Along with its new TVs, ultra short throw laser projectors, and soundbars — most of which were totally predictable enhancements of existing products — Samsung brought something truly different to CES 2024: the Samsung Music Frame, a Dolby Atmos-capable wireless speaker that doubles as an old-fashioned printed photo frame.
The Music Frame (or HW-LS60D if you want to use its official model designation) clearly owes a lot to Samsung’s popular The Frame TV, which can display any digital art of your choice when you’re not using it as an actual TV. But unlike the TV, the Music Frame doesn’t make you choose between listening to music and gazing fondly at your favorite family portrait — you can do both, and the picture doesn’t disappear when you turn off the tunes.
Hiding behind the picture are two woofers, two tweeters, and two midrange drivers, which automatically tune themselves to your room’s acoustics using Samsung’s SpaceFit calibration tech. It kind of reminds us of a slightly lower-tech version of LG’s wild DukeBox concept. The Music Frame joins a very small club of standalone speakers that are Dolby Atmos compatible, like the Sonos Era 300, Apple HomePod, and Amazon Echo Studio.
The Music Frame is equipped with both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so you can do ad-hoc streaming from any smartphone, tablet, or computer, as well as add it to a new or existing multiroom wireless audio setup. If you own a Samsung TV and/or soundbar, you can pair the Music Frame and use it as a TV speaker, a rear speaker, or a subwoofer. If you buy a second Music Frame, they can be stereo-paired or used as left/right wireless surrounds. Or you can connect up to five of them for synchronous play.
If all that weren’t enough, the Frame also contains an IoT hub, giving your smart home devices yet another way to stay connected and accessible.
Samsung says you can display any photograph or printed image using the Music Frame, but it also includes a digital-print compatible Diasec matte acrylic plate Art Panel, for an even more professional and durable way to display your favorite image.
Sonos launched a similar product in collaboration with Ikea, called the Symfonisk Picture Frame Speaker, but that product only works with swappable Ikea art panels, or art created by third parties.
In typical fashion for a CES announcement, we don’t have a full set of specs for the Music Frame so we can’t give you dimensions, or details like whether it works with Apple AirPlay. But we did get an early look at the speaker — it’s undeniably cool. Samsung also hasn’t given us pricing or a release date for the Music Frame, so stay tuned — we’ll update this post as soon as we hear more.
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