Carry it around the house all day, drop it in for movie night

Hey all! 👋🏻

Last Tuesday was a big day and we announced a lot of things, so let's do a deep dive on portable surrounds. What are they, how they work, and what to expect if you try it out.

What is it?

Portable surrounds lets you grab a matching pair of portable speakers (Move 2 or Sonos Play) and use them as wireless rear surrounds, while also letting you pick them up and take them on the go. No cables, no long setup wizard, no manually telling the system where your couch is.

Think of it like this: instead of "installing" surrounds, you just set them down where you want rear sound, and the system figures out the rest.

The ✨magic✨

Once you've enrolled your portables (a quick one-time setup in the app), place them in your preferred spot, and they automatically bond as left/right surrounds within a few seconds. You'll hear a little confirmation tone once they're connected, and the light will slowly blink white while it's working things out.

Pick one up to move it? Both surrounds mute right away. Put it back where it was? It picks right back up on its own. Take it to a different room instead? It just becomes an independent speaker again.

If you really want to get into the nitty gritty of how it works check out the tech blog about portable surrounds the team wrote.

How it knows where they are

There's no audible test tone walking you through mic placement like older setups. The soundbar's mic array picks up a quiet signal (pratically inaudible) from each portable to figure out roughly where it's sitting, then assigns left and right automatically. If it can't get a confident read , which can happen in some big, open rooms which can be tricky, it'll just ask you which side is which.

Setting it up

In the Sonos app > Tap the room with the soundbar > Set Up Surrounds > pick your two portables > follow the prompts (it will ask for mic access on the soundbar so it can do the positioning). Note it will take a few minutes.

Once enrolled, you can also flip surrounds on/off manually anytime. You can do this either from the soundbar's settings page (Use Surrounds/Stop Using Surrounds), or right from the output picker if you want to quickly send them back to standalone duty.

A few things worth knowing

• Rear only, for now — these work as rear surrounds, not fronts or a center channel.
• Matching pair required — both portables need to be the same model.
• One setup per household — only one home theater product can use Portable Surrounds at a time.
• No mixing setups — if a soundbar already has wall powered surrounds wired via ethernet, those need to come off first. Then, portable surrounds can be added. The soundbar or sub can be wired via ethernet.
• Compatible soundbars: Portable surrounds requires soundbars with a microphone array, so Arc SL, Ray, and older Beam/Playbar/Playbase are not supported.
• Make sure everything (app + speakers) is fully updated. That's the first thing to check if setup isn't going smoothly.

Questions

"How far is too far away?" 

There's no hard and fast number I can give you, since it really depends on the room. If you're placing them roughly where a normal rear surround would sit, you're in good shape.

"Does the mic need to be on?"

The soundbar's mic needs to be on and uncovered for automatic bonding to work. Your portables' own mic settings don't matter here — surrounds work fine even with those off.

"I moved it back and it didn't reconnect right away. Is that normal?"

Give it a few seconds to settle. If it's still not picking back up, you can force it with Use Surrounds in the app.

"Can I use these as front speakers instead?" 

Not with this feature. Sonos Fabric does open the door for us to do many more things with the system though. No news to share right now, but when we have anything we’ll be sure to post about it.

“What about TruePlay?”

You can Trueplay your home theater room with or without the portable surrounds in place, and placing or removing the enrolled portable surrounds does not invalidate any Trueplay tuning.

I chatted with the product manager for portable surrounds and here is what Matt had to say:

"Home theater sounds better with rear surrounds, but not everyone has the power outlets or the space for permanent rear speakers. Others may have the space, but value the additional utility and flexibility of being able to take a portable speaker to anywhere in the house or beyond. Portable surrounds with Sonos Positioning Technology is built to feel effortless either way — set them down behind the listening position, they're surrounds; take them out of the room, they're portable speakers."

As always, feedback is welcome. The good, the "wait, why doesn't it do X," all of it. I'll bring anything I can't answer back to the team. 🙏