How To Set Up Sonos One

While Amazon'southward Alexa was once available only on Echo devices and Google Assistant was limited to certain Android phones, the popular voice assistants are popping upward everywhere now. The Sonos One is one such device where you'll observe both. The $199 wireless smart speaker is effectively the aforementioned equally the $149 Sonos Play:1, with the added benefit of a microphone array that lets you use it with a vox assistant. It'south caput and shoulders above other smart speakers in this toll range, like the Amazon Echo and the Google Home, and earns our Editors' Choice for its performance and versatility.

Sones I Gen 1 vs. Gen ii

Sonos recently updated the One with a faster processor and more retentivity, likewise equally Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support. BLE is just used as an selection for setting up the speaker, and Bluetooth audio streaming is not present on this new model, which the company is calling the Sonos One Gen 2.

Co-ordinate to Sonos, the new processor and additional memory do not currently represent any new features or noticeable performance changes between the Gen 2 and the original 1, which is now called the Sonos One Gen 1. But these upgrades can enable new features specific to the updated speaker in the future. The Sonos 1 Gen 1 is still available from Sonos alongside the Gen 2 version, at a discounted $169 toll. Because the two speakers are so similar and no features take been announced yet that are sectional to the Gen ii, we consider both versions to exist effectively identical in terms of the experience you would become from either of them.

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Pattern

At a glance, the One could be easily mistaken for the Play:ane. It shares the same coffee tin can-similar design, measuring half-dozen.3 by 4.seven by four.7 inches (HWD) in a squarish near-cylinder. The speaker is available in black or white, with a grille that runs almost the entire way effectually its sides. The top is a shine, solid cap that adds nearly an inch of height past the grille. The sides of the grille stop on the back, leaving room for a wide, solid strip that holds an Ethernet port and setup button. The power connector plugs into the bottom, in a recess with a aqueduct that lets the cable run out of the back, under the Ethernet port.

While the I shares a similar contour with the Play:1, its physical controls are completely different. Instead of a contoured top panel with mechanical buttons for playback and book, the 1 uses a completely flat superlative console with bear upon-sensitive controls. A play/suspension icon sits in the middle, flanked by two iv-dot icons on either side. These icons are the One's touch controls, letting you play/break and adjust volume by tapping, or skip tracks by swiping. An indicator light sits above the play/interruption icon, with a smaller microphone status light above that. A microphone icon to a higher place lets you mute the mic when you lot don't want a voice banana listening in.

Multi-Room Audio

Similar all other Sonos speakers, the 1 supports multi-room, whole-habitation music playback through the Sonos app. The visitor has built the virtually robust and broadly supported proprietary multi-room music platform on the market place, simply the speaker provides other, more than open, options as well. The Sonos app works with more than than l different streaming music services, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Google Play Music, Pandora, SiriusXM, and Spotify. You can too play music locally stored on your smartphone, tablet, or reckoner (Sonos Controller software is available on Android, iOS, Mac, and PC).

That wide support should cover all of your music needs, which helps take the sting out of the I'due south lack of Bluetooth or any wired audio connections. If Sonos' own list of supported apps aren't enough, you lot have two other wireless options too. If you're an Apple user, the speaker supports AirPlay ii. The Sonos I volition as well work every bit a Google Cast-compatible speaker if Google Banana is enabled.

All 3 systems can handle multi-room, multi-speaker setups. However, if you want to add together a non-voice-banana Sonos speaker like the Play:5 to the mix, yous should stick to Sonos or AirPlay; Google Cast merely works with Sonos' voice banana speakers when set upwardly to use Google Banana. Sonos' own multi-room organisation also supports stereo pairs and dwelling theater configurations with multiple channels, letting you lot connect two One speakers with a Sonos Beam, Playbar, or Playbase to serve as environs sound satellites, just similar the Play:1.

Choose Your Vox Assistant

The One's biggest change over the Play:i, and its key selling indicate compared with other Sonos speakers, is support for vocalism assistants. At launch, you could connect the One to your Amazon account and utilise the Alexa vox assistant, letting you care for it similar an Amazon Repeat. Thanks to a recent update, you can too choose to connect your Google account and use Google Assistant, treating the speaker like a Google Domicile.

For setting the Sonos One to use Alexa, you only demand to tap the Alexa selection and sign in to your Amazon account. For Google Banana, y'all need to tap the Google Banana option and then go through a few extra configuration steps in the Google Home app to set the speaker upward equally both a Google Assistant and Google Cast device. Y'all can just apply one voice assistant at a time. Information technology isn't hard to switch between them, but it's inconvenient enough that y'all'll probably want to apply merely 1 primarily.

We notice both Alexa and Google Banana to be powerful and useful voice administration with plenty of helpful features. Both can provide full general information and answer questions about weather, sports, unit conversions, and translations; play streaming music from a variety of services; and control smart domicile devices. Just say their respective wake-upwards phrases ("Alexa" and "OK Google") and ask your question or requite your control to get started.

Alexa has a slight edge in third-party vocalisation control skills, and supports a wider selection of smart habitation devices. Google Assistant works a bit better than Alexa at understanding natural speech and following strings of multiple commands and questions. Ultimately, which vocalization banana y'all should go with will be a matter of sense of taste, what smart home devices you take, and whether you use Amazon Prime Music or Google Play Music. And, of course, if you desire to customize your voice assistant'south voice; Google Banana offers a variety of options including John Fable, while Alexa only has its own atypical female voice.

Audio Performance

The 1 tin can get pretty loud for its size, but y'all shouldn't expect powerful low-stop to come out of its small frame. It easily outshines comparably priced vocalization assistant speakers like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, and stands on its ain against its predecessor, the Play:ane. Slightly larger speakers can get louder, and some similar the JLab Block Party even support multi-room playback, simply those alternatives lack any vox assistant back up.

The speaker struggles a bit with our bass exam rails, The Pocketknife's "Silent Shout." At height volumes, the bass synth notes and kick drum hits distort a bit, causing a flake of crunchiness in the ideally apartment, consistent sounds. This is like to what nosotros heard with the Play:one, and you tin go around information technology by dialing the volume dial slightly. To the One's credit, it produces some appreciable sub-bass rumble.

See How Nosotros Test Speakers

Yes' "Roundabout" sounds fantabulous on the Sonos One, showing off the speaker's sound signature. The low-mids and highs are additional a flake, which gives the electric bass a good amount of punch and presence and lets the texture of the guitar strings actually come through. Vocals stand cleanly in the front of the mix, ensuring that every aspect of the dense track gets some of your attention. The high-mids and highs are pushed upwards perhaps a bit overzealously, which adds some life to the guitar plinks but pushes the lower frequences but slightly further back than they should exist.

Speaking of dense mixes and potent high-frequency response, KMFDM's "Ultra" sounds properly energetic on the One. The guitar shredding gets most of the prominence, but the cacophonous industrial bassline stays nowadays, and the hissed and growled vocals come through conspicuously.

Erasure's "Bondage of Love" is represented extremely well here. The drums get plenty of presence, with a expert amount of poppy thump typical with an 80s backbeat. The synths and vocals are clear and clean, standing out in the mix without overpowering the drums, letting all of the track's elements come together in ideally mixed synthpop bliss.

Conclusions

The Sonos One is a worthy and superior upgrade to the Play:1. Information technology has all of the Play:one's splendid features and performance, with the added benefit of your choice of Alexa and Google Assistant, and information technology sounds far amend than the Amazon Repeat and the Google Home. The Marshall Stanmore II Voice and the Google Home Max are both larger and more powerful Google Assistant-equipped speakers, but they're each about twice the price of the Sonos One. The Sonos Beam, meanwhile offers the same streaming support and choice of voice banana in a soundbar form factor. In the $200 range, however, the Sonos One is easily the most versatile voice assistant speaker available, and our Editors' Choice.

The Bottom Line

The second-generation Sonos One is a versatile wireless speaker with excellent sound quality, support for multi-room audio, and your choice of Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant voice command.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/sonos-one-gen-2

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