Sonos has unveiled the $399 Sonos Beam, a “smart” speaker that supports 80+ music services, multiple voice assistants and Apple AirPlay 2. It will ship starting July 17 and is available for pre-order at www.sonos.com.
Beam is part of the Sonos home sound system, meaning owners have options like adding two Sonos Ones for surround sound, a SUB for more bass, or integrating Beam into their existing Sonos multi-room set-ups. Owners can also control Beam the way they choose, whether it be with voice, the Sonos app, third-party apps like Spotify, Audible, Pandora and Tidal, their existing TV remotes, and smart home gadgets like wall switches and remotes made by Sonos-certified partners.
AirPlay 2 is Apple’s followup to the original AirPlay Wi-Fi-based music playback standard. While Sonos popularized Wi-Fi-based multi-room audio playback, Bluetooth became ubiquitous, and multi-platform Wi-Fi audio standards spread in popularity, Apple lacked a competing story until AirPlay 2.
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