Triple Beam: The Sonos Beam review

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

We live in a time where smart speakers are as common as TVs and smartphones. Powering these smart speakers are intelligent assistants which can respond to queries, set timers, run searches and play back an incredible range of streaming music, news and online content.

Behind each intelligent assistant is a tech company and its ecosystem of products. Amazon has millions of items for sale, Google has a massive advertising model, and Apple wants to shoehorn users into its Neverland of apps, services and devices.

Many of the existing $500 smart speaker releases of late seem to be solutions in search of problems. Apple’s HomePod is a circular single speaker that claims to be able to generate stereo sound. The Google Home Max is a heavy and oversized boombox for the streaming age. Both are expensive and serve one purpose, to play back streaming music and serve as the link for expanded smart home functionality.

The Sonos Beam, now that’s a different story. The second smart speaker from Sonos is also their third soundbar product and it is the hat trick of smart speakers capable of solving many problems at once.

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Alexa now available on Amazon Prime Music app

Amazon Canada announced that Prime Music listeners in Canada are able to request songs by voice with Alexa in the Amazon Music mobile app for iOS and Android. Listeners can now use voice features to hear the music they love wherever they go on Alexa-enabled devices. Prime Music, like Prime Video, is included in Amazon Prime subscriptions.

Prime Music listeners can easily ask Alexa to play music in a variety of ways, including by mood, genre or era. Alexa can also search by album name, artist name and more. This new feature combines the power of natural voice commands with a visual app experience.

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Hands on with the new ecobee Switch+ Alexa powered smart light switch

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

with the ecobee Switch+ you can make any home or apartment a truly smart home by integrating Amazon's Alexa and all its connected features on a structural level.

Smart speakers are the hottest consumer technology devices in Canada this year. We already have an ongoing turf war between Google Home, which has a year's head start in Canada (and was also partly developed in Waterloo, ON) and Amazon Echo, whose Alexa smart assistant leads the market in the US and which is available on a range of speakers, PCs and other devices.

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Apple's HomePod speaker comes to US, UK, and Australia on Feb 9

After a delay to market late last year, Apple's heralded HomePod smart speaker is coming on February 9 with preorders happening this Friday. Unfortunately, HomePods is coming to three markets -the US, UK and Australia with other countries (possibly Canada) getting the devices in the spring.

HomePod is a new product category from Apple. It looks to be taking on Sonos in terms of MESH enabled Hi-Fi streaming speakers but also looks to compete with the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers which have been available in Canada since last year. Seen as a delivery methof for Apple Music, Siri, HomeKit and other Apple ecosystems, the HomePod is expected to bring big sound in a compact package.

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