One of the best new features of the Sonos Ace headphones is TV Audio Swap, which lets you listen to your home theater's audio through your headphones, as long as you've set it up through the Sonos app. However, it's only compatible with Sonos Arc at the moment and you can't set it up if you have the app on an Android phone.
The good news—and since disgruntled Sonos customers are still complaining about the infuriating app problems they're encountering, it's a change to share good news from Sonos—is that support for more Sonos speakers is coming. TV Audio Swap is coming to Sonos Beam Gen 1, Sonos Beam Gen 2, and Sonos Ray in late summer or early fall. This is also when Android owners will be able to configure the feature.
The news comes via Sonos itself, as part of yesterday's live Ace Q&A (which you can stream here). However, there was no clarification on what “late summer” means. It looks like we'll have to wait a little longer for an actual date, but we're assuming August is the first time to expect it and September may be more realistic.
Why TV Audio Swap will be worth the wait
We've been testing the Sonos Ace for our full, in-depth review, and we're very impressed by its spatial audio performance and TV Audio Swap feature; Listening to movies is a thrilling experience that's on par with the AirPods Max and superior to the spatial audio on basically all the other best headphones, and the TV Audio Swap has worked basically flawlessly for us.
The reason TV Audio Swap is so impressive, and why its absence on Beam, Ray, and Android is a real problem, is because it works with any audio source that's connected to your TV: your Apple TV 4K, your PS5 , one of the best Blu-ray players…. If your soundbar can play it, your Sonos Ace can receive it and apply its excellent spatial audio processing and head tracking without lag. We're very impressed with the sound, tracking, and ease of use – all you need to do is press a single button on the headphones and you'll have private home theater sound.
It's worth noting that the TV part of TV Audio Swap is the crucial part here: you can only swap the audio going to your soundbar from your TV. You cannot stream other audio sources that you have connected to your Sonos system, such as a turntable. But at the moment, if your soundbar is a Beam or a Ray, or if your app is on Android, you can't swap anything; Your premium headphones are missing one of their most essential features. The end of summer can't come soon enough.
