Sonos is getting ready to introduce a new smart home theater speaker, according to a regulatory filing that was made public Monday. The speaker dons the model number S14, and notably features a HDMI port.
Sonos entered the home theater market when it first introduced its Playbar, and internet-connected soundbar, back in 2013. The company followed up with the Playbase, which features a smaller physical footprint and is meant to sit directly below a TV, early last year.
Much of the FCC filing for the upcoming S14 was redacted, so we don't exactly know yet how the speaker is going to look like, or which features it will offer. However, the filing does offer a few clues.
For one thing, the device was initially called a smart speaker, but subsequently renamed to home theater speaker, and one of the filed documents includes the following description: "The model S14 is a high-performance all-in-one home theater smart speaker and part of Sonos' home sound system." This suggests that it will have integrated far-field voice control, similar to the Sonos One, which offers direct access to Amazon's Alexa assistant.
Interestingly, the documents also mention a HDMI port, which would be a departure from the company's previous home theater design. Sonos previously didn't include any HDMI ports, and instead relied on optical out for digital sound. This had the downside that the device wasn't capable of supporting new home theater audio formats like Dolby Atmos.