We’re big admirers of Devialet and its luxury Phantom speaker, but its price puts it out of reach of most mainstream music fans.
Yesterday, though, the company announced an intriguing partnership with British satellite broadcaster Sky. They’ve developed a speaker called the Sky Soundbox – Devialet’s first product with another brand – cramming six woofers and three full-range speakers into a device designed to sit alongside the TV.
It’s a direct competitor to Sonos’ products, including that company’s Playbase and Playbar devices. But in a first for Devialet, it’s matching Sonos on price: £799 for the new Soundbox for general purchasers.
However, the big deal here is that Sky is subsidising the price for its existing subscribers: it’ll cost £299 for them, or £249 if they have its Sky Q service. In the UK at least, that’s a big challenge to Sonos, which is also preparing for competition from Apple’s HomePod.
For now, music-streaming partnerships don’t appear to be priorities for the Sky Soundbox, but we’ll be interested to see if that changes – and which services are on board.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…