No more cables! Dolby and LG are making wireless Dolby Atmos sound happen in 2026

Dolby Atmos is great at delivering spatial audio sound, but getting it set up properly has always required a TV that supports the standard; a soundbar or AV receiver that can decode the signal; and, of course, an HDMI cable to pair the two together.

But those days will soon be behind us.

Announced ahead of CES 2026, LG Sound Suite is the first soundbar to support Dolby Atmos’ FlexConnect protocol, which allows you to connect up to four speakers, a soundbar and a subwoofer in a 13.1.7-channel configuration wirelessly to your TV.

Spatial audio speaker placement without the headache

If you’ve never done it, stringing together a surround sound system is both an artform and a practice in patience. Cutting speaker wire with just the right amount of slack only to realize that you need another six or seven inches is certainly something I don’t miss.

Dolby Atmos fixed this problem by only requiring a single HDMI cable to run from a soundbar to an HDMI eARC port on the back of the TV. Unfortunately, I’ve heard from some readers that even that can be tough with certain living room layouts.

FlexConnect will fix that problem — but comes with the caveat that both the TV and soundbar need to support the new standard. So far, the LG Sound Suite is the only soundbar that can receive a FlexConnect signal and LG’s upcoming 2026 TVs are the only ones that can send it. (Though LG says that some 2025 models will also be updated to support FlexConnect via a software update sometime in the future.)

Don’t have a perfectly level shelf to put those two rear-channel speakers on? No problem. FlexConnect and Sound Suite will even custom-tune the sound to fit the space.

A new reason to buy LG OLED TVs?

Keep in mind that although the LG Sound Suite is the first soundbar to support FlexConnect, it’s not the first piece of audio gear with that distinction — that honor belongs to the TCL Z100 wireless speaker, which my colleague Kate Kozuch tested earlier this year.

The biggest draw for the LG Sound Suite for me personally is its out-of-the-box integration with LG’s 2026 TVs. LG has yet to announce what’s included in the lineup outside of the brand’s first-ever Micro RGB TV, but it’s almost certain that we’ll see 2026 versions of the LG C5 OLED and LG G5 OLED, two of the best OLED TVs of 2025.

Am I salivating over the possibility of unboxing an LG C6 OLED and an accompanying Sound Suite system for immediate 13.1.7-channel spatial audio? Absolutely.

Unfortunately LG didn’t give us a firm date on either product, so for now I’ll just have to settle for seeing one (or both!) at CES 2026 in early January.

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