New Sonos One with Alexa: Can it pair with an existing Play: 1?

Fair enough. You probably know Sonos better than me. All I was quoting was what I'd read in two reviews, so not Sonos official words anyway. Who knows if they said that, but I think this misses the point slightly... Unless they advise that it is impossible to pair the old and new devices, then it is possible, but just depends on cost, complexity and demand. Surely these forums - and customer feedback - exist to tell companies what is wanted? So my point remains that IF enough people want to be able to pair in this way, then make your voice heard! There are no guarantees obviously.

OK fair enough. But it seems to me almost inconceivable that they would not have expected lots of such requests, so it begs the question why it isn't already possible.

Sonos very rarely gives technical reasons why something is not possible or not likely. Even if it were impossible to ever pair the two, you wouldn't hear it from them. They keep technical issues pretty close to the vest.

I'm personally assuming they won't do this, and yes it is odd that they didn't do from launch, although maybe they just wanted to get to market as quickly as possible (to beat Apple and others) and defer that development until later; or maybe they always planned that it would work and found out late on it wouldn't. I don't know how different the speakers are in build specifications. I do think they have shot themselves in the foot a little, for not having them compatable in pairs with the "old" because it will dissuade some from buying. I also totally fail to see why they are still marketing and selling the old Play 1 device and at the same price, unless they expect there to be a supply vs demand issue? I can't see who would choose to buy the old Play 1, if the new One exists at the same price. Now if they dropped the Play 1 price by $50 or so, that'd be a different proposition. It was interesting that a few weeks before the new One was launched, they emails out an offer for £15 off all Play 1's. I suspected it was to clear stocks before the One came out, but had I not been aware of that, and bought one, I'd be feeling pretty disenchanted now.