Sonos just held its "Sonos 27" event and came out swinging: the $449 Ace Ultra headphones and the $699 Beam Ultra soundbar — Dolby Atmos tuned, and wired straight into ChatGPT. Yes, the speaker now talks back.
The pitch: talk to the soundbar, and it swaps tracks, tweaks EQ, even sets your mood lighting — no phone, no app, no fumbling with a remote at 2 AM. Reviewers who got first listens are genuinely impressed with the sound. The Beam Ultra alone is a legit Atmos upgrade for anyone who's been nursing an aging bar.
Here's the catch nobody's saying out loud: for that convenience, you're putting an always-listening microphone with a corporate AI brain in the middle of your living room. Sonos knows a thing or two about software stumbles — this is the company whose app update torched two years of goodwill. Now they want to add an LLM to it.
My verdict: the hardware sounds killer, the prices are Sonos-premium, and the ChatGPT bit is either the smartest feature in home audio or the dumbest privacy trade we've nodded along to yet. History says: both.
Watch the 60-second breakdown: https://cdn.builder2.com/w/v/sonos-launches-ace-ultra-headphones-and-beam-ultra-soundbar-with-chatgpt-ai-buil-3008/9:16/job_791ce93e-cee.m3u8
Source: Bloomberg{target="_blank" rel="noopener"} · Images: Bloomberg / Engadget / The Verge
