Harman Kardon Virtuo

The Harman Kardon Virtuo is a design-led wireless speaker from Harman Kardon, a company whose products have always leaned towards sculpture more than most audio brands.

Where the Citation range is a conventional multi-room family in fabric, the Virtuo is styled to be an object in the room first.

What Apple Home actually does with it

This is an AirPlay 2 speaker rather than a HomeKit accessory.

• It appears in the Home app as a speaker you can play to, and as an AirPlay target in Control Centre.
• You can assign it to a room and group it with HomePods for synchronised multi-room audio.
• Siri can send music to it by room name.
• It can be the audio output in a scene or an automation.

You cannot switch it on or set its volume from the Home app the way you would a light. Those stay with the speaker itself and its own app.

Before you buy

Speakers bought for their appearance should still be heard first. The shapes that look best are rarely the shapes that measure best, and how much that matters depends entirely on you.

Consider where it will stand and how it is lit. A sculptural speaker in a dark corner is a waste of the design.

Specifications