It’s not a terrible speaker at all, used as intended. Perhaps you should have bought a Move instead?

Agree you bought the wrong product for your usage. The move does everything you want and, as the name suggests, is portable. 
 

A pair of Plays Ones/1 in a static location are a great stereo set up. 

I’m very happy with my Ones.
I knew they couldn’t be connected via Bluetooth before I bought them as I did a bit of research. I was sceptical about Trueplay, but do find that it makes a difference. It’s certainly not a feature on any £50 speakers I know of. 

If I wanted a single speaker to use in different rooms at different times, I would have auditioned the Move. More costly, but designed for that purpose. 

As pointed above, regardless of what it is you’re buying, it’s never a good idea to assume features based on what you think should be there based on the price.  It’s very easy to do a little research before hand, or ask the friends who recommended the product in the first place.    Even if you don’t manage to do that, or you realize features you want after purchase, you have a return period in which can switch it out for something else you prefer.  The Move is a better fit for the features you want.

As far as using the Sonos app, you have the option of playing directly from the Spotify app if you find that interface easier to use. Use the casting feature.

The often used (but very pertinent) analogy on here is that what you have done is a bit like buying a Ferrari and then complaining that at that price it should be able to go off-road.

You are also missing the point that your use case doesn’t match the versatility that it does have - it is fundamentally designed as part of a multiroom, multi-source, multi-controller home audio system. The app isn’t a music player, it’s a remote control for the system.

You didn’t do your research, you bought a product designed to do lots of things you don’t need and not to do something you did need. That doesn’t make it a bad speaker.

I did do research before I bought it. 

My partner refuses to have any speaker with built in mic so the SL One was my only option with Sonos. The Move (as much as I was tempted) is VERY expensive. It advertised that the ONE SL has multiple rooms around the house that it can be tuned into in the settings. It also advertised that you could change its location around the house, so I automatically assumed that I could actually do that without having to retune every time. I feel that this must be such a simple feature given what its capable of. But if there is no demand for it, it doesn't make sense for Sonos to change it. 

I’ve since learnt how to play from Spotify app, which I now do, but ideally the app will just be better. For paying top of the range, I want a really accessible app, easy to navigate. There's not even a search bar, to type in radio stations manually so you have to scroll through lists to find what you want. So many comments online with people struggling with it. 

But I can see I’m out voted. 

There is a radio search. Hit the search tab, select ‘Stations’ for the context and start typing. It’s difficult to see how it could be made any more intuitive….

And when you have found a station you listen to frequently, add it to ‘My Stations’ and ‘My Sonos’ so you can find it instantly next time.

Not sure I know what you mean by the bold statement.  The SL makes sense for many different rooms in the house, but it’s not designed to be moved around throughout the house and reconfigure itself.  And honestly, what we feel to be a simple feature often is not, requiring more memory to store all the different tunes, or other complications that we just don’t see from the outside looking in.

Thanks for the advise on radio stations, that's worked nicely. 

I appreciate everyones views on this. When speaking to the operator on the phone, he suggested I put these views on here, which I've done. If people agreed with me presumably, Sonos would look into it, but it seems that no one really experiences the same issues, which is fine. 

Thanks everyone 

As questioned above, where exactly is this advertised? 

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with these as features requests, and you aren't the first to ask for them.  What people are disagreeing with is the statement that the SL is a terrible speaker because it doesn’t have these features.

I think the OP does not have a grasp of the term multi-room system and got it mixed up with multiple rooms.

You have run into a group of Sonos' biggest fans! But you definitely misinterpreted the bit about  moving the speaker around. Sonos is a multiroom system but that is meant to be with multiple speakers, each one tuned to each room's acoustic profile.

What you need is a few more speakers to get the true Sonos experience!

You trying to tell me that there is no way to select between playing music in one room and all speakers?

Sonos Let’s rooms be Grouped. This feature lets you chose a set of rooms and play the same source to all speakers, and they will all play in sync. Rooms can be added and removed as you wish. This is the multi-room feature that so many Sonos owners really appreciate. Of course, you can also play different sources in each room. 

Sonos Let’s rooms be Grouped. This feature lets you chose a set of rooms and play the same source to all speakers, and they will all play in sync. Rooms can be added and removed as you wish. This is the multi-room feature that so many Sonos owners really appreciate. Of course, you can also play different sources in each room. 

So Is it possible to set up a set of ones as rears when using a multi room feature and in a stereo pair when they are playing on there own? also can I play only one ONE off the beam with the rest of the system muted? 

These will for the most part live in my bedroom I am getting a beam and 2 Ones. I dont see me running the ones under normal tv watching so I would like these to be under  different rooms. But like to use them as rears when watching a movie. I would also like to beadle to play only the ONE on my side of the bed so I will not disturb my wife when she is sleeping.

I don’t know of any speaker sets that give you that capability. If you do, I’m interested to know. 

@bgrapids If the two Ones are set up as surrounds (then they are bonded to the Beam and do not have their own room) and you want to use them as a stereo set (two Ones set up as one room), you can unbond them from the Beam. If you want to use one of the One's as a single speaker it has to be set up to be just that. This is however a tedious proces, that will also lose you your Trueplay settings. So, can it be done? Yes. is it something you would want to do often? No.

Sonos is a multiroom audio system, in the sense that multiple speakers can be placed in multiple rooms and work together with or apart from the others. The speakers are not meant to be moved around the house, put in different fysical rooms and be set up for different use cases.

The only Sonos speaker designed te be moved is the aptly named Move, that can be set up to work in stereo with another move (while both on wifi), but not as a surround. 

The poster already opened a thread on this specific topic. There’s a danger that the same discussion could be gone through several times over. Needless to say, the answer will remain unchanged.

Like any receiver that is multi channel built since the 70s or 80s 

There’s your solution, then. Don’t get a system capable of being used in a dynamic, synchronised multi-room multi-speaker setup; get a multi-zone receiver. If the speaker outputs for it are wireless, you won’t need to run speaker cables either. 

The Sonos One SL is a small heavily dsp’ed speaker.  You can’t expect too much from it.  Personally I find sound quality starts to fall apart above mid range volume.  You crated the expectation it would automatically retune when moved.  Only the Move does that although some other smart speakers like Apples HomePod will as well. The One also does Airplay or use the Sonos which I would rather have than bluetooth any day.  That is also something you could have easily found out about before buying. Also you can play directly from the Spotify app to your Sonos speakers.