Aether’s Cone wireless speaker gains a couple new tricks, still looks beautiful

Just take a second and look at it. Isn’t this one of the prettiest speakers you’ve seen in a while? This is the Cone wireless speaker from Aether and it just picked up a few added features that tightens the gap between it and SONOS. As of this week, the previously AirPlay-only speaker now is capable of going on the road while also making a push to cover your whole home.

While the Cone has always had a beautiful design, it was limited by its AirPlay-dependency leaving it chained to your home network despite its eight hour battery. The good news: Aether has pushed an automatic update to the Cone enabling both Bluetooth connectivity and multi-room capabilities. This is big news, creating a versatile speaker that deserves to be in the conversation with SONOS, Logitech UE and Bose.

Aether did a nice job loading the Cone up with a number of features, aside from the battery life, it has a three-inch woofer, dual tweeters and 20 watts of audio output. That eight hour battery life is now unleashed with Bluetooth-connectivity, making the Cone a viable option for outdoor activities and transporting from one location to another. While it’s not exactly clear why Aether witheld this Bluetooth originally despite that antennas being included in the build, it’s better late than never.

What’s got me really excited about this though is the new multi-room feature that has been activated with this week’s update. I love multi-room audio, it gets me every time that I walk from my kitchen to living room with the music perfectly in tune. Now the Cone can offer that same convenience, with a particularly notable advantage over SONOS. Aether has setup this system to pair speakers together, allowing for one to serve as the “leader” which can be connected to via AirPlay or Bluetooth. This means that anyone with a Bluetooth device, or Apple product in the case of AirPlay, can get in on the DJing at a moments notice. While SONOS has an expansive library, users are limited to playing their tunes via the app (not to mention locked out of iTunes match), unless they want to use a work around with an AirPort Express and the PLAY:5’s line-in jack.

This connectivity really makes up for Cone’s lack of integrated services within the iOS or Android app (they currently only support rdio, BBC, NPR and Stitcher). Bluetooth and AirPlay open up the possibilities to play directly from your iTunes or Spotify library, as well as many other sources.

The Cone from Aether is currently available in two designs: black/copper and white/silver for $399 from Amazon.

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NEW FEATURE UPDATE: BLUETOOTH AND MULTI-ROOM

Music is an essential part of people’s daily lives. I listen to it while working, taking the train, cooking dinner and during all of the other big and small moments that make up my day. But the reality is when it comes to choosing what to play next, I often find myself with flour on my hands and my kids tugging on my pants — I don’t have the time or attention to fumble through my pocket, take out my phone, find the right app and choose a song to play.

Our team is dedicated to creating tangible experiences that are constantly evolving and improving to fit seamlessly into people’s lives. Today we’re excited to share the news that Cone has been updated with Bluetooth connectivity and our Multi-Room syncing feature — making it easier than ever for you to listen to anything you love, anywhere, at any time.

Adding our Multi-Room feature means you can perfectly sync up to four Cones to play the perfect song, radio program or podcast in one room or throughout your home. You can group several Cones together or play something different in every room. Music often takes a social role with loved ones listening together — Cone’s intuitive dial and voice commands make this simple by freeing everyone from needing a device or an app to change the sound. Instead, anyone can walk up to Cone in any room and ask for something. Of course, you can always control Cone with our app when you need to.

Like so many families, time together away from our daily distractions is precious. By adding Bluetooth our list of features, now I can take Cone along on all of our trips, even when WIFI isn’t available.

Bluetooth also allows you to choose what’s playing from a greater variety of content sources, like your local music library on a PC, laptop, tablet or other mobile device. That means access to all of the sounds you love, no matter where it comes from.

Life is busy. Between work, family and all of life’s little indulgences, we don’t want to spend time fussing with complicated technology setups. That’s why both Multi-room and Bluetooth features have been activated automatically on all Cones. No extra steps or downloads needed.

Because at the end of the day, our team at Aether is passionate about making your life easier more enjoyable– and we’re thrilled about this next step in enhancing your experience with Cone.

We hope you are, too.

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