Sonos could be working on the one soundbar I most want it to make, according to reports

As someone with a living room full of its speakers, if you asked me what device I'd most like Sonos to release next, it'd be a refresh of the Beam. Time flies, and it's now been ages since the second-generation Beam was released in 2021, after all.

While the compact soundbar has been basically my default pick as the best soundbar on the market for most people since then, it's still not completely flawless, and there's always room for improvement.

Now, a report from Bloomberg indicates that we might be getting a new Beam very soon, with Sonos gearing up to make some hardware reveals this September. Filings with the FCC in the US indicate that a device with dimensions that look nearly identical to previous Beam soundbars is on the way.

That would make for a five-year gap between generations for the Beam, and it's interesting to consider what might get upgraded in a new version. The big upgrade that came in the second generation was Dolby Atmos support, but a lack of upfiring drivers meant that it was virtualised.

If Sonos could squeeze in extra drivers, that could make for a big boost to vertical sound – although it would also raise the question of whether the price would bump accordingly. Given that the Beam sits as the deliberately mid-level option between the Ray and the Arc Ultra, Sonos probably won't want to push its price up much.

My second-gen Beam replaced a first-gen model, and both have been basically pretty beloved. The size of the soundbar is nearly ideal, in my view, since it gives a huge sound upgrade for almost any TV without taking up a huge slice of real estate.

Sonos is apparently going big on improved AI integration for this slate of new hardware, so it's possible that upgraded voice controls and integrations are on the cards, too. I'm unlikely to use that much, but I appreciate that people do want it.

The other big hardware rumour is that Sonos will also drop a new pair of headphones – Ace Ultra, upgrading the existing Ace. That's another bit of sound kit that we use most days in my flat, since its sound-sharing feature with the Beam makes it so convenient to get personal audio from the TV. That means movies can be watched as loud as you like, without anyone else needing to hear every detail.

Quite what the Ace Ultra will upgrade, beyond apparently improved integration with Sonos' non-soundbar speakers, isn't clear. With all of this likely to be unveiled in September, though, we won't have to wait too long to find out.