, listeners will hear from Brandi Carlile, Laura Jane Grace, and other celebrated artists in a format similar to Radio Hours on Sonos Sound System. Siegel added, “I think that the tremendous response from artists speaks to the strength of our brand and the Sonos Radio team, but mainly, I think artists responded to the authentic nature of this effort.”

But the heart of the station are the songs and stories shared by Sonos employees. Listeners can expect to hear about the full spectrum of the LGBTQ+ experience—from the hidden struggles to the triumphant highs. “You’ll hear the celebratory songs of our community, of course, but also songs about rage, confusion, hopelessness, and protest,” said Eric Bowers, member of Pride@ and an attorney on the Sonos legal team. “Whether it be a trans artist struggling to be heard, a disco song that celebrated our community, or a modern country singer expressing his support for inclusion, we have it. We wanted the station to be true to life, not a corporate approximation of our community.”

Unsurprisingly, collaboration on Full Spectrum has had a huge impact on everyone who participated. “As an ally, working on this station has been transformative for me,” said Blount. “To hear about the process of coming out and actualising oneself is deeply moving. It’s been such a privilege to work on this station in collaboration with Pride@.”

From Bowers’s perspective, the feeling is mutual. “This has been a real partnership between the Sonos Radio team and the Pride@ ERG. The Radio team listened to all of our comments and suggestions and responded to each with compassion and understanding. Our ERG members were included as seminal participants in the creation of the station from the very beginning all the way through to the final finishing touches,” he said.

Starting today, you can listen to Full Spectrum on Sonos Radio in the app under Sonos Presents. And if you’re interested in starting your own LGBTQ+ employee resource group at your company, you can learn more 

. “I think ERGs are important because they give a platform to the needs of different communities at Sonos,” said Branam. “And when a company supports them, it’s a step above saying that it cares about its employees—it shows that it’s willing to celebrate the differences of its employees, as well.” Happy Pride!

Full Spectrum on Sonos Radio: The Story Behind the Station

 brings movies, shows, and games to life with crystal clear dialogue and an immersive Dolby Atmos experience, you might expect music to have been an afterthought. Far from it. Arc’s advanced internal components ensure that the listening experience when you step away from the screen is as dynamic and engaging as when you’re in front of it. To illustrate this with our new brand campaign for Arc, Sonos’s advertising team chose a movie with a soundtrack that is an essential extension of the film itself: 

 the perfect film and soundtrack to showcase how Arc surrounds you in the story.

Music has been an integral element of movies since live orchestras used to accompany silent films at the dawn of the artform. Since then, filmmakers have continued to push the ways songs and score can further a story, deepen the emotional impact, or add intellectual subtext to what’s playing out visually on the screen. When done right, that music can serve as a vehicle to extend the experience beyond the theater and into everyday life. Great soundtracks allow the audience to infuse their lives with the feelings that movies so powerfully generate—confidence, passion, exhilaration, love, joy.

With both movie and music lovers behind the scenes at Sonos, Arc was designed to offer depth, clarity, and richness for everything you want to play. “Although Arc is a soundbar, it’s designed to be able to play back music incredibly well as part of the Sonos system,” said Chris Davies, Senior Director, Audio Engineering. “We’ve used the arrays that we’ve created for home theater to maximize the music listening experience,” he continued, referring to the array of speakers within Arc that precisely direct sound throughout the room. “The center array creates a nice center image while the left and right arrays create an incredibly wide soundstage.” The result being a soundbar that seamlessly transitions between providing brilliant sound for what you’re listening to on screen and off.

It fell to Sonos’s advertising team to communicate this in a way that was visually exciting. Luckily, Lorrin Pascoe, Sonos’s Senior Director, Global Advertising was already intimately familiar with the interdependent relationship between movies and their music. “How many times have you watched an epic movie, loved the music, and then immediately started playing the soundtrack or score on repeat?” he said. “It can work the other way too—the music can remind you of a particular scene and then you’re streaming the movie later that night. That was the story we wanted to tell with Arc.” But first, Pascoe and his team had to find the right movie for the project: a film with a soundtrack that didn’t just serve a supporting role, but stood on its own.

When director Ryan Coogler reached out to Kendrick Lamar about his in-development film, Black Panther, he reportedly only asked for a few songs. As the story goes, after Lamar saw a large portion of the movie, he was inspired to deliver a full 50-minute album. And, although the rapper is only credited on five songs, his voice can be heard on almost all of the tracks. Black Panther The Album, like most of Lamar’s lauded catalogue, is a cohesive, inspired work of art. So when Pascoe met with colleagues Jamaal Layne and 

 to license a movie and music for the spot, they quickly agreed that Black Panther was the ideal choice.

“Sonos isn’t about a single product—

. And our advertising reflects that,” Pascoe said. “While you might expect to see hardware as the hero in a spot like this, we wanted sound to be the main character.” In order to stay true to the film and the world of Black Panther, Pascoe and his team used the purple shockwaves from the film and the necklace pieces from the soundtrack’s album cover to represent the two different sources of sound. The result is a spot that visually depicts how Arc and other Sonos products immerse you in the world of your favorite movies and their music. Check it out.

Films are meant to entertain, challenge, or comfort us. And while great movies only need to do one, it’s often the films that masterfully do all three that can have the biggest impact on our lives. These are the films we revisit again and again. These are the films we want to carry with us. These are the films that earn our attention and continued exploration. With 

, you can enjoy these experiences with the brilliant sound they deserve.

Arc’s Stealth Superpower

All our products are designed to look timeless, blending into the unique style of your home. But while aesthetics may endure, technology is constantly moving forward. With this in mind, we wanted to introduce you to the new Sonos Sub and Sonos Five in the architecturally significant Elliot House. Designed by R.M. Schindler, protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Los Angeles home exemplifies how to bring modern advantages to a timeless classic.

After Rudolph Schindler arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1920s—at the request of Frank Lloyd Wright, who asked him to supervise the construction of the revered architect’s celebrated Hollyhock House—Schindler and his wife quickly found themselves at the epicenter of the city’s progressive, bohemian counter culture. Emboldened by the nonconformist atmosphere, Schindler bucked the popular Spanish Colonial Revival trend when he designed his own home. Often cited as the first modernist home in America, the Schindler House was created for four adults, including the builder of the home and his wife, as well as the Schindlers. The house reflects Schindler’s unique approach to architecture, with a mix of private and communal spaces and blurred boundaries between indoor and outdoor living spaces. Schindler’s willingness to prioritize the actual living experience within his creations is beautifully evident in the home he later designed for his insurance agent, the Elliot House.

Built in 1930, the house fell prey to short-sighted updates like a prefab kitchen and the removal of a built-in wooden desk and cabinetry before current owners Cameron Silver and Jeffrey Snyder bought the home in 2001. Silver and Snyder worked with Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner to restore the historic home, intent on preserving Schindler’s unique approach to space, lighting, and atmosphere. And, like Schindler did in his time, they took full advantage of the most current construction methods and material options, like new kitchen appliances and a contemporary color palette. It’s this approach—preserving the original artistry of a design while modernizing it for the world of today—that made the Elliot House the perfect setting to introduce the new 

The most powerful Sonos speaker for music, the new Sonos Five delivers vividly clear, room-filling sound. Internal updates include increased memory and processing power while the 3.5 mm line-in port allows you to connect your turntable, CD player, or other device directly to Five and play to your entire system. Five blends into the unique aesthetics of your home with an enduring design that has been updated in all black and—for the first time—all white.

Sonos Five: The high-fidelity speaker for superior sound

You can feel and hear the difference when you connect Sub to any Sonos system. While all Sonos speakers are designed for great bass, adding Sub allows those speakers to focus more on midranges, resulting in richer sound. And, like Five, the new Sonos Sub has increased memory and processing power ensuring the best possible performance while preparing Sub for future updates. Two force-canceling drivers at the center of Sub eliminate vibration and rattle so you get powerful bass without any distortion. Its award-winning and versatile design features a slim, sculptural shape and high-gloss finish. And, you can position it to be noticed or hide it away because Sub can be placed upright or laid on its side.

Sonos Sub: The wireless subwoofer for deep bass

As the sun sets each day, it casts golden light through a west-facing window and illuminates the richly-toned wood along the kitchen wall. This is Silver and Snyder’s favorite time of day. Even after owning the home for more than 20 years, they still appreciate the thoughtful details Rudolph Schindler weaved into the house (even if the milk box has long been removed). To learn more about the new Sonos Five, 

Sub and Five: Modern Interpretations. Original Artistry.

While sound is integral to everything we do at Sonos, there has never been a specific sound associated with our brand. Until today. Coinciding with the launch of Sonos Radio, we are thrilled to reveal our new sonic branding. Composed by Philip Glass, iconic master of contemporary classical music, listeners can hear his original composition when tuning in to Sonos Radio. Here’s the story behind the sound.

In the months leading up to the launch of 

, Dmitri Siegel, Sonos VP of Global Brand, discovered that a major piece of the listening experience was missing. “We realized that Sonos didn’t really have a sonic brand identity,” said Siegel. “We’re obsessed with sound—it’s what we think about all day—and yet we didn’t have a sound that meant Sonos. When we made a dream list of who might compose that sound for us, Philip Glass was always at the top.”

Glass’s decades-long exploration of repetition and modularity made him a natural choice to build upon the Sonos name and visual identity, which are rooted in symmetry and simplicity. Luckily, he was known to have Sonos in his home and even 

, thanks to a long-standing relationship with 

Sonos’s Global Head of Music, Brian Beck

. Siegel added, “Philip Glass is the perfect fit for Sonos because of the combination of formal structure and exuberance, humanity and technical rigor in his music.”

Once Glass agreed to the project, Siegel’s brief to him was simple:

Sonos is a made-up word that means sound.

Now we need to make up a sound that means Sonos.

And, as one of the most influential American composers of the last century, he delivered. Describing the result, Glass noted, “The composition reflects two opposing ends of a spectrum: the organic and the electronic. The organic, represented by the acoustic instrumentation, speaks to the act of listening as both communal and personal. The electronic, which can be heard in the synthesized elements, is a nod to Sonos products as breakthrough technology, both in sound reproduction and connectivity.”

To learn about the sound profile of Sonos speakers, Glass worked with Giles Martin, award-winning composer, producer, and Sound Experience Leader at Sonos. “We wanted to be sure that the tone and range of the composition demonstrated the capabilities of the speakers and that the composition addressed those moments in the user experience where sound is used explicitly,” said Martin.

To bring the composition to life, it was recorded with 21 musicians at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City. The recording includes a 17-piece string section, flute, trumpet, French horn, piano, and electronic synths.

Once recorded, Martin mixed and mastered the sonic branding in collaboration with Grammy- and Emmy-winning recording engineer Sam Okell. When they were finished, Siegel finally had the sound that means Sonos.

In all, Glass created a complete set of branding elements, ranging in length and purpose, which will serve as a “sonic toolkit” for the Sonos sound experience. Martin and the Sound Experience Team will draw from this toolkit as they chart and define the brand’s sonic identity going forward.

We’re now proud to share the final product, brought to life in the animation below. It’s best experienced on your Sonos system because, as Glass notes, it was composed “using the full frequency spectrum in order to demonstrate the range and depth of Sonos speakers.”

 where you can hear the new sonic branding in brilliant sound, along with curated genre stations, original programming, and thousands of radio stations from around the world.

What Sound Means “Sonos”? Philip Glass Had the Answer.

Fitness classes. Concerts. Happy hours. School. It’s all streaming now. Here’s how to use Beam to experience your social life with the sound it deserves.

Whilst it was once considered anti-social, screen time is now the best way to stay connected. You might not be able to spend time in person with your friends and extended family, but you can create greater closeness through shared experiences. And with the latest tent-pole films, premium fitness classes, and performances by world-class musicians and artists all streaming to your home, there’s a lot to share. Our most versatile speaker, 

 is the easiest way to experience it all with brilliant sound.

There’s no lack of options when it comes to streaming quality content. 

We worked with Oscar- and Emmy-winning creators

 in the entertainment industry to fine-tune Beam so that when you watch your favourite films and shows, you’re hearing them the way they were meant to be heard.

From The Great Courses Plus to Beachbody, smart TVs offer so much more than your standard video streaming services. Learn, sweat, and more with high-definition sound.

Whilst technically categorised as a “home theatre speaker,” when it comes to music, Beam delivers. Choose from hundreds of stations on TuneIn or from more than 100 music streaming services. If you want music for cleaning, cooking, working, playing, or dancing, it’ll sound better with Beam.

Whether you’re playing a game with friends in a Discord call or watching on Twitch, Beam’s rich, room-filling sound is the best way to truly immerse yourself in your favourite online worlds.

The connectivity our phones provide have become even more valuable. Now we can attend a yoga session in the morning, an online class in the afternoon, and a DJ set at night. To listen with brilliant sound, stream directly to Sonos from your iOS devices using Apple AirPlay 2. And when you need a moment to tune everything out, listen to your favourite YouTube videos (comedy, unboxing, or the music video to which you learned the entire dance in secondary school) out loud on Sonos.

 or just watching videos your family sent you, you can use AirPlay 2 to stream directly from your Mac to Beam, as well. That video of your niece’s first steps (and the family’s reaction) definitely deserves to be heard with brilliant sound.

Beam has voice control built in. Whilst Amazon Alexa and the Google Assistant are good at helping you be productive, they’re also a great way for the family to have some screen-free fun. Try these:

“Hey Google, tell me something interesting”

With so much incredible, free content out there (and more coming every day), there’s a lot to enjoy on Beam. We wanted to share a few of the things that have been keeping us entertained, amused, energised, and inspired.

 COLORSXSTUDIOS is a unique aesthetic music platform showcasing exceptional talent from around the globe. They’re lending their YouTube page to artists from around the world who are at home and unable to tour.


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBhEryRqrIk

 Live Nation’s Live from Home. A steady stream of live performances from up-and-coming artists to powerhouses.


 NFL Game Pass gives you free access to full broadcast replays, condensed games, and coach’s films.


 NFL App, Website, and other supported devices. https://gamepass.nfl.com/packages?redirected=true

 NBA League Pass provides access to full-length and condensed replays of all games from the 2019-20 season, as well as an expansive archive of classic games and content.


 NBA App on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android mobile and tablet devices, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and other supported devices. https://www.nba.com/nba-fan-letter-league-pass-free-preview

 The Home Cooking podcast from Samin Nosrat (SALT FAT ACID HEAT) and Hrishikesh Hirway helps you figure out what to cook.


 https://pod.link/homecooking and your favorite podcasting platform.

 Easy Asian Home Cooking with Adam Liaw provides home cooking recipes, tips, and advice from Adam Liaw, Destination Flavour host and prolific cookbook author.


 https://www.youtube.com/user/adamliaw/featured

 Cirque du Soleil is offering a front-row seat to moments from KURIOS – Cabinet of Curiosities, O, and LUZIA, with never-before-seen angles that can only be experienced on your screen.


 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ5eUJNXrMw

 Class Central is a search engine and reviews site for free online courses popularly known as MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. Ivy League schools are currently offering 450 courses for free right now.


 Various learning sites like Coursera, all compiled here: https://www.classcentral.com

 Planet Fitness is offering free at home workouts called Home Work-Ins.


 CorePower Yoga is offering free yoga classes daily.


 Daily at 9 p.m., 2 a.m., and 7 a.m. AEST


 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4z1

 Headspace is offering free meditations that are part of a larger collection in the Headspace app called Weathering the Storm. It includes meditations, sleep, and movement exercises to help you out, however you’re feeling.


 Scholastic has curated a free digital hub designed to support virtual learning plans. Scholastic Learn At Home allows open access to daily learning journeys divided into four grade spans—Pre-K–K, Grades 1–2, Grades 3–5, and Grades 6–9+, covering ELA, STEM, Science, Social Studies, and Social-Emotional Learning.


 https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html

 Circle Round adapts carefully selected folktales from around the world into sound- and music-rich radio plays for kids ages 4 to 10. Each 10- to 20-minute episode explores important issues like kindness, persistence, and generosity, ending with an activity that inspires deeper conversations between children and adults.


 https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1246443751?mt=2

With so many aspects of our social lives now streaming, we hope that you continue to find new ways of staying healthy, entertained, and connected.

Google and YouTube are trademarks of Google LLC.

Your Social Life Is Now Streaming. How Does It Sound?

They aren’t just for playing hard. Your Sonos speakers can also help you work hard. From flow-inducing soundtracks to using your voice assistant for hands-free help, here’s how to get to work when you’re at home with Sonos.

If you’ve set up your home as a place to relax, entertain yourself, and enjoy time with loved ones, plonking an office down in the middle of it is bound to create some challenges. For every advantage (getting that pile of laundry folded), there are three more disadvantages to grapple with (dogs begging to be pet, playtime noise from the kids, and the temptation of that new game you just bought). Whilst your Sonos system can’t solve all distractions, it can help inspire you to get going in the morning, stay on task, and be productive throughout the day. Here’s how..

There are a lot of things to consider when you start setting up a new 

—from equipment and ergonomics to connectivity and logistics. Here’s how to integrate your system into that setup, allowing you to reap the benefits of working with Sonos.

If you do most of your work on a computer, you might find it easier to control your Sonos system from your desktop. You can download desktop controllers for both Macs and PCs 

. (The link to download will automatically populate with the correct controller based on what kind of computer you access the page with.) Browse and search content, control the volume, group rooms, and pause the music when your boss calls.

For content you can’t control with the Sonos desktop app (like YouTube videos and sounds from websites), there’s Apple 

. Just make sure that you’ve clicked “Show volume in menu bar” from the Sound menu in System Preferences. Then, click the volume icon in the upper right hand corner of the toolbar and choose a speaker from the list of Output devices. Pair two Sonos Ones, Play:5s (Gen 2), or Moves to listen in stereo sound.

With or without a Mac, you can use line-in to connect your computer directly to Play:5 with the built-in 3.5mm jack, or Port or Amp with RCA in.

Finally, consider naming your work speakers as such. That way, your family won’t accidentally group you into the impromptu dance party that just started downstairs. To rename a speaker, go to 

. Choose the speaker you want to rename, then tap 

There are plenty of ways to utilize your voice assistant while you’re working from home. Here are some of our favorite ways to use Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on the job.

 Say “Alexa, add ‘team conference call at 10 am’ to my calendar,” or “Hey Google, what’s on my calendar today?”

 Say, “Alexa, check my email,” or “Hey Google, set a reminder to call Eric.”

 Say, “Alexa, add ‘printer paper’ to my shopping list,” or “Hey Google, what’s on my shopping list?”

Without the normal daily cues that the workday has begun—a rigorous commute, stopping by the coffee bar, greeting coworkers in the morning—it might be difficult to get started. Here are some ideas on how to get inspired in the morning and coax your brain into go-mode.

More time at home means more time for listening. If you don’t already subscribe to a streaming music service, now is a great time to try one out. Try 

 free for three months, and for a limited time, you can also try 

Choose a song, album, or other sound that you’ll play each day to signal that the workday has begun. Consistency is key here. Still procrastinating? Set an alarm using that sound for the same time every day. (More on using alarms later.)

No single album, playlist, station, or soundscape works for everyone. For as many different tastes in music there are, there are just as many working styles. Perhaps you’re doing something repetitive and need something more engaging to keep up your energy. Or maybe you’re creating and find lyrics distracting. Play around with finding the type of music or sound that helps you get and stay motivated when you most need it. Not sure where to start? We’re loving More Minimal, a playlist created by our Global Head of Music, Brian Beck. Featuring electronic, film scores, instrumental hip hop, post-rock, and more, this playlist can provide some momentum without distracting you from the task at hand. Check it out on 

You know that feeling when you’re been working on something for so long that it’s turned into a big blur of words or numbers or concepts or colors? Yeah, we do, too. When you’ve hit a wall and want a change of scenery, you don’t have to leave the music behind. Grab Move and head out to your balcony or garden for some fresh air, sunshine, and a new perspective. With auto Trueplay it will sound great no matter where you take it.

 have shown that a moderate level of ambient noise enhances productivity. So if you’re suddenly missing the subtle noises of your coworkers, it’s understandable. Alternatively, a high level of noise can hurt creativity. Here’s how to use your system to make the best of both situations.

The sounds in your home that normally provide joy can suddenly feel distracting when you’re trying to crunch numbers or finish a report. White noise is a great remedy. Defined as noise containing many frequencies with equal intensities, the soothing sound can help mask unwanted “peak” noises—like a game show on TV or a door slamming—by reducing the difference between those sounds and normal ambient background noise. Check out 

 for playlists and albums of white noise.

Even libraries have a litany of subtle noises that add up to a consistent din of auditory liveliness. Whether you’ve realised it or not, the random sounds at your office, local coffee bar, or bustling coworking space might have been helping you stay focused and on task. If you find your remote workspace too quiet, there are a ton of options to fill that void. Start with 

Lunar White Move: A Conversation with Sonos's Design Director of Colour, Material, Finish

I Got a Sonos Arc and Then Didn’t Leave My Home for Weeks. Here’s What Happened.

Full Spectrum on Sonos Radio: The Story Behind the Station

Arc’s Stealth Superpower

Sub and Five: Modern Interpretations. Original Artistry.

What Sound Means “Sonos”? Philip Glass Had the Answer.

Home Office Help: Using Sonos to Get Motivated, Stay Focused, and Be Productive

What We Mean by Brilliant Sound

A letter from our CEO

Secrets of Nostalgia: Simple Ways to Warm Up Your Holidays

Celebrating Black Businesses With Reissue of Limited Edition Sonos One SL

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Full Spectrum on Sonos Radio: The Story Behind the Station

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