The Sonos One is here to take out its competition. Sonos is ready to take over the smart home/speaker market, thanks to its intelligence and impressive features. If you got a flair for great audio quality and a big fan of the hands-free assistance of the Amazon Echo, then I think you would want to get your hands on the Sonos One, which is available at Best Buy. It’s more like adding a brain to the Sonos Play:1 and the best part is that it still comes at the same price. Sonos One taps into Amazon Alexa’s intelligent assistance; there’s nothing cooler than telling Alexa what you want to hear and it plays instantly. Sonos One will be adding support for the Google Assistant and Siri next year.
Itching to learn more about the super smart Sonos One? I’m pretty sure you are! At this point, I’m going to explore just about everything you need to know about this device so you can decide if it’s the One for you. Sounds good? Let’s dive in!
First Impression
The Sonos One is available in black or white. Straight out the box, I loved the simple yet sleek design of the speaker. It is similar to Sonos Play: 1 but with an upgrade. The look is very modern and fits comfortably in any home without standing out like most bulky speakers. The Sonos One is meant to stay put in one place so an ugly colorful speaker is not ideal unless you’re into that sort of thing. I knew exactly where I wanted to place my new Sonos One when I opened the box; on my entertainment center. It blends in nicely with the rest of my modern gadgets.
Cool Features
The first and coolest feature of the Sonos One is its support for Alexa — it’s actually my favorite feature, and I’m pretty sure you’ll love it! Sonos One connects with Amazon Alexa easily over Wi-Fi. Besides playing your music whenever you ask Alexa too, you tell her to adjust the volume or skip to the next song. After using this device, I found that it supports 50+ streaming services including Amazon Music, Tidal, TuneIn Radio, Spotify, Pandora, and iHeartRadio. Just so you know, Spotify is currently limited to playback controls, but full support will be available on December 21, 2017. t is one of my favorite streaming sites. The good thing is, the Sonos One responded flawlessly when I used some of these services — that’s pretty amazing if you ask me.
Of course, this smart speaker is not just limited to music, Alexa can answer just about any question. In essence, you can ask her to set timers in the kitchen when cooking, turn the lights on or off, ask trivia questions, tell you the time, read your agenda for the day, share traffic information, and so much more. Cool right?
Alexa isn’t limited to one voice — she responds to every voice in the home, so your family and friends are sure to have a blast with Sonos One.
One feature I really want to work is the Voice Calling. Please, Sonos gods, make this happen!
Impressive Design
As I mentioned above, the Sonos One looks a lot like the Sonos Play:1 speaker — it’s more like its tweaked version. The Sonos One comes with a seamless all-black or all-white color with a super smooth matte finish. Simplicity is key here, and I love it.
The device features intuitive and fully responsive touch controls on the top — you can choose to play and pause tracks and adjust the volume to your preference, it’s that easy!
It’s also good to point out that there’s a small LED by the microphone button which lights up when you call her (Alexa!), and you can disable it with just a tap!
There’s also a port for its power cord on the back as well as an Ethernet port.
Size? Well, you can picture the Sonos One to be about the same size as a large can of coffee. It’s a bit weighty for its size, but it’s all good — you only have to place it wherever you want and let Alexa get to work.
Excellent Audio Performance
Unlike other speakers on the market, the Sonos One audio quality is superb. The speaker is nothing less than amazing — At full volume, I could hear it throughout my entire home. You can also pair it with another Sonos One speaker. One speaker was all I needed. This baby is pretty loud for its size — you’re sure to get a super perfect mix of treble and bass while listening to your favorite hits. I actually like listening to my tracks on half volume because full volume will definitely get the neighbors knocking on your door — I’m pretty sure you know what I mean.
Alexa is also pretty good at hearing you call her name from across the room. I never felt the need to yell to get her attention.
There’s An App For That
Yes, there is, The Sonos App and the Amazon Alexa App. This is probably my only annoyance with the Sonos One, two apps for one speaker. Nonetheless, it works just fine.
The Sonos App works as a controller for music, fast browsing, adding alarms, etc.
The Amazon Alexa App a companion to your Sonos Speaker and has all of the features you would use for your Alexa enabled devices, like the Sonos One.
The Bottom Line?
The Sonos One is sure to be a perfect pick if you already have a set of Sonos speakers but a bit curious to see how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can make things a whole lot cooler for you. The good thing is, you’ll get to enjoy the impeccable services of Alexa without sacrificing sound quality — what more could you ask for?
The Sonos One currently retails for $199. Don’t hesitate to upgrade from your standard speaker if you have a flair for the coolness of AI — you’re sure to get the best bang for your buck.
The Sonos One is available at Best Buy.
The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free. All opinions are my own.