Sonos finally gets AirPlay 2 - comes to Sonos Beam, Sonos One and more

The Sonos Beam is one of the best soundbars you can get right now, and it's just got better with AirPlay 2 integration. 

AirPlay 2 functionality was announced at the launch of of the Sonos Beam, but when we reviewed the soundbar, we were told it was coming soon - and now that update is here. 

The Sonos Beam is smaller than both the Sonos Playbase and Sonos Playbar, helping it squeeze into places that other soundbars and soundbases can't.

The Sonos Beam will also support TruePlay, the room calibration developed by Sonos to help sound fill the room, as well as speech enhancement for TV shows and movies and night mode to help keep the sound lower late at night.

Voice support

Currently, the Sonos Beam supports Amazon Alexa and, with AirPlay 2, now Siri - Google Assistant integration is also coming but not until later. This makes Sonos the only platform to support all three major voice assistants. 

"We want to support all major voice assistants, just like we did with streaming services," says Antoine Leblond, Vice President of Software at Sonos.

The AirPlay 2 update also comes to the second-gen Sonos Play:5, Sonos One and Sonos PlayBase speakers. 

The Sonos Beam will be available to buy from July 17 for $399/£399.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.