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Ryan S
Ryan SAnswer
Retired Sonos Staff
May 8, 2018
Hi everyone, thanks for sharing your feedback and voice. The official answer on this topic is in the thread, but it's a bit buried at this point.

To be clear, the Sonos One can be used with all Sonos players. It can control what's playing on itself and other rooms with voice, where available. However, Sonos One will only pair with another Sonos One if you are looking to set it up as a stereo pair or as part of a surround setup, it can't bond with a Play:1.

While the Play:1 and Sonos One share a similar appearance and sound, the two are aesthetically and acoustically two different speakers. Stereo pairing the two is not possible through the Sonos app.

This comes down to the hardware in the players themselves. You're going to start seeing more differences between the Play:1 and the Sonos One when it comes to features in the future, as new things are added to the system that might not be compatible with older hardware. We strive to keep products working with core functionality for as long as possible. As we add new features, older products may have more limitations.

You might have heard recently that we're bringing Airplay 2 to Sonos on a selection of players. The Sonos One will be available as an Airplay 2 target, but the Play:1 will not be. The first Sonos players ever, the ZP100, is still out there rocking today, so don't worry about the life of your Play:1s. That one won't be an Airplay 2 target either, but you'd be able to group a Sonos One with a ZP100 and play Airplay 2 to both, just like with a Play:1. The group is different from stereo bonding.

There are some community suggestions for ways to bond a Play:1 with a Sonos One, mentioned in this thread, but they aren't officially recommended. They may work for what you're looking for, but the setup could potentially be unstable.

Thanks again everyone for sharing, and we'll make sure the team knows this is still something you'd like to see happen, but there aren't any plans to share on bonding a Play:1 and Sonos One as a pair.
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sunxin8086
Lyricist I
October 7, 2017
I too would love this to be a possibility. I already have two play 1s, would love to buy two Ones to make two stereo pairs in two room that can both have alexa integration. For people who are saying why not just buy a echo dot, Sonos One’s integration is deeper as you don’t need to say the room/group, the nearest One will pick up the command and start playing music in its groups
    Paul Edgar
    Contributor I
    October 9, 2017
    To echo what has already been said above, I would also love to be able to pair a couple of Play 1s with a couple of Ones to make two stereo pairs with Alexa capability.
      uncletom62
      Contributor I
      October 9, 2017
      I can seriously see the Play:1 discontinued at some point in the near future since it is the same price point as the Sonos ONE. There is absolutely no need for Sonos to keep the Play:1 around anymore nor support it down the road.

      I just bought SIX Play:1s to pair around the house. If I can't pair a Sonos ONE and Play:1, I seriously might just sell off all Sonos and go Google if it sounds good as I need to buy more pairs in the future.

      I think Sonos is hoping people with replace Play:1s with Sonos ONEs but I am not going to fall for it.
        Kumar
        October 10, 2017
        You are not being asked to fall for it - using Dots for backward compatibility is the option given by Sonos for every speaker they have ever made. Including those that are not produced anymore which by the way, are also upgraded for free to accept voice control.

        But if you are buying pairs in future for expansion, why would you not buy Sonos One pairs?
        Airgetlam
        Airgetlam
        October 10, 2017
        I would be, except in the rare case that I needed a second PLAY:1 to set up as a stereo pair. But as you say, if I was buying a pair, it would definitely be a pair of Sonos Ones. Besides, I think the Sonos One looks better 🙂 The fact that they are the same price is just a bonus.
        Bruce
        Johnnie Walker
        Prominent Collaborator I
        October 10, 2017
        How does having the Alexa Mic's built-in to the top of the speaker compare to having a separate Echo Dot when it comes to your voice commands being heard?

        Common sense would suggest that it would be easier for an Echo Dot, placed away from the actual speaker, to hear voice commands better than the Mic's built-in to the speaker of the ONE?

        Maybe this has been solved by the use of clever Mic's or Algorithms, but as most people don't sit right next to the speakers, then for me at least I'd have thought having a Dot positioned closer to myself than speakers would make voice control more effective?

        Not having to tell which speaker to play on after each command is an advantage of the ONE, but if there could be a default speaker/group/pair option that could be configured in the settings of the Sonos app that would remove that issue, as again, I only have one pair of Play 1's and so obviously I'd only ever want the music to be played on those, so having to say "...in the kitchen" at the end of every command is a bit annoying.

        I guess I could test this out by putting my Dot on top of one of my speakers and testing out the effectiveness of the voice control! 😃
        Johnnie Walker
        Prominent Collaborator I
        October 10, 2017
        Another thing I have just noticed, I asked Alexa to "play songs by Elbow in the Kitchen" and then said "Alexa, pause", the music did stop, but then when I said "Alexa, play" it started playing a previous playlist on the actual Echo Dot.

        I then realised I have to say "Alexa, resume" if I want to continue listening to songs by Elbow in the kitchen.

        I guess that makes sense, but again I wish there was a default setting, to tell Alexa to play all audio via my Sonos speakers, so for example when I'm listening to music on my Sonos speakers and ask Alexa the time, the response will come from the Sonos Speakers not the Echo Dot.

        I imagine having to support Alexa voice control on existing speakers caused added complications that delayed the feature, as if Sonos were just having to create a new speaker with Alexa voice control built-in, and not have to worry about backwards compatibility with older Sonos speakers it would have been easier to implement.

        As it stands now, the implementation isn't fully consistent, which I guess is unavoidable.
        RX-Men-8
        Contributor I
        October 10, 2017
        OK, from what I'm reading here, if I want to make my kitchen setup (single Play:1) into a stereo pair I should get a PLAY:1, not a Sonos:One. When the new Sonos:One was announced I was curious if I could benefit from the voice control here, but I guess not. Well, prices seem to be coming down on the PLAY:1 and they are offered used more and more which is the upside to this.
        Steve-R
        Trending Lyricist I
        October 16, 2017
        I agree with the majority here. I have a 5.1 setup in my living room and a Play:1 in the bedroom and kitchen. I already have all the speakers I can reasonably use in my place, but I'd be willing buy a One to swap into my 5.1 setup and take the hit (likely ~50% of the original price) selling off a Play:1 in order to get voice control.

        However I would not be prepared to replace both my 5.1 surrounds, and as others have mentioned, having two voice control speakers in the same room is pretty pointless. If I was ever to replace a second Play:1 it would be the one in the bedroom.

        I'm sure that sonically the Play:1 and the One are close enough to work seamlessly as a mismatched pair. Perhaps just provide a caveat message in the app when setting up that this is not officially supported / won't provide a quite optimal experience / etc when compared to a matched pair.

        Google Assistant is my voice ecosystem of choice anyway, so I'm holding off until Sonos add this in 2018. Hopefully by then they'll have caved in to pressure and allowed us to mix Play:1s and Ones!
        Kumar
        October 16, 2017
        Hopefully by then they'll have caved in to pressure and allowed us to mix Play:1s and Ones!
        I doubt that very much; IMO a safer bet is that they will stop making play 1s in time.

        I can't see why not being able to mix should be such a big matter seeing how easily and cheaply voice control can be obtained just as well by a Dot if there isn't the space/need for a Sonos One either singly or as a pair. I also believe that speculating from the outside about why there should be no trouble pairing a 1 and a One is based on vastly incomplete information about the internals/architecture of the two products.
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