Yahoo Finance Sonos One review: The best-sounding speaker smartens up
Sonos has been held up as the top speaker brand for both everyday listeners and music aficionados, dominating the audio space at the expense of competitors who just couldn't quite hit the sweet spot.
One of the pioneers of in the early 2000s what modern speakers are capable of, since 2013 Sonos has beaten the competition for its multi-room audio performance with its old Sonos Play:1 speaker and has remained a consumer favourite for its simple and functional Sonos app.
But when its last entry level speaker was released in 2013 the smart speaker revolution of Amazon's Echo and later the Google Home hadn't begun. Now, talking to your speaker is becoming more common and smart home integration is coming to dozens of different products, far beyond linking up your home audio.
Sonos released the Sonos One late last year. I've been using it for over a month now and it's truly a brilliant speaker, even against other multi-room sets I've tried out. The new Sonos comes headlined with Alexa integration, but there is no doubt other speakers are catching up.
At a more expensive £199, do the new smarts for Sonos do enough keep its place as the king of home speakers?
Design and features
The new Sonos One hasn't changed much in looks since the Sonos Play:1. With Sonos you get a sleek all black or white design, a smart cylindrical design just over six inches tall.
There is no screen on the Sonos, although it has several touch sensitive buttons on top, including a central play/pause switch, volume controls and a button to toggle the microphone on and off.
One key feature of all Sonos speakers, which trips up many first time buyers, is the lack of any cable connections. Sonos is a purely wireless audio experience. It doesn't use Bluetooth, instead you connect via your Wi-Fi network and play music using the Sonos app.
The only cable is the power cable. This means you can't link up to a 3.5mm cable. It also doesn't work with Bluetooth. These limitations have been major gripes among some Sonos users and show no signs of changing on current models.
Set up
The initial set up of your Sonos speaker is designed to be painless for most smartphone natives. Once plugged in, download the Sonos app. You'll need to create an account and pair your smartphone with your new Sonos over your Wi-Fi network.
Sonos is able to play music stored on your smartphone or tablet, but is mainly for playing using streaming services. In the app you can link to almost any music service, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Tidal, Google Play Music and Spotify, although this is Spotify Premium only. You can listen to most radio stations through TuneIn Radio.
From here you will probably want to enable Alexa, a big new part of the Sonos ecosystem. To do this you will have to download the Alexa app and enable your Sonos through it. I've never been much of a smart speaker lover, but I have found myself using Alexa on the Sonos for listening to the news, turning the volume up or down when my hands are tied down cooking or making breakfast.
There are some issues with Alexa on Sonos. Not deal breakers, and if you are an Amazon Prime user you needn't worry. Alexa can't work with services like Apple Music or Google Play Music, meaning it can't search for tracks it doesn't know.
Annoyingly, if it can't find a song, it will prompt you to "find the song on Amazon Music". It would be nice to cut out the marketing. Alexa is also not that good at finding UK radio stations even if they are on the app, often redirecting to random US local radio stations that share similar names to Capital FM, for example.
Multi-room starter
Sonos is known for its multi-room and surround sound speaker offering and the Sonos One adds to that system. You can link up multiple Sonos speakers to the Sonos One from its app. These can then be named for your "living room" or "bedroom" and Alexa can pick up these signals - such as "play BBC Radio 2 in the bedroom".
The Sonos One is arguably now the ideal starting point for a multi-room audio system. Given it can link up with Sonos soundbars such as the Sonos Playbar, and with other Sonos speakers or even connect to Amazon's Echo speakers.
Sonos app
A major part of Sonos' appeal is its simple app and multi-room set up. Adding new speakers and assigning them rooms is a doddle with Sonos, meaning you can build up a multi-room setting with speakers set to the living room or bedroom.
From within the app you can search for music from a range of streaming or radio sources. You can find individual songs or artists quickly across a range of apps and music services, although personally I find the implementation of Spotify on Sonos less intuitive than when using the regular app.
Of course, the way the Sonos app means you must play all your music through it, as there is no work around or Bluetooth. It's the Sonos way or nothing.
One brilliant element of Sonos is that you can access music from other services if users are connected. This means I can play Apple Music stored on my flatmate's iPhone straight to the Sonos via my Android device.
Smart speaker and Alexa
Integrating Alexa into Sonos was a major step forward for the speaker company and, for me, it actually works rather well. I've never been a great lover of the smart speaker ecosystem, but by deploying it on a genuinely high-end speaker I feel you are getting the best of both worlds. A powerful speaker and the centre of your smart home.
Alexa can be turned fully off by tapping the mute button on the top off the Sonos, if you are particularly privacy focused. Otherwise you can easily use it hands free. Commands like: "Alexa, turn it up", "Alexa, skip this song" and "Alexa, mute" all work fine.
However there are some limiting features to Alexa. Again, these didn't throw me off, but might if you want an absolute pure smart speaker experience. For instance you cannot yet make voice calls or send messages using Sonos.
Sonos has also said it is adding integration for Apple's AirPlay and Google Assistant. These will be much needed additions, to make the Sonos One seem like more than just an Amazon peripheral. And if it keeps good promise you should be able to link your Sonos to other Google devices and the Google Home app.
Sound quality
All this before I even get to sound quality - which is really why you would buy a Sonos. The company has for several years made some of the best-sounding small and entry-level speaker systems you can buy and the Sonos One is no exception.
For such a small speaker it packs a fair punch, noticeably better than any budget Bluetooth speaker you could pick up. It provides far deeper and richer sound quality than most other speakers of this size, although for £199 you would expect as much. If you want a stereo experience you can seamlessly pair two Sonos One speakers for more immersive sound.
Price and verdict
At under £200, the Sonos is priced just below premium speakers, but it is currently the most expensive smart speaker you can buy in the UK, when you consider the new Amazon Echo is £89 and the Google Home £129. That said, it is leagues ahead in terms of sound quality, as both these speakers emphasise their virtual assistant qualities over being a speaker.
There are some issues that could be improved. As a smart speaker the lack of Google Assistant is disappointing, but if Sonos can deliver on this it will be a true bridge between the speaker ecosystems. You are also limited to connecting to a Sonos speaker network.
But the sound quality for a mid-tier price is truly exceptional. In case you can't tell I've fallen for the Sonos One. It's a worthy addition to the Sonos range, and probably still the best jumping off point for a home sound system. Great-sounding speakers just got smart.
Pros: Best in class sound at this size, small, multi-room ready, intuitive app, Alexa integration
Cons: Still waiting for Google Assistant and AirPlay, limited connectivity options
The Sonos One is available from John Lewis, Amazon and Currys for £199
