Sonos unveils the $699 Beam Ultra soundbar and Sonos 27 software

Sonos announced a new mid-sized soundbar, the Beam Ultra, at a New York event on September 1, 2026. It is priced at $699 and, according to Tom's Guide, goes on sale September 29, with pre-orders open at announcement.

What Sonos announced

Tom's Guide describes the Beam Ultra as a compact 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos soundbar with nine speakers, including two up-firing drivers that bounce sound off the ceiling. It has a redesigned center channel for clearer dialogue, four levels of AI Speech Enhancement and a Night Sound mode, and supports Trueplay room tuning. It will work with the Sonos Sub and Sub Mini but ships without them.

Alongside it came Sonos 27, a software update for S2 products. It includes Sonos 27voice, a Sonos-built assistant, and Sonos 27mcp, which lets outside AI chatbots control a Sonos system. Navigation changes and the mcp early access begin September 8. Sonos Fabric, which uses high-frequency sound so speakers can sense each other, will let portable speakers such as the Move 2 act as rear surrounds for the Beam Ultra in a future update.

What it means for shoppers

The step up from the Beam Gen 2 is the added height speakers. The Arc Ultra costs about $1,100, per Tom's Guide, so the Beam Ultra is the cheaper route to a Sonos Atmos bar. At $699 it is still pricey next to the sub-$1,000 bars TV brands release each year.

What is still unknown

Tom's Guide had not tested the bar when it wrote the report, so sound quality is unverified. Sonos gave few details on how Custom Agents work, and the company's last big app redesign drew heavy criticism, so the reliability of Sonos 27 remains to be seen. Which features work on older speakers will be detailed later.