Sonos’ launch of the Roam portable Bluetooth speaker (see 2103090046) is its expansion outside the four walls of the home, said Ted Dworkin, senior vice president-product management and customer experience, on the company’s virtual investor meeting Tuesday. The $169 portable is available for preorder at Sonos.com and due to deliver by April 20.

Imports of major high-demand consumer tech goods waned somewhat in January from December, but most categories remained far ahead of their January 2020 volume, according to Census Bureau trade statistics accessed Tuesday through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb tool. It’s unclear whether the retreat in January shipments in major Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) tech categories was the result of global semiconductor shortages that impeded supply or the first sign that torrid COVID-19 pandemic-era consumer demand for home connectivity and entertainment tools, evident through most of 2020, was beginning to run its course.

Sonos waded into a new category Tuesday, taking the wraps off a voice-controllable hybrid "ultra-portable" speaker called Roam. Casey Clemens, director-Americas commercial sales, told Consumer Electronics Daily the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi device is the company's “smartest and most versatile” speaker -- at the lowest price Sonos has ever set for a speaker. The Roam, similar in form factor to a JBL Flip or an Ultimate Ears Boom, went on preorder at Sonos.com Tuesday for $169; it’s to ship April 20.

The next three Fridays will mark some important deadlines in the Section 301 litigation inundating the U.S. Court of International Trade after months of inertia. New complaints continue trickling in at the rate of about one a day to join the roughly 3,500 on file since beginning in mid-September, virtually all seeking to get the Lists 3 and 4A Chinese tariffs vacated and the duties refunded. Many thousands more importers are represented in the filings, including many consumer tech companies -- Bose, Clarion, Denon, Gibson, Harman, Jasco and Voxx among them.

Streaming music revenue potential has a long runway relative to smart device penetration, before reaching market saturation, said Warner Music Group CEO Stephen Cooper on a Thursday virtual investor event. Spotify’s experiments with pricing in developed and emerging markets and Amazon’s efforts with higher priced tiers and added functionality are “good news” for WMG, said Cooper. New business models -- social platforms, fitness and metaverses -- “are just getting started.” Those fast-growing categories are delivering revenue of $150 million per year, he said.

Dolby Chief Financial Officer Lewis Chew referenced the company’s “virtual cycle” ambition with its fledgling Dolby Atmos Music business, on a Thursday investor call. He likened it to the approach the company took with Dolby Vision in the TV market, which is now included in TVs from nine of 10 top TV makers, with Samsung the exception. The momentum of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos in movie and TV content is driving a growing lineup of home entertainment devices, he said.

Satellite interests and proponents of using the 12 GHz band for 5G clashed during a Federal Communications Bar Association webinar Thursday. FCC members approved a neutral NPRM 5-0 in January (see 2101130067). A final decision could take 18 months or longer (see 2102080067).

Providers are gearing up to offer discounted services through the FCC emergency broadband benefit program. The $3.2 billion program is expected to help millions of low-income consumers and those hit hardest by the pandemic (see 2102260058).

What struck many as a sudden global shortage of semiconductors “actually evolved over the past nine months,” said Broadcom CEO Hock Tan on a fiscal Q1 earnings call Thursday. Broadcom began sounding the alarm about “supply chain challenges” around the middle of calendar 2020, when it started “extending lead times across our product portfolio,” he said. It stretched those lead times “further over the past nine months as we saw demand within end markets continue to increase,” he said.

Universal Electronics Inc.’s goal in the connected home is to “help brands deliver managed services better and directly to the end users,” Arsham Hatambeiki, senior vice president-product and technology, told a virtual Parks conference last week. UEI is porting its QuickSet Cloud and voice assistant technologies, primarily used in the MVPD space for set-top boxes and remote controls, to the smart home space, announcing first steps last month (see 2102120042) through a smart thermostat. More connected products are due later this year. “We make finished products and software and services that integrate with existing [products],” Hatambeiki told the webinar, saying UEI onboards intelligence that can be put into HVAC equipment and appliances.