Sonos - One (Gen 2) Smart Speaker with Voice Control built-in - Black

Sonos One Review Let me get right to the point, the Sonos One is my favorite smart speaker. This is a big statement for me as I currently own multiple Amazon Echo devices, Google Home speakers, and the Apple HomePod. What makes the Sonos One so great is that it simply sounds fantastic. Below you will find a number of positives and a few of the negatives for this amazing smart speaker. Positives: + The build quality is fantastic, it has somewhat of an industrial look and feels like a well-designed device. + This is an Amazon Alexa device. It is important to note that not all of the Alexa features are available on the Sonos One (Amazon’s got to save a few special things for its own devices). + A large number of streaming services are available through the Sonos app. + The Sonos One can be combined with another Sonos One to create a stereo pair. This makes this speakers amazing sound even better. + Sonos is known for easy, high-quality multi-room audio. This speaker is one of the smallest and most affordable devices that Sonos currently sells. Essentially, this makes the Sonos One a great speaker to be placed in multiple rooms of the house. + I am an iPhone user and the Sonos One is thankfully AirPlay 2 compatible. Negatives: - While the speaker has the core “Smart” buttons (Play/Pause, volume up and down, and a button to turn on/off Alexa), I do wish these were physical as opposed to touch buttons. - This device does not have an aux input or Bluetooth. - Setting up the device within the Sonos and Alexa app could be difficult for some users. - The Sonos One can be tuned for a room using a Sonos feature called Trueplay. I found Trueplay to be surprisingly effective, but you have to have an iOS device to use this feature. Again, I love this speaker. However, I must provide the reader with one word of caution, Sonos products can be quite addictive. I started off with one little speaker and now I own over a dozen Sonos speakers.

Purchased the Sonos One because I wanted to utilize Alexa but wanted better sound than from my Amazon device. The Sonos One does deliver better sound however the Alexa functions are not up to par to Amazon’s Alexa. The Sonos one picks up sounds like from my tv which is 3feet away that don’t even sound like “Alexa.” Also, when I say a command from 10 feet away, it doesn’t always recognize the command. I usually have to say “Alexa” 2-3 times b4 it recognizes my voice. Another issue I have is the reminders and alarms. I had set several alarms and reminders and when they went off and when I gave the command to stop the alarm, Alexa says “you don’t have any alarms set” and continues to play the alarm sound. It’s only when I go into the Sonos app that I’m able to turn them off which totally defeats the purpose. Speaking of the app, I don’t like having to toggle to the Sonos speaker in the app to play music. I think it may be better with Bluetooth.....which it does NOT have and although I knew that b4 purchasing from doing research on the speaker online I wanted to test it out myself because when I asked an employee at Best Buy if it had Bluetooth, they told me that it did. I even asked if the Bluetooth was just for the initial setup which is what I discovered from my research, and I was told once again that the device has Bluetooth which was untrue to a certain degree. Should’ve trust my own instincts and research. Regardless, I find myself just having to continually go into the Sonos app which once again defeats the purpose. I also wish the light on top were more visible and had different colors like the Amazon device so that I could ensure when it was actually “listening.” Other than these things I thought the actual build quality was great and it definitely does sound better than the Amazon device, but it definitely STILL has room for improvement. All my negatives outweigh the positives so I think I will be finding the Sonos One a new owner if I’m not able to return it and picking up another Amazon Alexa and maybe get the sub as well to achieve the sound I like. Btw, the price was questionable considering the fact that it pretty much went unchanged from the previous gen. Makes more sense to keep the original price and lower the price of previous gen. Hope this helps someone.

I want to begin this review by stating that I am unable to comment on the sound quality- or indeed most of the features- of the Sonos One (Gen 2) speakers simply because I have not been able to actually listen to the pair of speakers I bought. I would have given fewer stars, but because this is a new product with no reviews and my issue will not effect most consumers I decided to be generous with my three star rating on the basis of the speaker design and the demo I heard in the store. These are wifi speakers and they do not have Bluetooh or a plug-in AUX capability. Futhermore Sonos speakers cannot connect to a wifi network that requires you to login on a splash page (a webpage where you need to login with a username and password), unless you can plug in to the router. This means that if you live on a university campus you may not be able to connect these speakers. My university has a separate network for devices such as gaming consoles, Amazon Echo, etc. where they register the MAC address of the device and bypass the splash page, BUT they will not allow me to connect my phone or iPad to this network. You CANNOT set-up Sonos One Speakers unless your mobile device with the Sonos app is connected to the SAME wifi network as the speakers. According to Sonos support, the only work around for this issue is plugging into a router, which I do not have access too. Additionally my university will not allow us to have our own routers in university housing. So...if you live on a college campus or somewhere else where you don't have control of the wifi, make sure you have the ability to connect both the speakers and a mobile device with the Sonos app to the same wifi network that meets Sonos' requirements (and does not require you to go through a splash page to login) or you may have significant difficultly setting the speakers up. I am returning them because I'm convinced it's impossible for me to set them up in my university apartment based on what I've been told by Sonos support and my university IT department. This is a shame, as I was really looking forward to using them to listen to music, movies, etc. through their AirPlay 2 capability. If you're someone with your own wifi router or a simple password protected wifi situation, then you may be ok. Just do more research before you purchase than I did, or you may end up disappointed.

I purchased two of these to up my audio quality in a few rooms over the amazon echo devices. Good news is they sound amazing, have great build quality and the app works flawlessly. More good news is they link together well and the voice recognition appears to be equivalent to the amazon devices. The bad news...and likely not the fault of Sonos, is that you cannot multiroom amazon devices AND sonos devices so the dream of having the same song playing gently in every room of the house has not been fulfilled. Yes you can multi room sonos devices and yes you can multiroom amazon devices but currently no way to do both at the same time. If this is your wish you should fill your home with one or the other. That said, the speakers are awesome. The setup was easy. I was even able to connect to my NAS server for basically every song I own at a tap. Controlling the volume and where the music is playing is a snap. It does integrate with Alexa (other than multiroom music) so I can control my light and other devices just the same. If you have the coin, it is my opinion this is the best Alexa enabled speaker available for the price. They sound great a short distance from you so if it’s very close to where you might be sitting I’d recommend placing them on the other side of the room. The sound seems fuller the further you get (to a point l) from the speaker. Good luck and enjoy !

I’ll start by mentioning that I own 5 sonos one, one sonos play 5, one sonos beam, 2 echo and one homepod. Out of these different devices, the sonos one are my favorites. Two play 5 would be better but they are not smart which is annoying. They also cost $500 a piece. The homepod and the echos have a great omnidirectional sound. However, the echos’ sound quality is well below that of the sonos. Unlike the sonos, they unpair from time to time. My sonos have stayed paired and sync since day one. The homepod sound quality is good but emphasizes bass WAY too much. It’s also $350 a piece, pretty much the cost of two sonos one. IMO a pair of sonos one beats a single homepod any time. Stereo sound is just so much better. You just need to seat at the right spot. With a homepod, it matters less. As you should know by now, Siri is not very smart. The reason why I took one star off is because the sonos don’t have any input. They can do airplay but that’s not very useful to me. They also sound a little weak as a single speaker. The gen 2 don’t have anything more than the gen 1 except for the better processor. Sound is identical and you can even pair a gen 2 with a 1. You may want to consider a gen 1 to save a few bucks. However, gen 2 may receive updates longer. By far, my favorite smart speakers.

By far, one of the best purchases I've ever made for my house. I bought these so that I can not only use them in my office at the house, but also take them outside, in the backyard while hanging out. The wifi range is fantastic! When they are in my backyard, I hang them on my back fence, which is about 30 feet away from the nearest wifi hub inside my brick house. What prompted me to write this review is the fact that this past weekend, we had them in the backyard. Well, I accidentally left them outside, and the next day we had a solid 12 hours of a hard Texas thunderstorm. We must've gotten about 4 inches of rain. I went out there, brought them inside, dried them off, and waited a few hours. I crossed my fingers, plugged them in, and they still worked like the first day I bought them. They are definitely NOT outside speakers, and I don't recommend leaving them outside in the elements (especially thunderstorms)...but I am super pleased with the durability of these things...The sound is also fantastic when you pair two together. You won't regret buying a pair of these!

So the nice thing about these speakers is that they have ability to utilize Alexa and Google assistants, BUT one thing that I didn't know, was that if you're planning on making two of them, surround speakers, you MUST buy 2 of the same models even though for the most part, the play and the play1 are the same speaker. This was pretty frustrating because I really only cares to have Alexa/Google to the left of my head by the couch and quickly hit a brick wall when the app told me I needed 2 like speakers. So I had to rush back to BB, return the play1 for another (more expensive One) and I'm not even using the right surround speaker for voice assistance! Anyways, besides that, they are great speakers and I tried Google on them because Google recognises what you're saying better, hears you better and gives better answers than Alexa does. NOT with Sonos though. I'm glad they brought Google over, but because they were Alexa from the beginning, she does work better that Google ATM.

Wasn't a believer in Sonos till I got one. Not that I was hating on Sonos just didn't know trouble free and great sounding they were. My wife and I recently had a outdoor pool system installed in our backyard and used a Sonos for the brain of the speakers. We had all our speakers surrounding our pool and spa bit didn't have our seating area covered. The theatre guys insisted we just buy a stand alone Sonos that plugs in and we could place it in the seating corner. How easy this purchase turned out to be. Simply plugged it in it found our network and was easily added to network of speakers. Can adjust volume etc just like the outdoor system. We're thinking about adding another for inside of house so our house parties have consistent music streaming all around the house. Thumbs up Sonos!!!! Btw these units sound bomb...big bass and clarity on par with Bose speakers and I own 2 of their Bluetooth speakers. Those will gather dust now and just be used for road trips