- WiiM launches first soundbar for $479 / £449 (approx AU$840)
- 8-driver array with dedicated firing drivers
- 3.0.2 channels expandable to 5.1.2 with WiiM wireless speakers
WiiM has been building out its rival ecosystem to Sonos for a while now. The impressive wireless WiiM Sound speaker was launched last year, and now the company has unveiled its first soundbar. Based on its pricing, the new WiiM Bar is being positioned as a direct rival to the Sonos Beam (2nd Gen)… but on paper it looks to beat it in a few key areas.
The WiiM Bar is a 3.0.2 Dolby Atmos soundbar with an eight-driver array, including booming height speakers that the Sonos Beam lacks. It has automatic room correction, multi-room grouping and support for over 20 streaming services, and you can expand it into a full surround system with the WiiM’s other speakers and its subwoofer.
Unusually, there is a glass-covered 2.1-inch touch screen on the front. It is an interesting choice when many people do not want additional lighting near their TV screen.
We spoke with WiiM’s CEO, Dr. Lifeng Zhao, about the soundbar, and he told us that the screen is primarily for people playing music through the soundbar – it will display album art, just like other WiiM devices do – and you can turn it off to watch movies or series. He’s sure some people will find it valuable anyway.
“We actually discussed a lot internally,” says Dr. Zhao. “So actually we’re saying two things. One is that if you don’t really need the screen; you can turn it off. Another thing is that we really want immediate feedback. If you just have an LED light right there, with so many inputs/outputs and functionality, how do you know the status of the device? It’s really confusing, even to me. We want to give people a plus in the simple and intuitive control.”
WiiM Bar: key features and pricing
The eight-driver array has four passive radiators and a mix of front mid-woofers, front tweeters and the aforementioned full-range up-firing height drivers.
It’s 3.0.2 channels expandable to 5.1.2 channels with surround speakers and a subwoofer — and possibly more channels in the future. When we asked about support for multiple satellite speakers or subwoofers, Dr. Zhao told us that “potentially with a software update we can expand more,” and that Dolby Atmos FlexConnect support is “on our radar.” He was clear that we shouldn’t expect any of the upgrades in the short term, though.
The WiiM bar supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X audio (DTS is another advantage over the Sonos Beam, on top of the uplifting drivers), and it has RoomFit room correction. There are two additional sound modes: AI-powered dialogue enhancement and a night mode to help you stay friendly with your neighbors.
Streaming support includes almost all the big names: Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, Qobuz Connect, Google Cast and Roon, and streaming via the WiiM app takes the number of supported streaming services over 20.
However, as with other recent WiiM releases, this doesn’t include Apple Music or AirPlay 2. We’ll get into that later, but we asked Dr. Zhao, why the WiiM hasn’t included AirPlay, and his answer – which we’re not entirely convinced about – suggests that it’s about AirPlay’s compression of audio.
“If you use Spotify, we want you to use Spotify Lossless instead of compressed [stream]not? So we’re seeing a lot of confusion from people using Spotify Connect versus other options you just mentioned [AirPlay 2],” he said, noting that AirPlay 2 is still limited to compressed streaming through official support.
Spotify Lossless has been around for less time than the WiiM has eschewed AirPlay support, so the timeline doesn’t really work for this specific explanation, and the WiiM offers Bluetooth and its compressed audio happily enough – but this is all the answer we get officially.
The WiiM Bar has HDMI eARC, but no passthrough port, so you’ll have to give up using one of your HDMI ports for that. “We think people will connect most of their devices through the TV because you have more HDMI ports in the TV,” says Dr. Zhao. Passthrough was considered, but the decision was made to keep things focused on “simplicity” – which is Sonos’ purported reason for not offering passthrough as well, but it never really convinced our team (having to swap HDMI cables in the back of your TV because you’ve run out of ports doesn’t help simplicity).
This may be the company’s first soundbar, but Dr. Zhao doesn’t consider it to be WiiM’s first home theater product: the company’s amplifiers can be used as an HDMI-ready sound system, albeit in 2.1 channels. The soundbar is intended as an independent unit for people who, like Zhao, want big sound without lots of separates taking up space.
“We don’t want to make a legacy AVR. People want one powerful all-in-one in their living room.” These people include Dr. Zhao: “I want something that’s easy to use, I really like Dolby Atmos, and I want it to fulfill both my music and my TV experience,” he says. “So it’s both for our own use as well as a request from our community.”
It’s an impressive specification, and the price is decent too: the official price is $479 / £449 (about AU$840). The WiiM Bar will be released in July with pre-orders starting June 3, 2026. It will be really interesting to see how it compares to the Sonos equivalent when we get it for testing.
Lifeng Zhao is the founder and CEO of Linkplay Technology Inc., a technology entrepreneur with deep expertise in connected devices and audio/video networking. Before founding Linkplay, Zhao served as Director of Software at InterVideo Inc. and later as president and co-founder of Nemochips Inc., where he built deep expertise across multimedia software and application ICs. In 2014, he founded Linkplay Technology, leading the development of the Linkplay streaming audio platform and the WiiM brand, technologies now embedded in more than 10 million connected audio and smart home products worldwide. Zhao holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, more than 30 US and international patents in audio, video and networking, and has contributed to products recognized by the CES Innovation Awards, Red Dot, iF Design Award and Japan Good Design Award.
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