Rumors started swirling last week that Sonos could be developing an upgrade to the Sonos Bar, with HDMI ARC and Amazon’s personal assistant, Alexa, built-in.
If that does end up happening, it’s going to happen at a June 6 event held in San Francisco. Sonos sent out invitations to the event this morning with a very telling GIF attached:The GIF, shown below, shows a bunch of remotes on a table with the phrase “You’re better than this” on it.
While this could allude to the fact that Alexa has the ability to raise and lower volume via voice commands, it more than likely points to a soundbar that uses Audio Return Channel (HDMI ARC) to simplify home theater setups.
Of course, it’s all just conjecture until we reach the June 6 event.
Sonos products in 2018
While Sonos has always been an exciting company to follow, this last year has been one of the most exciting for one of the innovators of multi-room audio.
The most exciting product in that time has been the Sonos One, a wireless speaker with Amazon’s Alexa built-in plus Sonos’ trademark multi-room audio functionality.
In our review, we called the speaker a “cleanly designed, feature-rich and great-sounding device that brings together the best of both ecosystems,” and carried the possibility of becoming “the perfect Alexa speaker.”
There was also the Sonos Playbase (top image), a new form factor for Sonos that put the brand's multi-room audio tech inside your TV cabinet.
The most likely scenario is that the upcoming Sonos speaker will combine the best of those two products - the smart assistant from the Sonos One and the form factor of the Playbase. Whether or not that turns out to be the case, however, we'll just have to wait until June 6 to find out.
