Sonos is set to have a rather busy September.
It already looks likely that the US brand will unveil its sequel to the Sonos Ace over-ears, the Ace Ultra, next month, but those premium cans could be joined by a brand new soundbar.
According to Bloomberg, Sonos is working on a new soundbar currently dubbed the ‘S56’ and codenamed ‘Gambit’. A new filing with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) shows a product resembling the second-generation Beam from 2021, implying that a new iteration of Sonos’ ‘middle-child’ soundbar could be arriving next month.
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Sonos had already confirmed that a new product would be coming in September during a recent earnings call, with CEO Tom Conrad hinting that AI would play a large part in the company’s plans going forward. Now, it seems, this new ‘product’ may in fact be a pair of releases designed to satisfy wearable audio fans and home cinema enthusiasts alike.
The Sonos Beam Gen 3 could arrive alongside a sequel to the Sonos Ace, the Ace Ultra. (Image credit: Future)
Given that the most recent Beam launched in 2021, it certainly feels like it’s time for an upgrade. All we have to go on is Sonos’ filing to the FCC, so details for the upcoming soundbar remain sketchy at best, but we’d expect the usual Sonos boxes to be ticked as and when a third-gen Beam sequel arrives.
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Dolby Atmos support, seamless ecosystem integration, and some form of voice control via baked-in smart assistant are all taken as read, though we wonder how Conrad’s hinted ‘AI integration’ might find its way into the third-generation Beam.
The big question on our minds is whether the new Beam (assuming that’s what Gambit turns out to be) will feature up-firing drivers, or stick to delivering Atmos via clever virtualisation, as with the Gen 2 model. And might HDMI passthrough be added? We doubt it, as Sonos tends to favour simplicity over extra cabling, but we can hope.
If nothing else, we hope that prices stay stable. The Beam 2 launched at £449 / $449 / AU$699, so that’s the sort of RRP we’d hope the new model would tend to sit at, but given that the Beam 2 was itself a good deal more than the original model, which cost £399 / $399 / AU$599 at launch, there’s little guarantee of things staying as they are. Costs are only going one way in tech, and it isn’t downwards.
For now, though, all eyes look to September to discover exactly what Sonos has in store. We’ll keep you updated as soon as we discover any new information about its future plans.
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