The Sonos patent describes what sounds like the usual modern day headphones, complete with all the bells and whistles. The patent makes mention of gesture controls and voice assistant support, in addition to basics like microphones and volume and play control slider. There’s also mention of voice commands for media playback as well. But the Sonos patent makes it sound like this will be a separate product entirely, without the physical control options. And indeed, the patent depicts two different headphone designs that reflect this to a certain degree.
The patent also describes tech that allows playback to transition from the headphones to another local device. Presumably, this refers to a Sonos speaker of some sort. This process that the company refers to as swapping can happen between devices in a local network, or between devices tied to a single user account. Of course, as with all things related to patents, there’s no guarantee that Sonos will actually be making these. And even if it does happen, the patent was filed last year and only recently granted. So an actual product will take awhile. (Source: USPTO via Protocol)
