Retired Sonos Staff

Introducing the New Sonos One

Related content:Hardware

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Available on October 24th, Sonos One is the smart speaker for music lovers. It’s everything you expect from a Sonos speaker, and now with built-in Alexa and microphones, you can control your entire Sonos system with your voice.

With seamless control, you can start music with your voice, add songs to your playlist from the Sonos app, and even start playing music from the Spotify app in a different room. Amazon Alexa comes built into the Sonos One, and we’re working hard to include more voice assistants in the future. First up will be Google Assistant.

Sonos One delivers rich, room-filling sound in a compact size. Two Sonos One players can be stereo paired, or become rear surround speakers in a 5.1 set-up. They’ll also be able to control the music on PLAYBASE or PLAYBAR while being set up as surrounds in the home cinema.

Some more details on Sonos One:

We use echo cancellation technology, created by the same engineering team that worked on Trueplay, which allows the speaker to still hear you over the music – even if it’s cranked up to 11.
The volume will intelligently lower, or “duck” when you speak to it so you don’t feel like you have to shout over the music.
The speaker includes a six-mic array that forms a beam and focuses on the person speaking to help make sure Alexa understands everything clearly.
Since this is a Sonos speaker, you can use TruePlay on an iOS device to easily tune Sonos One to sound great no matter where you place it in your home.
Capacitive touch controls on top, like Play:5 gen2 and the PLAYBASE, that you can tap and swipe. There's also a Mic button that can be tapped, to easily enable and disable the microphones.
Features a Join button and an Ethernet port on the back of the player.

Security and Microphones
Your security and data are very important to us, as we said in our blog here. With Sonos One we are keeping to that.

Sonos One is designed with extra security: An illuminated LED indicator light ensures you always know when your speaker’s microphones are active, or turned off. You can tap on the microphone symbol to enable or disable the microphones, the light is always tied to the microphone’s status. For security and privacy reasons, it’s impossible to disable the LED when the microphones are turned on.

Pre-order today on Sonos.com in stunning all black or all white for $199 US (€229 EUR, $299 AUD, $269 CAD, ¥1,680 RMB, 1,699 DKK, 1,999 NOK, 1,999 SEK, $4,999 MEX), available worldwide starting October 24.

Sonos One is voice-ready in the US, UK, and Germany. It’s everything you’d expect from a Sonos speaker to start with, and future-ready for when Sonos and a voice service launch together in your region if you’re located somewhere else.

While you wait, check out our community thread here to get yourself ready for the new Sonos One. Already have Alexa devices in your home? Check out our thread here.

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Airgetlam

Delighted to hear they figured out that they broke release date 🙂

Bruce

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

Since the Sonos One hasn't been released (and apparently some people have received it, but the software won't install it yet), we're not sure. But to be honest, I'd be extremely surprised if the "alexa" voice were to be spread across all associated (grouped or not) devices.

But since you've preordered one, perhaps you'll be kind enough to come back when you get it installed, and let us know?

I certainly will. I thought Ryan or another Sonos-folk may have a definitive answer.

I don't know but based on the way Sonos grouping works I'm going to guess that grouped Sonos speakers will all play an Alexa response meant for any speaker in the group.

This was my initial thought when I ordered it but then I second guessed and popped in here. Based on Airgetlam's response, second-guessing may be in order. Guess I'll find out on my own.

Alexa will only be responding through the Sonos One in response to your questions or requests. If you have a stereo pair of Sonos Ones, only the one that hears you best will be responding. There was a lot of testing around this and the expectation from users was that only the one you're talking to should be responding, and the others should keep on doing what they were doing.

Are there plans for Alexa to come to Play:3 and Play:5 speakers?

You can already control the PLAY:3 and PLAY:5 units, along with any other Sonos player out there with Alexa by using an Alexa enabled device. If you're wondering about adding mics to those units, we don't have any announcements or spoilers there.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

Airgetlam

There's a fairly comprehensive review here for those of you on the fence about this:

https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/18/sonos-one-review/

Bruce

G

GuitarSuperstar

Lead Maestro

Hello. I'm new to the Sonos community and I have a few questions about how the Sonos One will work with my setup.

Currently I have two Play:1s (one in the dining room and one in the kitchen) and one Play:5 (living room). I have an Echo Dot wired to my Play:5. Currently when I ask Alexa a question, i can hear her voice through all of my Sonos speakers. I have not enabled the Alexa Sonos skill because disconnecting the Echo Dot from my Play:5 and using the skill makes Alexa's voice only come out of the Echo Dot's speakers. I prefer to be able to hear her voice on all of my speakers. My questions are:

If I were to add a Sonos One to my setup, how will it interact with my wired Echo Dot?

If the microphones on both the Sonos One and the Echo Dot hear me say "Alexa" will they both respond? Will they become confused?

If I ask the Echo Dot (wired to the Play:5) a question, will I hear Alexa respond on the Sonos One also?

"Receive with simplicity everything that happens to you." - Rashi

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

If I were to add a Sonos One to my setup, how will she interact with my wired Echo Dot?

You would be able to use the Sonos One to issue commands to your Sonos system, same as the Echo Dot. However, if you wanted to be able to send commands to your Sonos players from your Sonos One, or the Dot, you would need to have the Sonos skill enabled again, which might cause some trouble with the ducking of the audio on the line-in.

If the microphones on both the Sonos One and the Echo Dot hear me say "Alexa" will they both respond? Will they become confused?

The one which hears you best will think you're talking to it, and the other one won't respond. This works really well with a beamforming technology, the same way that multiple Dots at home might work.

If I ask the Echo Dot (wired to the Play:5) a question, will I hear Alexa respond on the Sonos One also?

I think the best way to explain this is by taking a step back and explain what's going on. The way you're set up right now, the PLAY:5 is playing a line-in source. That line-in could be anything as far as the PLAY:5 and your Sonos players is concerned. It could be a CD player. When your system is grouped, it plays the audio coming in from the line-in on all players also grouped. If the Sonos One was there, and you had it grouped to the PLAY:5 and the rest, you'd need for the Dot to pick up your voice in order to hear Alexa on all of your players.

If you had the Sonos One and your PLAY:5 in separate groups, and you asked the Dot a question, only the PLAY:5 and other Sonos players in the group would respond (because to them, the source hasn't changed).

If you asked the Sonos One a question, it'll respond differently. Alexa is built-in to the Sonos One, it understands what Alexa is, and Alexa's voice only comes from the Sonos One, not the rest of the players in a group. The music will keep on playing in other rooms.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

M

McMaKo

Avid Contributor I

The Sonos One will only pair with another Sonos One, for the purposes of creating a stereo pair or a surround sound setup. You can use a Sonos One in a household with any and all Sonos players.

great to know - I was planning to get a Sonos One for stereo purpose with the Play 1 I just bought. Now I feel like rather than buying a 2nd Play 1 to just return it and call it a day 😞

M

Mugs

Prominent Collaborator I

great to know - I was planning to get a Sonos One for stereo purpose with the Play 1 I just bought. Now I feel like rather than buying a 2nd Play 1 to just return it and call it a day :(

If you are still within the return time frame, why wouldn’t you just return the Play 1 for 2 Sonos One? It’s $400 either way and you get Alexa and a stereo pair.

M

McMaKo

Avid Contributor I

If you are still within the return time frame, why wouldn’t you just return the Play 1 for 2 Sonos One? It’s $400 either way and you get Alexa and a stereo pair.

I am definitely returning the Play 1 I bought during the Amazon offer for $150.
The issue is not the $50+ difference (150+200 vs 200+200+shipping back) - the issue I have is that while I was aware Sonos is fundamentally a close system I believed that all Sonos speakers would play nice with each other and be able to be organised as desired. I now realized that assumption was naive.

Not saying I will not go for 2 Sonos One - just that one of the assumptions I had about the future-proof nature of the system might have been false and need to consider it.

K

Kumar

I would not call it naive: did you expect a play 1 and a play 5 to be stereo paired? And playing nice with each other includes an important aspect on which all models made since the beginning of Sonos, including the new One, deliver; all will play with all others in a group, in perfect sync.

Q

quantex

Contributor I

I would like that sonos allow to pair a Sonos One and a Play 1 .

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