CHOICE verdict
The Symfonisk is a lamp that incorporates a wireless speaker, delivers good audio quality and would be a great fit in a bedroom, living room or even TV room. If you have other Sonos speakers throughout the home then the Symfonisk is a great value option. However the lack of mic support for voice assistance, Bluetooth for direct playing of music from your mobile and an LED display (which would make it a perfect alarm clock for the bedroom) may leave you wanting a bit more.
Price: $269
Contact: ikea.com/au
The simply elegant Symfonisk has a material base speaker and lamp on top, with audio controls at the base.
What is it?
A collaborative home product design between Ikea and Sonos, the Symfonisk is a table lamp with a wireless speaker from Sonos incorporated into the base. The Symfonisk is designed to work as part of a home network, not as a personal speaker, with Wi-Fi support but not Bluetooth. This means you need to connect the lamp to the home network to play music, not connect with Bluetooth directly using your smartphone. For this reason the Symfonisk makes more sense as part of a larger Sonos home speaker environment.
The base of the Symfonisk has controls for volume and skipping tracks and the Sonos app provides extensive control for iPhone and Android smartphone owners.
It supports AirPlay 2 for Apple devices and can access music streaming services including Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and Tidal.
The simple lamp design uses an E14 bulb fitting and the lamp housing is blown glass.
A bright idea from Ikea and Sonos
Pair two Symfonisks and get stereo sound for the room. If you have a home cinema setup using the Sonos Soundbase or Playbar then you can add a pair of Symfonisk lamps at each corner of the room to create a multi-speaker solution.
Place the lamp anywhere in your home to enjoy music wirelessly. Ethernet cable support ensures that you can also get uncompressed and high quality audio without interruptions.
The performance and functionality of the Symfonisk speaker is very similar to the Sonos One SL which is priced exactly the same as the Symfonisk, making the Ikea speaker lamp even better value.
Some users may decide that no mic support is a positive rather than negative feature, as it removes any privacy issues. However this means the Symfonisk is not a smart speaker and won't accept voice assistant queries on its own.
Fortunately, you can sort of make it a smart speaker/lamp by putting in a smart light with an E14 fitting and use your smartphone to change the colour, dim the lamp or turn it off and then control the speaker through voice commands on your smartphone using the Sonos app.
How does it sound?
Considering the size and price, the speaker performance compares favourably with other small wireless speakers on the market with clear sound for vocals and bright detail on pop tracks. The bass is a bit subdued and you can make adjustments to the treble to suit your preference. While you can push the volume quite loud, it can get boomy at the highest setting.
There is a handy remote that Ikea sells for $20 that allows you to play/pause music tracks and change volume with the touch of a button. It looks like a hockey puck and can also control any of the other Sonos speakers you may have in the home.
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
