Sonos has been rumoured to be introducing an Amazon Echo-style smart speaker to its line-up for a while, but now we know the date it is likely to be unveiled.

The company has sent out invites to a launch event in New York on 4 October. It features a mouth on the front, which is a not-too subtle hint that voice recognition will be part of the new device's feature set.

The invite follows a leak yesterday that fleshes out the product somewhat.

Sonos image 2
Sonos

In fact, it wasn't really a leak; the voice assistant-powered device popped up in a US Federal Communications Commission filing, which mentioned a "product model S13" that adds "integrated voice control functionality". It was spotted by Zatz Not Funny.

The device features far-field microphones, like the ones found in the Amazon Echo, as well as support for "multiple voice platforms and music services".

The FCC filing also included an image of a user interface that features a microphone icon. There's not too much else we can glean from the filing, but based on those references alone, we can assume that Sonos wants its smart speaker to offer more than one smart assistant platform. In other words, it could theoretically support Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Google Assistant.

Sonos recently updated its privacy policy, alluding to voice-control in the not-too-distant-future. Sonos representatives also told Variety that additional voice assistants besides Amazon's are covered by the updated privacy policy. All this points to Sonos' speaker offering the ability to communicate with several voice assistants, though it's unclear how that would work still.

The smart speaker space is quickly becoming crowded. Mind you, Apple’s HomePod, which was specifically touted as a Sonos competitor in terms of audio quality, is also coming. Sonos is undoubtedly keen to counteract that product with its own fully-fledged speaker.