Masimo believes that music should be at the heart of your home, enhancing your daily life. Our commitment to creating a seamless experience has always driven us to continuously evolve our platform. We’re thrilled to announce a significant visual and functional update to the HEOS app that places music front and center, making it easier than ever to access your favorite tunes, radio stations and podcasts the moment you open the app. This update is the result of customer feedback and our unwavering commitment to reliability, connectivity, and providing our users with a plethora of quality music streaming options.
HEOS boasts compatibility with a diverse array of small speakers and soundbars, courtesy of its integration with our Denon and Marantz AVRs and network power amplifiers. What’s even more exciting? You’re not constrained by a particular speaker brand, as HEOS empowers users with unparalleled flexibility. Furthermore, we’ve expanded the number of devices you can connect to an impressive 64, providing ample room for you to tailor your audio experience to your exact preferences.
What do you get from these new HEOS updates?
Revamped HEOS User Interface
We’ve given the HEOS app a makeover. You’ll experience a HEOS app transformation with a fresh, user-friendly design that not only makes navigation more intuitive but also provides a sleek and modern interface. Say goodbye to the home screen of old, and hello to a streamlined experience. Plus, with the new “Now Playing” display at the bottom of the screen, you can keep track of your currently playing music from anywhere within the app, ensuring your music is just a glance away.
Enhanced Home Screen on HEOS
The revamped home screen serves as your personalized music hub, offering instant access to your recently played tracks, favorite music, and preferred music service content. Your entertainment experience begins the moment you open the app. Plus, take control of your musical journey by curating your own HEOS playlists. Mix and match media from various streaming platforms to craft the perfect playlist that matches your mood. Your music, your way, right at your fingertips.
Universal Music Search on HEOS
Say goodbye to the hassle of searching for music across multiple platforms. With our new universal music search, you can easily find the music you want by searching across all of your streaming platforms and personal libraries simultaneously.
A World of Improvements
In addition to the new look and features, this HEOS update brings forth substantial improvements in functionality. Our developers have been hard at work further enhancing the user experience across multiple facets, including device accessibility, rock-solid wireless surround technology, enhanced login security, uninterrupted playback, streamlined in-app controls, flawless audio synchronization, and seamless in-app messaging, among various other aspects.
At Masimo, we’re passionate about creating an experience that enhances your life. With a modernized user interface, intuitive navigation, and a host of exciting features, our app updates are sure to provide a more accessible and enjoyable journey for all. We can’t wait for you to try it out and feel the difference. APPLE APP STORE / GOOGLE PLAY STORE
How HEOS Works and Why a Medical Company Bought a Billion Dollars Worth of AV Companies to Own the Technology
HEOS is one of those technologies that often flies under the radar in the consumer electronics world, but it’s been powering multi-room audio systems from major brands like Denon and Marantz for years. What began as Denon’s answer to Sonos has become a foundational streaming platform—flexible, reliable, and capable of integrating into everything from compact wireless speakers to high-end AV receivers. But to understand why a medical device company like Masimo would acquire HEOS—along with nearly a billion dollars’ worth of audio/video brands—you have to look at both the technology and the bigger picture.
HEOS stands for “Home Entertainment Operating System.” It was developed in-house by Denon in the early 2010s, as Sonos began dominating the wireless whole-home audio market. At its core, HEOS is a proprietary multi-room audio protocol. It allows devices on the same network to stream, sync, and distribute music throughout a home. Unlike open-source solutions that rely on AirPlay or DLNA, HEOS was built from the ground up to be stable, scalable, and tightly integrated with Denon and Marantz hardware.
What sets HEOS apart is how deeply it’s embedded in AV gear. This isn’t just an app tacked on after the fact—it’s part of the firmware in products ranging from $500 stereo receivers to $5,000 home theater processors. You can stream to a pair of HEOS wireless speakers in the kitchen, a Denon AVR in the living room, and a Marantz pre-pro in your theater—all controlled from a single interface, playing in sync or independently.
Technically, HEOS runs over a user’s existing Wi-Fi or Ethernet network, not a proprietary mesh like Sonos. That has pros and cons. On one hand, it means no special network requirements or hardware. On the other, it puts more pressure on the home network to perform well. Sonos, by contrast, built its own mesh networking protocol (SonosNet), which allows each speaker to communicate with others wirelessly, reducing dependence on the user’s router. It’s robust, but also closed. HEOS bet on using the infrastructure people already had.
So why would Masimo—a company best known for medical sensors and hospital monitoring systems—go on a buying spree to acquire Denon, Marantz, Bowers & Wilkins, and the rest of Sound United’s portfolio, including HEOS?
Because in today’s connected world, audio isn’t just entertainment—it’s data. And HEOS is more than just a music platform. It’s a technology ecosystem with potential applications in wellness, home integration, and user engagement. Masimo, led by founder Joe Kiani, has been very public about wanting to expand into the consumer space, using its expertise in health monitoring to create devices that integrate seamlessly into people’s daily lives—including their entertainment systems.
In Masimo’s view, owning HEOS gives them not just a platform for music streaming, but a direct pipeline into homes. If your AV receiver, speakers, and even headphones are running software they control, there’s opportunity to expand into health tech—monitoring heart rate, stress levels, or sleep patterns while you relax in front of your system. That kind of integration isn’t possible if you’re licensing tech from someone else. It only works if you own the stack, and HEOS is the stack.
But this strategic expansion hasn’t come without turbulence. Masimo is currently locked in a high-profile legal battle with Apple over health-tracking patents. Masimo claims Apple infringed on its pulse oximetry technology—key to how Apple Watch measures blood oxygen and other vital signs. The case has turned into a drawn-out legal and regulatory standoff, including an import ban (briefly enforced) on certain Apple Watch models in the U.S. While the battle is focused on wearables, it underscores the bigger picture: Masimo is playing for keeps in the consumer tech space.
And unlike some companies that dabble in audio as a side business, Masimo is investing heavily. The acquisition of Sound United reportedly cost close to $1 billion, and that included a portfolio of legacy brands with deep audiophile roots. HEOS is the common thread tying them all together. Without it, each brand would be off in its own corner. With HEOS, Masimo has a unified software platform that can grow and evolve across multiple product categories.
From a user perspective, HEOS has steadily improved over the years. It supports hi-res audio, multi-zone control, integration with voice assistants, and offers access to a wide range of streaming services. It’s also flexible enough to serve both casual users and system integrators building full-home installs.
HEOS isn’t trying to be everything to everyone—it’s trying to offer a stable, high-quality streaming experience that works across gear ranging from wireless speakers to reference-grade separates. And now, with Masimo steering the ship, the platform may evolve in directions no traditional audio company would’ve considered.
What started as a defensive move against Sonos has become something much larger: a technological foundation that links entertainment, wellness, and home connectivity. Whether audiophiles embrace that convergence remains to be seen—but it’s clear Masimo sees HEOS as a key part of the future.
