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The Sonos Five is $100 cheaper today at Amazon and Best Buy
The company's most powerful music-focused speaker typically costs $499.
Upcoming Google Nest smart speaker emerges in regulatory filing
Google looks to be doubling down on its fabric aesthetic.
Amazon Music HD expands 3D audio library with Warner Music Group tracks
Echo Studio, one of Amazon's latest smart speakers, might sound great, but until now it offered a limited library of 3D audio through Amazon Music HD. However, if you picked up the speaker and signed up for the hi-res streaming plan, you now have more 3D music options. You can listen to tracks from across the Warner Music Group empire in Dolby Atmos starting today.
Sonos offers its early adopters a 30 percent trade-in offer on new speakers
If you've been hanging onto an old Sonos speaker for forever but have been interested in switching to a recent model such as Move, One or Port, the company might tempt you further with its Trade Up program. If you have an eligible speaker, you can claim 30 percent off a new one and recycle your existing product.
Samsung's Galaxy Home smart speaker is still alive, somehow
While Samsung's Unpacked event was mostly about the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10+, a new S Pen and a Galaxy Book S laptop, plenty of observers expected some news on the fate of Galaxy Home. Samsung announced the smart speaker a year ago, but it's been beset by delays. Most recently, Samsung targeted a release window of the "mid-second half of the year" -- so perhaps sometime this quarter. The latest word is that Samsung is still working on the Bixby-powered device.
Samsung delays its Galaxy Home smart speaker to Q3
Samsung has delayed the release of its Galaxy Home speaker. The Bixby-powered device should be on shelves sometime between July and September. Official confirmation of the delay shouldn't be too much of a surprise, as Samsung previously told Engadget it planned to put the speaker on shelves in the first half of the year, and there's still no whisper of a confirmed release date.
An Amazon employee might have listened to your Alexa recording
Yes, someone might listen to your Alexa conversations someday. A Bloomberg report has detailed how Amazon employs thousands of full-timers and contractors from around the world to review audio clips from Echo devices. (Update: Amazon has clarified to us that the recordings were captured after the wake word is detected.) Apparently, these workers transcribe and annotate recordings, which they then feed back into the software to make Alexa smarter than before. The process helps beef up the voice AI's understanding of human speech, especially for non-English-speaking countries or for places with distinctive regional colloquialisms. In French, for instance, an Echo speaker could hear avec sa ("with his" or "with her") as "Alexa" and treat it as a wake word.
Qualcomm's new chips power 'smarter' AI-connected speakers
Smart speakers still have a lot of room for improvement. How often have you had to shout a command over your music, or had to endure mediocre sound for the convenience of using your voice? Qualcomm believes it can do better. It's unveiling chips that should lead to more powerful smart speakers. The QSC400 system-on-chip is meant to deliver a quicker and more intelligent response for voice assistants, even when it's very noisy. They can stay in standby for as much as 25 times longer (and thus wake up faster), handle more on-device AI and more effectively recognize your voice from a distance.
Sonos One speaker now packs more powerful internals
How do you improve the Sonos One speaker when there aren't too many qualms about the basic design? If you ask Sonos, it's all about future-proofing. The company is rolling out a Gen 2 version of the One that shares the same design, but includes Bluetooth Low Energy, a newer processor and more memory. In other words, it should perform next-generation tasks that would simply be too much for the original to handle -- not that Sonos is saying just what those additions might be.
How many smart speakers do you need in your home?
By Thom Dunn This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full blog on how many smart speakers you need in your home here. Whether you're already one of the 20 percent of American adults who own a voice-controlled smart speaker or you're still on the fence about investing in an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant device or an Apple HomePod, you might be wondering just how many of these intelligently attentive devices you'll need. A smart speaker can offer voice-controlled convenience throughout your home—but only if it can hear you. The number of speakers you should buy depends on what kind of home you live in, and where and when you'll need your voice assistant to hear you. We have a few suggestions, depending on whether you want to build a smart-home setup, to listen to music and podcasts, to keep in touch with family and friends, or to use a digital assistant to boost your productivity. If you plan to buy multiple smart speakers, we recommend staying in the same family—although you could set up an Alexa-based speaker in one part of the house and a Google Assistant device somewhere else, you'd probably end up forgetting which platform has your to-do lists and which one controls the lights, or you'd have to do lots of redundant setup to get your smart home working with both platforms.
Google said to plan first smartwatch, budget phones for 2019
If Google introduced a lot of hardware in 2018, it might have a veritable avalanche in store for 2019. Nikkei sources claim to have details of Google's roadmap for the year, which includes a few firsts for the brand. To begin with, the insiders appear to corroborate rumors of lower-cost Pixel phones. The scoop doesn't include many details, but suggests the budget Pixel line will sit below the $749 price of the iPhone XR. Earlier rumors pointed to mid- and large-sized devices with 1080p LCDs, Snapdragon 670 processors, 32GB of storage, a 12-megapixel rear camera and a lone front shooter.
Apple HomePod launches in China on January 18th
Apple's HomePod has only been available in a handful of countries (mostly North America and Europe) so far, but it's expanding availability in grand fashion. The company is releasing its smart speaker in China, including Hong Kong, on January 18th. There aren't any major changes to the device for its Asian debut, but it'll naturally tap into local playlists and support AirPlay for services beyond Apple Music.
Google kills its Chromecast Audio dongle
If you've been thinking about whether to pick up a Chromecast Audio to make your audio setup a little smarter, you should probably make your mind up quickly. Google has confirmed it's discontinuing the device.
Samsung's Galaxy Home is here at CES, and you can (sort of) talk to it
When Samsung revealed its oddly shaped, Bixby-powered Galaxy Home last year, many of expected the company to launch it immediately. That, uh, didn't happen. It's been five months since then, and Samsung still refuses to discuss when its first smart speaker will go on sale, or how much it'll cost when it does. Hell, even though Samsung has trotted out the speaker a few times since that day in Brooklyn, it generally hasn't let members of the public actually talk to it. At this year's CES, though, that changed — sort of.
Amazon reports over 100 million Alexa devices sold
Amazon is notoriously reluctant to share how well Alexa is doing in the marketplace -- at best, you get vague boasts about its devices being the "most gifted." Now, however, it's providing more meaningful figures. The company's Dave Limp told The Verge in an interview that over 100 million Alexa-equipped devices have sold to date. It wouldn't say how many of those are its own devices or break products down by category, but the data suggests plenty of people have Alexa-capable devices in their homes.
Google's minty Home Mini arrives after month-long delay
Now that the Home Hub is widely available, Google is releasing its other smart speaker update this year: namely, that Aqua Home Mini it was supposed to ship in late October (yes, roughly a month ago). The minty-colored puck costs the same $49 as other Minis and doesn't offer any functional advantages, but it might be just the ticket if Coral clashes with your living room or you want to coordinate with an Aqua-tinted Home Hub.
Mood-enhancing Auri light packs Alexa smart home control
Wellness-oriented smart lights and scent diffusers have been around for a while. They don't always play nicely with modern smart homes, though, and Ling Technology aims to address that. It's crowdfunding a smart light, Auri, that aims to improve your "mental wellbeing" while integrating with other connected devices. Like you'd expect, it combines colored lighting and sound (through a 36W speaker) in a bid to help you sleep, sharpen your focus or otherwise alter your mood. However, it also makes healthy use of Alexa -- you can play your own music and control the rest of your smart home. You won't need a separate smart speaker for those moments when you aren't looking to calm down.
All of Amazon's new Echo speakers reviewed
Amazon may have defined the smart speaker category with the Echo and its successors, but many competitors have the company beat in one specific way: audio quality. Amazon says the No. 1 activity for Echo users is playing music, but anyone who has used an Echo knows that the sound quality is nothing to write home about. Amazon must have recognized this, because improved speakers in the new Echo Dot and Echo Plus were a major talking point when they were announced in September. Reading between the lines, it seems safe to say that Amazon believes its Echo speakers can be the centerpiece of a respectable home-audio setup. How else would you explain the new $129 Echo Sub, a device that does nothing aside from wirelessly pair with another Echo device to bring the bass?
LG's first Google Assistant-powered smart display is rolling out
Need another smart speaker to consider for your holiday gift-giving? The LG smart display we spotted at CES is finally ready to go on sale complete with its 8-inch touch screen, Android Things platform with apps for Google Maps, Photos and YouTube plus Google Assistant-powered AI features. It also has an...interesting official name: the XBOOM AI ThinQ WK9. LG is touting the speakers and their Meridian Audio technology, which it hopes will make the $300 MSRP easier to swallow among all of that competition. That's more than the $200 8-inch Lenovo Smart Display that also runs Android Things and Google's own $150 Home Hub which does not, not to mention the various other options with Alexa, Siri, Facebook or Cortana onboard. It's even more than the $250 JBL Link View which similarly focuses on audio quality. However, at least for Black Friday LG has said it will cost $200, although it's not listed as available at most retailers yet. Liliputing points out a sale page on B&H Photo, and we'd expect to see it everywhere else by the time the big day rolls around.
Microsoft is selling Amazon Echo speakers in its stores (updated)
Microsoft's deepening relationship with Amazon's Alexa now extends to its stores. WalkingCat and others have noticed that Microsoft is carrying both the new Echo Dot and the regular Echo in its online and retail stores. The company isn't just supporting Alexa, then -- it's encouraging you to buy into Amazon's ecosystem.
