Sonos is planning to implement AirPlay 2 support for its speakers starting this July, the company announced today at an event unveiling new technology.
Sonos has previously said that AirPlay 2 will be available on the Sonos One, the second-generation Play:5, the Playbase, and future products.
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Older Sonos speakers will not support AirPlay 2 on their own due to processor limitations, but they can be paired with the Playbase, the Play:5, or the Sonos One to enable AirPlay 2 functionality. A Sonos Play:1 grouped with a Sonos One, for example, will support AirPlay 2.
AirPlay 2-enabled Sonos speakers will also work with other AirPlay 2 speakers such as the HomePod, and Apple Music will work on Sonos devices using Siri on a paired iPhone, according to Sonos.
Sonos today also announced that Amazon Alexa works with its devices starting now in multiple countries, and the company unveiled a new smart speaker for the living room -- the Sonos Beam. The Sonos Beam, priced at $399, is a smart, compact soundbar designed for the TV, and it too will support AirPlay 2 and Siri. The Sonos Beam and other AirPlay 2 Sonos speakers are the first that have dual-assistant support, working with both Alexa and Siri. Google Assistant support is also in the works.
Apple first enabled AirPlay 2 in the iOS 11.4 update, released in late May, and following the release, Apple published a list of all of the speakers that have announced plans to implement support for AirPlay 2. AirPlay 2 will be enabled on Sonos speakers through a software update.
Pre-orders for the Sonos Beam are available starting today from the Sonos website, with Sonos planning to launch the speaker in July.
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So predictable
Seems to good to be true :) Being able to use Airplay 2 in place of a Connect just seems crazy considering how Sonos typically operates but I'll take it if this is in fact true. I just wonder how this will work because the Apple TV is not going to show up in the Sonos app to create a group.
I don't think you'll be creating a group within the Sonos App. Airplay 2 allows the Sonos speakers to be used outside of the Sonos app itself, which is kind of the whole point. :)