Sonos Announces Sonos Beam Smart Soundbar for TV and Music

During a special event in San Francisco Sonos unveiled Sonos Beam, a new compact smart soundbar with support for 80+ music services, as well as support for Amazon Alexa at launch (with multiple voice assistants to come over time). With Beam, Sonos combined three products into one – a smart speaker, a powerful soundbar, and a music and streaming center for the living room. Beam connects to the Sonos home sound system in multi-room set-ups. The Sonos Beam should be available from July 17 at $399 US, already supporting Apple AirPlay 2.

Apple has confirmed that its latest mobile operating system iOS 11.4 is now available introducing the much anticipated AirPlay 2 updated technology, which enables Apple's own smart speaker to be configured as stereo pairs and to work in multi-room mode. AirPlay 2 will be also supported by several other audio manufacturers. Apple also confirmed that HomePod will be available in Canada, France and Germany, starting June 18.

Powerful on its own, and even more impressive in combination with the range of multiroom speakers from B&O PLAY and Bang & Olufsen, Beoplay M3 is designed by award-winning Cecilie Manz and finely tuned by Bang & Olufsen acoustic engineers to deliver a flexible and immersive listening experience in the modern home. The M3 features custom designed drivers, advanced digital signal processing, Chromecast Built-in and is ready for Apple AirPlay 2.

Sonos unveiled Sonos One, an all-new, voice-controlled smart speaker capable of supporting multiple voice services and audio content from more than 80 streaming services. Sonos One launches with Amazon Alexa support, and Google Assistant to follow in 2018. The Sonos One is priced at $199 USD and will be available globally on Oct. 24. The company also confirmed that additional free software updates will unlock Alexa voice control for current Sonos owners, as well as Apple AirPlay 2 and Siri support.

Libratone is a brand that prides itself on staying ahead of the curve, and now joined the smart home revolution by adding Amazon Alexa skill and voice integration to its award-winning ZIPP speaker range. Apart from the Amazon Alexa integration, the brand also announced that its ZIPP range of wireless and home speakers will be among the first in the market to support Apple's recently updated AirPlay 2 technology, which will be implemented with the availability of iOS 11.

The audio industry was once again shaken to its foundations by Apple's announcements at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2017. The product updates and sneak peeks made at this Apple Special Event, on June 5, 2017, were extremely rich in surprising technology revelations, even though its implications might not become clear until a few weeks or months later. After all, the WWDC conference - a developer's conference - is traditionally where Apple builds the foundations for what will be its underlying short-term/long-term strategies, serving mainly to motivate developers and strategic partners.

Apple's opening keynote for its Worldwide Developers Conference 2017 (WWDC17) at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, was a swirl of long expected announcements, wrapped in surprising underlying technology revelations. Among the many announcements was the preview of Apple's new home music speaker with built-in-far-field voice recognition powered by Apple Siri, the HomePod. As expected, the design is a powerful combination of electroacoustic mastery, digital processing and smart connectivity.