Well, I think somewhere you missed the fact that the Sonos One can’t be “paired”, either as a stereo pair, or as a surround speaker, with a PLAY:1. You’ve got a couple of options here, one of which removes your concern, and is the one I’ve gone with.
My preferred option: Go ahead and purchase the Sonos One. Just add it as a “separate” room in the Sonos software, and leave your two PLAY:1s as surround speakers. You’ll get all the functionality you want that way, and you can place the Sonos One anywhere in your home that’s most efficient for you and the microphone to pick up your Alexa requests. An extra Sonos speaker never seems to be a bad idea, and it’s much less expensive than the next option.
The other option, that I don’t prefer, is to purchase two Sonos Ones (or one Sonos One, and one Sonos One SL) and use them as surrounds. Someone may correct me, but I *think* that the Alexa functionality exists, but then you’d be left over with a pair of PLAY:1s to put somewhere else (preferred) or sell (much less exciting to me). In this scenario, you’re buying two new speakers. Which might be offset in cost if you “trade in” the PLAY:1s, and then sell them, but I still prefer the previous option.
Hi. Thanks for the reply. If I understand what you say, the One on its own will not control the surrounds and just respond to Alexa itself, so that’s not what I was hoping to get. A single One like that is useless to me. I already have a Play:1 in the bathroom and I don’t need any more around the house. Looks like I saved myself some money.
I’ll have to stick with the app and Lyd on my Watch to control things.
Pair your Playbar with an Echo Dot, that works well for Alexa voice control.
I don’t have any Echo units but that’s an aside. You say “pair”. That suggests Bluetooth, which none of the Sonos items I have are blessed with.
The One on its own can control the “room” that is your PLAYBAR, you would just need to say “on ‘roomname’ as part of the verbal command. Once you’ve added Alexa to your system, you can control any “room” in your system.
As @Keithmac suggests, you could save some money by just adding an Echo Dot, which would also allow you to control your Sonos system, using the same paradigm. I use Echo Dots to control my Sonos all the time “Alexa, resume in kitchen” or “Alexa, pause in kitchen” are used almost daily.
I did search on getting an Echo to control Sonos after Keithmac posted but it did not look clear to me. Some sites say to add Sonos to Alexa and then Voice to Sonos, but that option is not available in my apps. Would it be possible to post a link to an idiot’s guide? I’m not an idiot tech-wise but I am failing to see how to cross connect these two technologies.
Thanks. I’ll give that a good read, including the all links. I didn’t find the Sonos own page in my searches.
For what it’s worth, when I search for something, I go to Google. I’ve found that the search function provided by this forum software (inSided), is somewhat frustrating, and frequently doesn’t find what I want, but know exists. At least in the past. I’ve totally given up on it at this point.
I use DuckDuckGo. I don’t trust Google/Alphabet in any context (well sometimes I have to resort to Maps but otherwise they are a no-no). Thanks for not using the noun Google as a verb 
The key part is any other search function is likely, IMHO, better than the one provided by this website.
And you’re welcome :)
I’ve had a look at that document and on reflection, I don’t think I can achieve what I want or close to it in a way that I am comfortable with, so I’m going to pass, at least for now.
I have enough Sonos for now and gave away loads when it stopped being supported (the S1 and S2 split).
Thanks for responses.
Understood. I stopped using Windows when it wouldn’t run on my ‘386.
