Sonos today debuted a new Alexa-supported soundbar built specifically for the living room.
The Sonos Beam will retail for $399 and is designed to be a more affordable alternative to the company's Playbar product, which retails for $699. At about two feet in length, the Beam is also more compact than the Playbar.
The other major selling point is its support for Amazon's Alexa thanks to five microphones that can be used for voice control.
On Wednesday, Sonos executives said the market has been flooded with smart speakers at throwaway price points. But many of these products are targeting kitchen spaces, claimed Chris Kallai, the company's vice president of hardware product management.
"We saw there was a critical room being ignored: the living room," he said.
Sonos is marketing the new product for those with smaller living rooms who want to create a TV-focused home theater setup. For a single speaker, it certainly does pack a punch. Sonos demoed the product at a press event today, and we were impressed; the Beam's four woofers delivered some pretty heavy bass, while clips from Wall-E and the sci-fi flick Arrival easily filled the room with sound.
During the demo, Sonos showed that the soundbar can be used to turn on a living room's TV and control surrounding smart bulbs with voice commands through Alexa. But if you're not a fan of Amazon's intelligent assistant, the Sonos Beam also works with Apple's Siri through AirPlay 2 on an iOS device. Down the line, it'll also support the Google Assistant.
In addition, the Sonos Beam supports over 80 streaming services, including Spotify. It'll launch on July 17 and you can pre-order it today.