Hi. The answer is no, I’m afraid.  You can pair two moves as stereo speakers but not use them as rear speakers in a 5.1 setup.  Don’t buy Ones for this, buy One SLs and save some money.  The voice control is the only difference, and this is disabled on the Ones when used as surrounds with a Beam.

That is quite dissapointing. I wonder if anyone knows if there is a reason that the Moves can’t be used as rear speakers, and whether this might change over time with software updates? Or is this a case of Sonos wanting to force customers to go out and buy Ones / One SLs as rears? 

The reason. I’ve heard is that the design of the Move does not match up with surround sound function.  The move is is designed to fill a wider space rather than narrow duties for rear surround sound.  It also exclusively uses WiFi rather than Sonos proprietary network used for bonding speakers in an home theatre setup.  And the Move is designed to be moved to other locations, or switched to bluetooth, which would cause problems for surround sound duties.  And as stated, the voice services and trueplay abilities would need to be disabled.

Not sure that Sonos stands to gain more sales by not allowing Moves to be surround speakers.  You would need to 2 Moves for $800, rather than 1 Move and Sonos Ones for $800 or less.  Yes, you can pair 2 Moves together for stereo when in WiFi mode, not in bluetooth, but if you’re using them as surround sound speakers, you aren’t really taking advantage of them as a separate stereo pair.

Or buy a pair of Ikea Symphonisk shelf speakers for under $150 to get roughly the same effect. 

There's a guy on YouTube who took the symphonisk speakers apart and found the internals nearly identical to the One SL.

Speaking personally as someone with an Arc and surround speakers, I have to say the rear speakers in a surround array are quiet 95% of the time, so you are better off going with the cheapest option available. It's fun to have the full surround effect, but they only really trigger during big action sequences. 

Ah, greedy Big Business. Forcing customers to buy speakers costing $/£200  each when the customer wants to buy speakers costing only $/£400 each. 

Agree with this.  The only downside to me is that ikea speakers don’t look as nice as Sonos Ones, IMO.  I probably would have done that anyway, if I didn’t already have play:1s for surround duty.

Well I already have a Sonos Move, so that means I only need one rather than two. And I have no power options behind my couch so using portable speakers as rears would be much better.

I just want to understand whether this is something which would be possible in the future, so would be great if anyone knows if using 2 x Sonos moves in stereo as rears in on the roadmap?

I recently purchased a Beam and two Moves thinking about using them as a modular surround set up. Didn’t research beforehand so I’m hoping this is a possibility in the future. Even if we wouldn’t get the real benefit of a true surround set up, it’d be nice to have the option. 

Hi @nes0290.

Welcome, thank you for reaching out to Sonos Community.

I'll submit a feature request to add Sonos move as part of the home theater setup to our development team.

We don't have a timeline we can share for this feature, but we'll be sure to make an announcement if we have any updates.

Just to give you an idea that Sonos is listening to customer feedback, recently Sonos allowed multiple Sub in a home theater setup.

If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

Mark, do you know if its possible for the Moves to be software upgraded to allow use in a surround system or is this something that would require the purchase of a potential new Move speaker?

I just bought 2 Moves thinking I could pair them with an arc and sub to provide surround sound and am quite disappointed/frustrated learning they cannot work in this fashion. Unfortunately I don’t have outlet capabilities in the living room to support a wired speaker alternative (which is why i purchased the two Moves). If its a software issue that may be resolved soon, I would consider keeping the speakers. Otherwise, $800 for portable speakers that can’t pair while using Bluetooth or work in surround feels too expensive to keep and make sense to return.

Hi @Khatch17.

Welcome, thank you for reaching out to Sonos Community, We appreciate your time and effort in posting your concern here in our community.

We don't have current access to the future updates our engineers are working out, but we'll be sure to make an announcement if we have any updates.

If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.