Sonos, a Wireless-Speaker Pioneer, Plays Catch Up

On Wednesday, the Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company is announcing its first smart speaker, the $199 Sonos One, powered by Amazon's Alexa voice assistant. By next year, the company will integrate Alphabet Inc.'s GOOGL 0.86% Google voice assistant, and down the road hopes to make its smart speaker compatible with Apple Inc.'s AAPL -0.06% Siri and others. The partnerships would mean consumers wouldn't need to choose one tech giant's services over another--Sonos could serve them all. The company built a loyal fan base by letting customers play music in every room of a home through a network of wireless speakers that supported streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. Speakers, though, are no longer just for listening to music.