Sonos smart home theater speaker outed by FCC filing

It could be the Alexa-enabled successor to the well-liked Playbase.

David Katzmaier Editor in Chief

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David Katzmaier

May 1, 2018 8:50 a.m. PT

Could the Sonos Playbase (above) soon have a successor with HDMI and Alexa voice control?
Sarah Tew/CNET

The superb Sonos One is the only smart speaker to earn CNET's Editors' Choice Award. And our reviewers called the Sonos Playbase a "home run" among home theater speakers.

Now an FCC filing hints that the wireless speaker company has a new product up its sleeve that combines both.

screen-shot-2018-05-01-at-11-44-22-am — The FCC filing shows a microphone icon on the product's label.
Sonos/fcc.gov

As spotted by Variety, the filing describes a "home theater speaker," complete with a model number (S14) and an HDMI input. The latter is notable because the Playbase and Playbar lack HDMI, a connection that allows higher-quality audio formats -- like DTS HD Master Audio, Dolby True HD and Dolby Atmos -- than optical digital.

More intriguing is the information in the filing that points to the S14 being a smart speaker with Alexa, like the Sonos One. Before being redacted, according to Variety, the filing originally called it a smart speaker. A diagram in the filing even depicts the same labeling array, complete with a microphone icon, as the One.

Reached for comment, Sonos' representatives replied via email: "We are constantly looking at new ways to deliver the best possible experiences for our customers. We do not have any additional details to share."

Updated 12:58PM ET with comment from Sonos.

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