Sonos recently announced the Sonos Beam, their latest take on the smart home speaker, during an event in San Francisco, today.
Designed to be the central focus of the modern home theatre setup, the beam has a noticeably smaller footprint than previous home theatre speakers from the company, that being the Playbar and Playbase models.
The Sonos Beam will have full Amazon Alexa integration and in July, the device will receive an update that will allow it to communicate and support Airplay 2, Apple’s own streaming standard. In other words, the Sonos Beam will be able to play nicely with a wide gamut of other popular devices, making it a perfect fit for homes that already have an eclectic ecosystem of devices.
Through a single HDMI signal and Alexa, users will be able to transform their TV into a smart set, capable of using voice commands to channel surf, turn on and off and more. The Beam will suport the HDMI ARC standard, meaning users will be able to use their existing TV remotes to control the Beam, useful, as the Beam will not ship with its own remote. The device itself will feature four woofers, two outwards and two angled on the side. Customers will be able to pair the device with Sonos One speakers and a Su to create a 5.1 surround system. The Sonos Beam will be available for $499 CAD and will launch July 17th. readers interested can pre-order the device in either black or white variants.
