Big sounds come in small packages
Springsteen in the living room has never sound so good
Sonos One
From €229. More info: sonos.com
It’s just a decade since I first saw a Sonos wireless-speaker, but it feels like they’ve been around forever. They were the first company to make this sort of audio technology mainstream with their Play series speakers for multi-room audio. The smallest of that range, the Play:1 is still available to buy, but has spawned a true smartspeaker sibling, the Sonos One.
The Sonos One is designed for music lovers, but comes with smart-speaker features, namely Amazon Alexa built in. It’s not much different in size to other smart speakers, measuring just over six inches by four. This is a good size for a smart speaker, as you want it big enough to have punchy sound, but small enough to sit on a coffee table or sideboard.The Sonos One has the sleek looks of the rest of the range, perhaps even more so. The first noticeable feature is the touchsensitive surface on top of the speaker. This is a great improvement on the older Sonos buttons. Swiping to the right or left lets you skip through your playlist and tapping the middle of this surface plays or pauses music.
The One uses Wifi to connect to your network, which is more reliable than Bluetooth speaker connections. However, if your home Wifi isn’t up to scratch, there is an ethernet socket on the back, and an included cable so you can plug straight in to your broadband router.
Setting up the Sonos One is a little more involved than a standard speaker, but not at all difficult. I needed to download the Sonos and the Alexa apps and sign in to my accounts on those services. An interesting part of the set-up is Trueplay Tuning. You walk around the room with your phone, and the speaker tunes itself in to your room. This means the speaker plays music using automated settings that are essentially customised for your room. However, you can manually adjust the bass and treble settings at any time, using the app. After I’d finished set-up, and assigned the speaker to a room I played some music from Spotify. Unsurprisingly, the Sonos One continues the tradition of great sound, room-filling almost, from a tiny speaker. The real bonus to this gadget though, is its Alexa features. All of my existing Alexa connected devices were available to me via the Sonos. As well as being able to control my lights and heating, there’s a special Alexa skill for Sonos allowing you to say things like: ‘Play Springsteen in the living room.’
There are some limitations with the Alexa features on the Sonos, so it’s not quite as accomplished as Amazon’s own devices, but – besides the fact that it cannot pair with the Play:1 – there are no serious deficiencies.
Overall, the blending of Alexa and a lovely sounding home speaker is a powerful combination. Access to your music services, and AirPlay 2 connectivity complete a great package that doesn’t cost the earth.