Liberatone's Zipp speakers look to silence Sonos with Alexa integration

Libratone has announced that it’s (already very attractive) Zipp and Zipp mini speakers are soon getting another reason for you to buy.

With a free app update rollout later in the year, the speakers will house Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa.

The announcement comes as part of the tech convention IFA 2017 currently happening in Berlin, and will no doubt be a welcome addition for people who have already bought the Libratone speakers.

But this also makes them a more interesting proposition for anyone thinking of getting an Alexa-powered speaker in their home.

Setting Sonos in its sights

When we reviewed the Zipp speaker in June, we gave it four stars, and that was without the digital assistant component, so it is now a seriously interesting proposition. The Zipp and the Zipp mini manage to straddle the line between a great-sounding home speaker and an on-the-go speaker.

Both feature Wi-Fi, meaning you can set up a solid multi-room system, and with the recent announcement that Alexa now has the capability to control this sort of arrangement, this could be just what the Zipp line needs to make it a serious Sonos competitor.

The Zipp speakers already feature Apple’s Air Play, and are already prepared for Air Play 2 when it launches later this year. Simon Peschcke Køedt, VP of Global Marketing for Libratone said: ”We are proud to be one of the first Wireless speaker companies in the world to release AirPlay 2 support. This will underpin our ambition of bringing well sounding and beautifully designed wireless speakers to the world even further”

According to Libratone, all of these new features will automatically rollout in free app updates later in the year, so you don't have to do anything to take advantage of them except update your software.

IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced.

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