Sonos ones vs Play:1s and Echo dot

I would go with the Dot

It is plenty loud for the alexa voice part. No I do not foresee a point where the alexa voice from dot would transmit through the Sonos play:1 speakers.

I do agree that Sonos Ones future proof you a little more if your not planning on expanding Sonos In o other rooms with possibly a Sonos One later (it’s an addiction they multiply quickly like rabbits).

The play:1s are easier to mount though since they have he mounting threads on back (Sonos Ones do not)

I actually in kitchen prefer to have an Echo Show as the primary alexa device. Bring up recipes, conversions, etc on screen - very useful.

Also as I have Alexa devices in all my primary rooms and I have kids I use them a lot for intercom (which the Sonos One will not do).

Thanks - I already have four rooms of Sonos (albeit an old system), so the addiction has already started!

In terms of this choice - I'm also aware of the ducking issue, whereby all speakers in the house will duck when talking to Alexa. Is this avoided by using Sonos Ones? Or does that problem still persist? (I.e., if I am talking to Sonos Ones, will the rest of the house still duck?). I understand that using Sonos Ones you can avoid the need for saying "in the kitchen", so wondered whether the ducking issue is also rectified.

I've read that the ducking issue may be sorted through either configuration in time, but wanted to clarify.

Ducking is avoided in all other rooms using the Sonos One. It will still duck in the room you are speaking to. It would appear the ducking issue depends on the ability to map a Sonos device to a single Echo device. This appears to be addressed in the Amazon's new Multi-Room Music SDK slated for release this year. Whether Sonos can or will be able to use this SDK remains to be seen.

robmc,

Chris makes some good very valid points about the echo show and the speaker fixing brackets etc. The only advantage for the Sonos One is the future proofing aspect and that may (just may) mean the difference of being able to use Airplay 2 and definitely you won’t have access to Google Home. You will probably have both of those things via the Sonos One in the future.

I think Sonos are aware of the ducking issues and that is surely on their list of future updates to be rectified... we hope !!

The Sonos Ones does currently 'duck' when you speak to an echo dot (for example) in another area of the house. But if you are playing music in say the lounge and speak to the Sonos One in the kitchen area, the music in the lounge does not duck, just the kitchen will 'duck' as it sort of knows you are in that room.

Hopefully this ducking issue is resolved very soon. ducking has been an issue across the board from day 1 that Sonos has said they are going to address.

The voice control does work very well now, I think, but I think it will get even better with each update.

It’s becoming the primary way we control our music and playlists here at home. There’s no going back for me. My family and friends love the whole concept of smart-home voice control, music, lights, TV etc. and you can fall-back to physical hardware and software controllers at any point. What’s not to love there?

I still use controller 95% of the time. I enjoy the controller for music exploration and more detailed control. Voice - just a quick want a song.

robmc,

Chris makes some good very valid points about the echo show and the speaker fixing brackets etc. The only advantage for the Sonos One is the future proofing aspect and that may (just may) mean the difference of being able to use Airplay 2 and definitely you won’t have access to Google Home. You will probably have both of those things via the Sonos One in the future.


I'm not sure I agree with this. For airplay2, I can see where there may be some hardware requirement that is met with the Sonos One, but not with Play:1, however that would mean Airplay 2 wouldn't work any other Sonos products either. That seems like a rather disappointing solution.

As far Google Home, are you saying that there would be no way to have voice control with Google for Sonos speakers without a Sonos One? I can't imagine that would be the case. It certainly isn't the case for Alexa. I'd be shocked if you can't get use a Google mini or any the other products to control Sonos the same way you can do with Echo products.



I think Sonos are aware of the ducking issues and that is surely on their list of future updates to be rectified... we hope !!

The Sonos Ones does currently 'duck' when you speak to an echo dot (for example) in another area of the house. But if you are playing music in say the lounge and speak to the Sonos One in the kitchen area, the music in the lounge does not duck, just the kitchen will 'duck' as it sort of knows you are in that room.

I'd guess this feature request/fix plus all the others will start coming in faster once Google voice control is on board. So if Google comes in with room assignments already in place, Amazon won't want to lose out on business because they lack the feature. I'd guess Sonos is aware that they'll be able to leverage the competitors against each other to sell more of their own products and give their own customers a better experience. I hope they realize this anyway.