Pairing a Play:1 with the new Sonos One

so disappointing.
I own a Play:1 and with the ability to pair it with a Sonos One it wouldn't only improve sound quality but would also add the additional feature of voice control. So, it would make an existing product better. This isn't the case when pairing two Sonos One.
So, the priority should be on making it possible to pair Sonos One and Play: 1. that this was not done for "aesthetic" reasons makes me doubt the quality of the decision-making processes in that company.
If you believe it or not. This (and Spotify support) feature would make be buy that speaker. Otherwise, I'll stick with the old play: 1.

You do understand that "pairing" two speakers in stereo that do not sound alike does not "improve sound quality"? The two would have to have a very similar sonic signature or it would not sound too well. This is normally why Sonos does not allow you to pair two different models. Now whether the One and Play:1 are similar enough, or can be made to sound similar enough, to pair, only Sonos knows. But the CEO has hinted that it may be coming.

We just purchased the Play One and didn’t realize we wouldn’t be able to pair this with our current Sonos products. For some of us to the design or color differences do not matter, we are having a house built and these are being mounted in the ceiling and out of sight. I hope they enable this feature.

It should not matter; stereo pairing does not work for this application anyway. Whenever you want to play both in one group, the One and Play 1 will be able to do so.

Although why the more expensive Sonos One, whose voice control will not work well in that location, was bought for it is a mystery to me.

Er, trueplay demonstrates thst a spot of DSP can radically alter sound quality. Why can't trueplay be i proved so you can link the different speaker models as a stereo pair? I think this is more marketing, than technical on Sonos’ part.

Once again, the Sonos CEO tweeted that they were considering this function and to "stay tuned". I suggest any speculation about who, what, where, why, or how be put on the back burner until then.

I think Sonos have simply mis-judged what their users wanted with Alexa. I am a little surprised that they've been quite so wide of the mark.

I have some sympathy in that this is a very fast moving market, and that with the likes of Google and Amazon adding multi-room music to their vice-enabled speakers they needed to somehow be seen as active in this space or risk losing a lot of customers based on their now more popular Play speaker range and popularity of streaming on these speakers.

However, a dash of common sense should have asked the question quite early on around why would you want a pair of Alexa enabled speakers in the same room in relatively close proximity? And then based on that, it surely would have made more sense to make the new Sonos One look the same as a Play:1 and allow pairing... You could then perhaps price drop the Play:1 and if the One proves popular, expend the concept of adding Alexa enabled versions throughout the range.

When Amazon properly sort out multi-room Alexa, Sonos then have something you can't currently do with Echo's which is create Stereo pairs, or make your Sonos One/Three/Five and Alexa part of a surround system. You then have a convincing answer to the Echo. A single Sonos Alexa enabled device offers better quality across a range of budgets and then can be added to with non-Alexa speakers in the same room to create a stereo pair or whole surround system, and that can then be done in multiple rooms too.

If you then make it compatible with more than one Voice assistant, the case just gets stronger.

The current scenario though seems limiting to existing owners and will only cause new ones to question why they have to have multiple voice enabled speakers just to turn it off on all but one of them.

Disappointed to discover that, too. Like lots of people, I have two Play:1 behind my sofa paired for surround. I wouldn't have hesitated to exchange the Play:1 closer to the center of the living room for a Sonos One... But I need instead to buy a pair of them?! Silly! My second Play:1 being in the corner of the room, it would never be the one picking the vocal command anyway! My other option is as silly: to buy a One and add it on the top of my already Sonos-saturated living room (2 Play:1, 1 Sub, 1 PlayBar and 1 Play:5!). As a result: no Sonos One for me! :? 😞

Just to add my voice as 'another' disappointed Sonos owner, bought a Sonos One with the expectation of pairing it with one of my Play 1s and moving my Amazon dot to another room with a Sonos setup. No ability to pair with a Play 1 is hugely disappointing, As pointed out endlessly elsewhere why would you want two Alexa enabled speakers in the same room? Sonos One now gathering dust waiting for Sonos to catch up to their customer expectations. I would say in general the Alexa experience, certainly though the dot, is pretty poor on Sonos with the TuneIn radio service being hopeless on BBC streams and no ability to choose another radio service, lack of Apple music service, no ability to play from your own library and a pretty hit or miss ability for the dot to actually make the chosen room play even though it verbally acknowledges the command correctly. Feels pretty 'beta' still to me at the moment and more of a gimmick that of any real world use.

What's the ETA on this fix? A little frustrating telling Alexa to play music and THEN still having to just got to the app to control the volume on the other speakers. Sorta defeats the purpose.