Moving Play:1's from a 5.1 setup - an easier way?

  • 16 November 2015
  • 8 replies
  • 748 views

My play 1's arrived today and I am super happy with the sound but disappointed that they don't seem to be very friendly in terms of moving them around. I had hoped to use them to compliment my Playbar + Sub when watching movies, and to utilise one in the kitchen / dining room when entertaining guests.

I first set them up to test the 5.1 and I then unplugged the left speaker and set it up in the kitchen whilst I did some work. Both were fine once the setup process was complete.

Having set them up I had hoped to be able to easily unplug the play 1 from the kitchen and simply plug it back into the living room and change it's use on the Sonos app and away we go - however it seems you must go through the rigmarole of adding BOTH surrounds all over again, holding the power and volume buttons to initialise and waiting for them to connect as if they were brand new and it was a first time install.

I am hopeful that I am missing an obvious trick here and there is an easier way?

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8 replies

Nope, bonding is a semi-permanent process. The key word there is permanent, they're not meant to be shifted around if being used as surrounds.
Damn, that is a big shame.

What if you wish to move a play 1 from the living room to the garden? Does the same process apply (removing & reinstalling the speaker) or is it just when they are paired with the playbar this happens?

I would have thought creating presets would be relatively easy and would add a lot of functionality to the Sonos app.

For example - setup a play 1 in the kitchen, install, configure with trueplay, save. Then do the same for the garden and for the bathroom. You now have 3 locations each with a unique setting which is saved in the Sonos app. You can enable them as needed without needing to go through the whole setup and configuration procedure. The 5.1 would just be another location.
No, it's only if you have bonded the play:1s to a Playbar or if you have paired two play:1s and then want to use one by itself. If you have a single unit setup in the kitchen you can move it wherever you like, provided you're still in range of a wireless signal, the unit itself doesn't know where it is, the name is just a convenient label.
No, it's only if you have bonded the play:1s to a Playbar or if you have paired two play:1s and then want to use one by itself. If you have a single unit setup in the kitchen you can move it wherever you like, provided you're still in range of a wireless signal, the unit itself doesn't know where it is, the name is just a convenient label.

Thanks LHC - hopefully they can speed the process up in the future so it's not such a curfullfle to move them, but in the meatime I am just going to have to buy some more speakers, it's getting addictive & expensive haha 😃
Just want to update this for anyone else - whilst you do need to remove the Play 1's from a surround setup, when do remove it the app will automatically assign it to the previous room it was in which is pretty cool. So only half the trouble now. Hopefully this will remember trueplay settings as well but as I am on Android I must wait to test that.
Is this still as cumbersome as originally described with the Sonos Beam? I'm planning to get a Sonos Beam plus two Sonos One to use as occasional 5.0 and move the two Ones to a kitchen and bedroom as solo speakers for everyday use, going back to the 5.0 setup when watching movies every few days.
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I’m not sure if you can setup a routine to do in sonosequencr. I know it will pair them together in 5.1 so it may have way to make a macro to pair and unpair one click.
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I don’t see a way to do macro but it does have an easy pairing method. Go to devices bottom. Click on Beam and choose configure.