Sonos debuts Beam, a $399 compact soundbar coming later this year with five-microphone array and Alexa integration; Google Assistant, Airplay 2 support planned
Best Overall Best Value Best Small … Christian Zibreg / iDownloadBlog.com : Sonos unveils Beam smart sound bar, confirms AirPlay 2 and Siri coming to its speakers in July Chris Davies / SlashGear : The Sonos AirPlay 2 update is coming in July James Trew / Engadget : A closer look at Sonos Beam: Smaller, smarter and more connected Gary Ng / iPhone in Canada Blog : Sonos to Launch AirPlay 2 Support in July Jesse Hollington / iLounge : Sonos announces new Beam sound bar featuring AirPlay 2 and Siri Buster Hein / Cult of Mac : Sonos busts out new Beam sound bar, plus AirPlay 2 support Ryan Christoffel / MacStories : AirPlay 2 Is Coming to Sonos Speakers Next Month Chris Davies / SlashGear : Sonos Beam is new $399 smart speakerbar Caleb Denison / Digital Trends : The Sonos Beam is the HomePod killer only Sonos could make Sonos : Meet Sonos Beam - The world's most versatile smart speaker for both TV and Music Evan Selleck / iPhone Hacks : Sonos Confirms AirPlay 2 Support Arriving for Some Speakers This Summer Jeff Dunn / Ars Technica : Sonos launches a new mini soundbar, pegs AirPlay 2 support for July Janko Roettgers / Variety : Sonos Introduces Beam, A Compact $399 Soundbar With Integrated Voice Control Sonos Blog : Sonos Beam is the Smart, Compact Soundbar for Your TV (and Everything Else) Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire : Alexa, play this ad for the Sonos Beam, which makes all other smart speakers just look dumb Sasha Lekach / Mashable : Sonos targets TV viewers with its new Beam smart speaker Napier Lopez / The Next Web : The Sonos Beam is a $399 soundbar with Alexa (and Google, someday) Alex Cranz / Gizmodo : Sonos Finally Made a Cheaper Soundbar Chris Mills / BGR : Sonos has a new $399 soundbar that's going to make you hate your smart speaker Tweets: @sonossupport : Sonos devices are not compatible with the Apple HomePod. All of our music playback is initiated via either the Sonos application, certain music service applications, or Alexa. AirPlay 2 will also be a control option starting July 17th. Heather Kelly / @heatherkelly : Sonos says smart speakers have all been built for the kitchen, but they want to make one for the living room. Lol, in SF our kitchens and living rooms are the same room. Patrick Spence / @patrick_spence : Start a playlist on Airplay. Add a song on the Sonos App. Ask Alexa to turn up the volume. Another historic first from Sonos, available in July. @sonos : Meet Sonos Beam: The smart compact soundbar for your favorite TV shows, movies, music, podcasts, and pretty much everything else you want to listen to. Beam ships July 17 for $399. You can pre-order it today. Learn more: http://blog.sonos.com/... http://twitter.com/... Lauren Goode / @laurengoode : Antoine Leblond, #Sonos's VP of software, just did a demo on stage where he initiated a song with Siri and then asked Alexa what was playing. Cross-platform voice control.
Context & Ripple Effects
Sonos is extending its multi-room speaker business into the TV room with the Beam, a $399 compact soundbar whose headline feature is not audio but voice: a five-microphone array tuned for Alexa, with CEO Patrick Spence confirming Google Assistant, AirPlay 2, and Siri are all on the roadmap. That makes the Beam a deliberately cross-platform device in a market where smart speakers usually pledge allegiance to one assistant.
The bet gets tested quickly: an early [[a:931011|review finds the Alexa integration works well but rates the music sound quality average for a $400 device]], while the promised Assistant support takes nearly a year to arrive via a software update in May 2019. The pattern that emerges is Sonos selling assistant breadth first and acoustics second.
First-order effects
- Sonos gains a TV-adjacent entry point below its existing price points, but concedes on pure sound value — reviewers judge the Beam's music performance average for its $399 price, so the purchase case rests on Alexa control and promised Assistant and AirPlay 2 updates.
- Buyers who take the plunge are locked into Sonos's update cadence: Google Assistant support announced alongside the Beam only reaches One and Beam owners through a US software rollout in May 2019.
Second-order effects
- Amazon answers Sonos's push upmarket into better-sounding devices by moving down from its side, launching the $200 Echo Studio with five drivers and 3D audio — compressing the gap between assistant-first and audiophile-priced hardware.
- Apple's ecosystem gets an indirect boost: the July AirPlay 2 rollout lets Sonos speakers play multi-room audio alongside HomePod and accept Siri commands for Apple Music, turning a rival's speaker fleet into an accessory for Apple households even though Sonos states its devices are not compatible with HomePod itself.
Third-order effects
- If the cross-assistant strategy holds, the voice assistant becomes a swappable software layer on third-party hardware rather than a reason to buy one company's speaker — a structure Sonos carries into its next generation, where the $799 Arc, $699 Sub, and $499 Five ship tied to a new S2 app platform.
- Soundbar competition shifts toward how many assistants a device hosts and how fast firmware delivers them, pressuring single-assistant rivals like Amazon and Google to either open their platforms or compete purely on hardware price and fidelity.
The trend: Living-room audio hardware is becoming a neutral host for competing voice assistants, with assistant breadth and software-update cadence displacing raw sound quality as the deciding spec.