These headphones are compatible with the Sonos app, which is incidentally the same app used to control their soundbars and speakers. You can see a video of it in action here. While it offers features like a bass and treble slider for customizing sound, head tracking, channel balance, and TV Audio Swap (which you can read more about below), it’s still somewhat barebones in design. Users have also been vocal about changes to the app before the launch of the Sonos Ace, and were disappointed due to its bugginess, the integration of music libraries into the app, and removal of features like alarms. If you’ve never used the Sonos app before, these concerns may not be a dealbreaker, but for seasoned Sonos fans, the state of the app is a real downside if you’re looking to make the most out of your headphones.

One standout feature of these headphones is TV Audio Swap, which allows you to connect the headphones to your compatible Sonos soundbar and swap audio, basically giving you the ability to use the headphones to listen to your TV. At launch, the only soundbar supported is the Sonos Arc, and you need to have an iOS device, which is a bit limiting. Both devices need to be connected to your iOS device via the app, which connects to your Wi-Fi. Once this is done and the feature turned on, you can easily switch source audio by holding down the ‘Content Key’ for a few seconds. However, while it’s easy to activate this command, using the feature is a different story, and the initial setup can be frustrating for some if you encounter issues. The range isn’t very long, so you need to stay near the soundbar to use it.

You can also daisy chain these headphones to get audio from a gaming console connected to your soundbar. While some users have experienced issues with the right ear cup when using this connection, we didn’t encounter this issue, and switching audio sources was fairly seamless. It also seems like firmware 2.9.4 also patched the problem, but if you’re still encountering it, please let us know in the forums.