Forget AirPods 3 – Sonos earbuds revealed with unique case design

We could eventually see a pair of Sonos earbuds, an in-ear counterpart to the long-rumored Sonos headphones.

That’s according to a USPTO patent filing, spotted by Zatz Not Funny, that shows a Sonos earbuds design complete with an unusual under-and-over charging case.

The patent mainly covers wireless charging tech, rather than the earbuds as a product in itself, but several of the included illustrations give a rather detailed look at what Sonos’ first pair of wireless earbuds could look like. The buds have a wedged, almost Star Wars Star Destroyer-like shape, with a wide profile that closely resembles that of the Sony WF-1000XM3.

According to Tomsguide, the Sony WF-1000XM4 is wisely ditching this elongated shape for a more compact design. And the abundance of straight lines on this Sonos earbuds design doesn’t look like it would be very ergonomic in your ear.

However, the charging case looks neat: one bud slots into the top while the other slots into the underside, which would allow for an even smaller and more pocket-friendly case than those which hold two earbuds side by side.

Also of interest is another set of diagrams that could be showing a design for the over-ear Sonos headphones. Then again, this drawing is less detailed than previous leaked designs we’ve seen, and also appears to be included simply to demonstrate how the aforementioned wireless charging tech might be applied to a larger set of headphones.

As such, this is more likely a generic diagram than a new glimpse at the actual Sonos headphones, though does raise the interesting possibility of it supporting wireless charging via a device that clamps onto one of the earcups.

Sonos headphones rumors dried up when it became clear that the company’s next release would be the Sonos Roam speaker instead, but now it looks like both a set of over-ear cans and a pair of truly wireless earbuds could join Sonos’ hardware lineup.

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