It’s a great time to upgrade your home theater thanks to some excellent Black Friday TV and soundbar deals. If you’ve yet to take the plunge to a modern 4K TV, or you are still listening to your favorite shows and movies through those tinny built-in TV speakers, there are massive reasons to upgrade. Modern home theater technology now has better backlighting, sharper resolution, and immersive surround sound for less money required than ever before. Go on, convert your living room into a mini cinema.
We test products year-round and handpicked these deals. Products that are sold out or no longer discounted as of publishing will be crossed out. We’ll update this guide throughout the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend.
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TV Deals
Check out our Best TVs guide for more recommendations. Our How to Choose the Right TV guide might also come in handy.
The U8H (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is one of the best TVs for the money. It has Mini-LED backlighting for deeper blacks and a super fast refresh rate for gaming with the latest consoles or a PC. The only downside? Some slightly awkward feet mean you’ll need to have the right TV stand.
If you want a larger screen but don’t want to spend thousands of dollars, Hisense is a good brand to check out. I like this quantum-dot-enabled LED, which features brighter colors than the screen you probably currently have at home.
The TCL 6-Series is one of my favorite TVs practically every year. It has an astonishing picture for the money—this one even features Mini-LED backlighting—and it has one of the best interfaces, thanks to Google TV built-in. The only thing not to like is the wide legs, so be sure to wall mount this or buy a pedestal.
LG OLEDs have the best black levels on the market because each pixel on the screen acts as its own blacklight. This model has even brighter colors than before, and it is the perfect size to use as a giant computer monitor when you’re not streaming your favorite shows. It does 120 frames per second at 4K, so it’s super smooth with the latest gaming consoles and PCs too. The 48-inch model is also on sale for $1,040 ($157 off).
This is a TV that’s literally designed to hide in plain sight. It comes with a new matte finish that makes it look like the paintings it displays when not in use, allowing it to blend into even the classiest of living rooms. The picture quality is solid, but you do pay a bit extra for the party trick (not much extra today).
LG remains the only company that manufactures large-scale OLED panels, which means it has a huge advantage in offering buyers the cheapest option. This is its entry-level OLED, which has the same perfect black levels as others, and it supports Dolby Vision HDR. It does only have a 60-Hz refresh rate, which makes it less ideal than some other models for gaming.
Sony has the best image processing on the market, made better by the LG-supplied OLED panel in this display. If you’re after the best possible movie viewing experience for the money, look no further. The only downside? It has legs on either side, which I hate. Just wall-mount it or buy yourself a pedestal with the money you saved here.
This is one of the best TVs I’ve ever seen (8/10, WIRED Recommends) for bright spaces. The giant, pedestal-mounted screen gets so bright it nearly hurts your eyes, and it has a super wide viewing angle that makes it great in bigger rooms. The backlighting system is also excellent, making this a great TV to watch darker content on.
This isn’t quite as pretty as the other 65-inch Samsung TV we have listed, but it is also a good deal cheaper. The pedestal mount still makes it super easy to place on existing TV stands, and the quantum dot and ultra viewing angle coating make this TV usable in bright, large rooms.
Soundbars and Speakers
Read our Best Soundbars guide for more details. We also have a How to Buy a Soundbar guide to break down some of the terms and what to expect.
The Beam (Gen 2) is the Goldilocks of Sonos soundbars. It’s not the most powerful from the brand, but it’s the best balance of sound and size for most living rooms. The Beam supports Dolby Atmos and voice assistants (Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri); it processes faster than its predecessor; and it’s incredibly sleek, whether on your shelf or mounted to the wall. Read our Sonos guide for more.
If the Beam is the best Sonos soundbar for most people, the Arc (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is the upgrade pick. Our choice for home theater setups, the incredibly powerful Arc delivers deep bass and crisp sound. In certain rooms, the sound can bounce off walls well enough to mimic a respectable surround sound system. This soundbar is the most expensive in the Sonos line, so it’s a great opportunity to upgrade and save some cash in the process.
I am normally not a huge fan of bars this expensive that don’t come with a subwoofer, but the Bose Soundbar 300 has pretty robust bass, and built-in Alexa makes it easy to play Spotify and set timers when you’re in the living room.
The Roku Streambar is an excellent compact option if you want to upgrade a TV’s sound and its ability to play your favorite shows and movies. This little soundbar has a built-in Roku streaming interface, making it a good all-in-one solution for smaller spaces.
This is a great way to get immersive surround sound inside smaller living rooms or apartments. Editor Julian Chokkattu likes that you can use the HEOS app to link it to other speakers for streaming, but his favorite feature is the dialog button, which makes it easier to hear what people are saying onscreen.
JBL makes great soundbars, especially in the entry-level category. I like this 2.1 option, which has a cool-looking design that sets it apart from other cheap bars. With a total of 300 watts of total power, it gets louder than more affordable options too.
The Polk Signa 4 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) can easily fill an entire room with rich, Dolby Atmos-powered sound. It comes with three different sound modes, including a Night mode that limits your subwoofer so you don’t end up bothering the neighbors.
This isn’t the latest Dolby Atmos soundbar from Vizio, but we do like it (8/10, WIRED Recommends), and it’s a great option if you have a limited budget and want something with dedicated surround speakers and a subwoofer. You won’t fill a huge room with sound, but you’ll easily spice up an apartment or smaller space.
If your goal is to disturb your neighbors on purpose, you couldn’t do better than this sound system. WIRED reviewer Jaina Grey spent over a year with this beast, which includes two subwoofers and side and rear speakers, ensuring your entire room shakes from the earth-shattering sound. If you want it to, at least.
Streaming Device Deals
Read our Best Streaming Devices guide for other options.
Roku regularly makes our top picks for streaming devices, and the Roku Ultra is one of the most powerful ones out there. While it’s not the convenient stick that plugs directly into your TV, this box has one of the most powerful processors in a streaming box, so you won’t see lag even when playing 4K HDR footage.
Despite introducing the world to streaming sticks with the original Chromecast, Google took its sweet time finally delivering one with a remote control. Now, the Chromecast With Google TV (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is one of our favorites. If you’re using an older TV and don’t need 4K, you can also grab the HD version for $20 ($10 off).
If you’re big into the Amazon ecosystem, then the Fire TV Stick 4K Max is our top pick for you. It has a faster processor than its siblings and supports Wi-Fi 6, making it the best-performing Fire TV stick. However, if you don’t need the extra power, you can also pick up the regular Fire TV Stick 4K for $25 ($25 off). And if you haven’t upgraded to 4K yet, you can save even more by going with the HD-only Fire TV Stick Lite for $15 ($15 off).
Hulu has a pretty wide collection of shows and movies worth watching, and right now you can get a year of the ad-laden version of the service for $24, or $2 a month. Normally it costs $8 per month, or $96 for the full year. Unfortunately, this deal is only available for new subscribers, or returning subscribers who cancelled more than a month ago. The discount also doesn’t apply to the ad-free version, which is a pretty big bummer.
Black Friday Retailer Sales
Want to browse the sales yourself? Here are a few top retailers participating in Black Friday deals.
