• WiiM launches its first soundbar for $479 / £449 (about AU$840)
• 8-driver array with dedicated upfiring 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 WiiM Sound wireless speaker launched last year, and now the firm 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 seems 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 upfiring height speakers, which the Sonos Beam lacks. It features automatic room correction, multi-room grouping and support for over 20 streaming services, and you can expand it to a full surround system with WiiM's other speakers and its subwoofer.

Unusually, there's a glass-covered 2.1-inch touch display on the front. That's an interesting choice when many people don't want any extra illumination near their TV screen.

We spoke to WiiM's CEO, Dr Lifeng Zhao, about the soundbar, and he told us that the screen is primarily there for people playing music through the soundbar — it'll display album art, like other WiiM devices do — and you can turn it off for watching movies or shows. He's confident some people will find it valuable anyway.

"We actually debated a lot internally," Dr Zhao says. "So actually we are 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 instant feedback. If you only have a LED light right there, with so many input/outputs and functionality, how do you know the status of the device? It's really confusing, even for me. We want to give people a simple and intuitive control, plus the instant feedback."

WiiM Bar: key features and pricing

The eight-driver array features 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 supporting more 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 either upgrade in the short term, though.

The WiiM Bar supports Dolby Atmos, and DTS:X audio (DTS being another benefit over the Sonos Beam, on top of the upfiring drivers), and it features RoomFit room correction. There are two extra audio modes: AI-powered dialog enhancement, and a night mode to help you stay friendly with your neighbors.

Streaming support includes nearly 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 past 20.

However, as with other recent WiiM releases, this doesn't include Apple Music or AirPlay 2. We'll cover this more later, but we asked Dr Zhao why WiiM hasn't included AirPlay, and his answer — which we're not entirely convinced by — implies that it's about AirPlay's compression of audio.

"If you're using Spotify, we want you to use Spotify Lossless instead of a compressed [stream], right? So we are seeing a lot of confusion in people using Spotify Connect versus other options you just mentioned [AirPlay 2]," he said, referencing the fact that AirPlay 2 is still limited to compressed streaming through official support.

Spotify Lossless has existed for less time than WiiM been avoiding AirPlay support, so the timeline doesn't really work for this specific explanation, and WiiM offers Bluetooth and its compressed audio happily enough — but this is all the answer we're going to get officially.

The WiiM Bar has HDMI eARC, but no passthrough port, so you'll have give up the use of one of your HDMI ports for it. "We think that people will connect most of their devices through the TV because you have multiple 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' claimed reason for not offering passthrough too, but has never really convinced our team (having to swap HDMI cables in the back of your TV because you've run out of ports does not aid simplicity).

This may be the firm's first soundbar, but Dr Zhao he doesn't consider it to be WiiM's first home theater product: the firm's amplifiers can be used as an HDMI-ready sound system, albeit in 2.1 channels. The soundbar is intended as a standalone device 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 device in their living room." Those people include Dr Zhao: "I want something simple 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 from 3 June 2026. It'll be really interesting to see how it compares with the equivalent Sonos when we get it in 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., building 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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