Vizio Atmos Home Theater review — Great soundbar, but Atmos is frustrating

Dolby Atmos is here. It’s the 3D positional audio technology from Dolby that adds height and movement through object-based sound instead of speaker-based. And it’s giving audio companies a reason to update their product lines. That includes Vizio and its excellent home-theater-in-a-box. For around $200, you can go to a local retailer and pick up Vizio’s 5.1 wireless soundbar with two satellite speakers and a subwoofer. That’ll take you from terrible TV speakers to high-quality surround sound.

But now the company has a new version of that product. It includes Dolby Atmos and Google Assistant, and it costs $500. That’s a big price increase, but it’s a relatively low entry fee into the Atmos club. So the obvious question is how does it handle Atmos? And the answer to that is great when you can get all of your devices communicating with one another properly. But getting the soundbar, TVs, consoles, HMDI switchers, apps, and other devices to work in harmony is chore.