Sonos announces Beam home theatre smart speaker

Sonos today, at an event in San Francisco, California, announced Beam, its newest smart speaker.

Aimed at the home theatre space, the new speaker is physically smaller than both the Playbar and Playbase, Sonos’ past two home theatre, measuring in at just 63.5 cm across. In addition, it features a five-microphone array for voice control.

Like the Sonos One, Beam will ship with support for Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated personal assistant. In July, Sonos will update Beam to support AirPlay 2, Apple’s Wi-Fi streaming standard. Later in the year, the company will update both the Sonos One and Sonos Beam to support Google Assistant.

With Alexa and a single HDMI working in conjunction, Beam users will be able to control their TV with their voice. This includes the ability to turn one’s TV on and off.

The speaker does not ship with a remote. However, with support for ARC, “Audio Return Channel”, an HDMI specific feature, Beam users will be able to adjust the volume of the speaker with their existing TV remote. There’s no additional setup required. In the event customers own older TVs, Beam ships with an HDMI to optical audio adapter. Sonos also plans to include an HDMI cable with each Beam to ensure the cable is never at fault for compatibility issues.

Sonos Beam does not output video, nor does it come with pre-installed streaming apps. Moreover, it doesn’t feature an HDMI input, so it doesn’t act as a central receiver.

In Canada, Beam will cost $499 and launch on July 17th. It’s available to pre-order today. Beam will be available in both black and white.

More to come…

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