Sonos Beam: Everything you need to know about the smartest speaker your TV can have

The box is small but very clever

(Sonos)

Sonos has revealed the Beam, a speaker that sits under your TV.

The company's pitch is that the device is really three different things all packed into one box: not only a soundbar, but also a music player and a smart assistant, as well. And in fact it is more than one smart assistant, with Sonos announcing at the same event that Siri will now be able to talk to Alexa, and that Google Assistant will also eventually be coming to its speakers.

But another important point is that box all of that is crammed into is much smaller than its other devices. Until now, its only TV speakers have been the Playbase and the Playbar, which either sit beneath or in front of the television and sweep all the way in front of it.

Accordingly, the Beam is a little quieter and a little less bassy, though it is also a lot cheaper. And it is now by far the smartest of all Sonos's range of smart speakers.

It will be out in July, and will sell for $399, or the same in pounds. It can be pre-ordered now.

TV that sounds better

Sonos's new speaker is undoubtedly meant for the TV, good as it might be at serving its other purposes. It not only makes it sound better but can control your TV, too – all of which can be done using the voice.

The company is fairly practised at TV speakers by this point, having released its soundbar all the way back in 2013. It builds on that history with the Beam, which includes a range of different speakers arrayed to ensure that the sound coming out of your television is as wide and expansive as the stuff you are watching on it.

In practice, it sounds a little less loud than the Playbar and Playbase. The quality is much the same, but it doesn't have the same hefty base that those TV speakers can throw out.

But the breakout Beam feature for the TV isn't really about sound but control. Sonos has built the new speaker specifically so that it can talk to the television that is controlling it.

By using HDMI Arc – a technology that comes as standard in quality TVs now, but which many people are still unlikely to have – the speaker not only takes sound from the TV but can send messages back, including instructions to turn on the television, for instance. Volume can be done the same, and by hooking the TV up to Amazon's Fire streaming box you can even ask for Netflix shows and more.

(That HDMI port is the only input and output in the entire thing. But given that many televisions don't actually yet support that, Sonos will throw an adapter into the box to ensure that it works with TVs with optical ports as well.)

Theoretically, that should allow people to do away with the remote, at least in many instances. But doing so will rely on both Alexa and you having the most up-to-date TV technology.

A music player

Sonos began as a music company, and it is still mostly focused on the listening experience for audio. That continues with this speaker, despite the fact that it is built primarily to live under the television.

For music, the sound is just as immersive and clear as it is when watching videos, and the company is clear that it worked hard on making sure it did both very well. (It is probably most comparable to the Play:5, Sonos's biggest music speaker, though again lacks the hefty sound of that product.)

And the speaker benefits of course from the same app and technology that powers every other Sonos smart speaker. You can listen to music from any supported steaming service – which, Sonos is proud to boast, is just about all of them – and you can control that with your voice, too.

Talking speakers that speak to each other

The third part of Sonos's approach is to integrate the growing market for virtual assistants into all of its products. That began with the Sonos One last year, and has become more sophisticated in the new speaker.

All of the other features – the ability to control your television, the ease with which the Beam can handle sound from videos, music and even other content like speech, and more – are wrapped up in Sonos's relatively new commitment to voice control. The television, its sound and any music can all be done with the voice, which is the result of a great deal of diplomacy on the part of Sonos, which acts as the go-between for a range of different and competing services.

The speaker works to make sure that different voice assistants can not only talk to you, but also to each other. With the addition of AirPlay 2, the speakers can now be controlled by talking to the Siri that lives in your phone or other product – and Sonos has been careful to merge the two of those services on its end, so that they can communicate.

That means, for instance, that you can start a song using Siri on your phone by asking it to play on one of your Sonos speakers. You can then ask the Sonos speaker itself – where Alexa lives – what is playing, and Sonos will handle that conversation to ensure that it has the right answer.

That is all part of Sonos's commitment to ensuring that its sound platform is as open as it can possibly be, even with infamously controlling and sometimes closed companies like Apple.

That same approach runs throughout the speaker: it should theoretically be able to control any compatible TV, the voice assistants can be used on just about any streaming platform, and Sonos is working to bring new technologies like Google Assistant.