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Can I setup a PLAY:1 and a Sonos One as a stereo pair?

  • 4 October 2017
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Can I setup a PLAY:1 and a Sonos One as a stereo pair?
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Best answer by Ryan S 4 October 2017, 21:44

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Sonos One will only pair with another Sonos One, they won’t bond with a PLAY:1 as a stereo pair or as part of a surround setup with a PLAY:1.

I'll make sure to pass on to the team that you're interested in seeing this at some point in the future, but there aren't any plans to share that this might happen.
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Thank you!
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Just doesn't make sense, reflects poorly on decision making at Sonos. I'm a big fan and was hoping for this functionality, but basically the company is steering me towards replacing all my play 1's. That's just ridiculous!
Just doesn't make sense, reflects poorly on decision making at Sonos. I'm a big fan and was hoping for this functionality, but basically the company is steering me towards replacing all my play 1's. That's just ridiculous!

Why would you replace all your Play:1's? Alexa functionality only requires a single Alexa device, of which the Sonos One is . . . . uhh . . . one. If you need an Alexa device in other rooms, the Echo Dot works great with Sonos and can be bought in a three pack for $70 less than the cost of a Sonos One.
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Because of stereo pairing them with my existing play 1's and therefore fully integrating stereo full room sound with voice control in each room.

Why would you replace all your Play:1's? Alexa functionality only requires a single Alexa device, of which the Sonos One is . . . . uhh . . . one. If you need an Alexa device in other rooms, the Echo Dot works great with Sonos and can be bought in a three pack for $70 less than the cost of a Sonos One.


I agree...

But I still think it's a little short sighted of Sonos to not have it pair with a Play:1. Whilst the Echo Dot is cheap, if I was buying a speaker to pair with an existing Play:1 I would much rather have the option of buying the Sonos One or the Play:1 to go with it.

Also, the Sonos One costs more, albeit only slightly more. The point is, you only need one Sonos One per room. Paying extra to have a second Sonos One to make a stereo pair when the additional functionality that it offers probably won't be used seems silly and might put some people off.

Additionally, one of the things that might attract me to the Sonos One is its potential independence from/ability to use any 3rd-party voice assistant in the future (Alexa now, Google Assistant is, apparently, due in 2018, etc.). To me one of the wonderful things about Sonos is not getting trapped into a single-vendor ecosystem like you might with, say, an equivalent Apple or Google product: buying Sonos means I can use any of 80+ streaming services and, potentially, whichever Voice Assistant I choose (possibly even multiple Voice Assistants at the same time) knowing that Sonos doesn't directly have skin in any of their games and isn't financially motivated to develop or push one partner's capabilities more than the others.

I've not got a Voice Assistant at the moment. If I was to consider one I wouldn't want to throw all my eggs into one basket like you would need to if I bought an Echo Dot or a Google Home Mini, and I don't want buy one from each vendor. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

If I could swap out one of my stereo-paired Play:1 units for a Sonos One and achieve that, I might consider it . I get the impression others mights too (they could then use the swapped out unit elsewhere in the home, and may end up buying additional Sonos One's to pair with them). That's additional sales for Sonos.

I certainly won't consider it if I have to swap out each stereo pair wholesale.

So, to me, it makes sense that the Play:1 and Sonos One should be pairable. Unless, of course, they are totally different in the way the speakers/enclosure is voiced, which would then make that a bit tricky,

Cheers,

Keith
Because of stereo pairing them with my existing play 1's and therefore fully integrating stereo full room sound with voice control in each room.

You could just as well pair your current Play:1's and use a cheap Echo Dot in each room to do that.
Not arguing with your statement Keith, I'm not sure what the reason is. Could be technical, could be aesthetics (it was mentioned, in jest) could be a Machiavellian scheme to force people to buy new Sonos Ones to replace their current units (Muahahahah!), but I seriously doubt it. After all, if that were their bent, they would have come out with a Playbar 2 that supported DTS by now. ;)

Though I am curious about this:

Also, the Sonos One costs more, albeit only slightly more.


Price in the US is identical ($199.99) at the Sonos site (though Amazon is charging a bit less). Is it something else across the pond at the Sonos UK site?
If I'm being honest, I find myself considering replacing an existing pair of P:1 s with Sonos One's just so that I can drop "in the living room" from my voice commands. How sad is that? That's the one major advantage I see over Sonos One vs just adding a dot, in a replacement scenario anyway.

I feel pretty compliment that we'll be able to link an echo to a sonos zone for default purposes, fairly soon though. I think I can be patient.
Not arguing with your statement Keith, I'm not sure what the reason is. Could be technical, could be aesthetics (it was mentioned, in jest) could be a Machiavellian scheme to force people to buy new Sonos Ones to replace their current units (Muahahahah!), but I seriously doubt it

I'm hoping it's simply that they've not got around to fully testing it yet.

Though I am curious about this:
Price in the US is identical ($199.99) at the Sonos site (though Amazon is charging a bit less). Is it something else across the pond at the Sonos UK site?


Ah, I made the mistake of looking at "street prices" rather than at Sonos's own web store where the prices are identical at £199.

Most other retailers (John Lewis, Currys, etc.) are selling the Play:1s at £180, and the Sonos One at £199.

John Lewis, for instance, seems to be one of the larger Sonos retailers in the UK. They are also quite "premium focussed" and not really known for discounting, and quite often have Sonos reps manning the display. As far as street prices is concerned, John Lewis is one of the most up-market "streets" you are likely to encounter). I assumed they were selling at RRP. Clearly I was wrong.

Cheers,

Keith
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If I'm being honest, I find myself considering replacing an existing pair of P:1 s with Sonos One's just so that I can drop "in the living room" from my voice commands. How sad is that? That's the one major advantage I see over Sonos One vs just adding a dot, in a replacement scenario anyway.

I feel pretty compliment that we'll be able to link an echo to a sonos zone for default purposes, fairly soon though. I think I can be patient.


Just a note here, for now, the plan is not to have the drop-in feature available on the Sonos One. This may change one day, and I'm certainly not trying to talk you out of anything, but just want you to go into it with open eyes 🙂
I also was hoping for the ability to pair a play 1 and sonos one that way I could move my spare ones around and have even more sonos in other rooms.
use your phone and a spotify premium account linked to google assistant. You can use voice commands via the spotify app to play without any new devices if you have an android phone with google assistant. try it today! it works if you set your chosen sonos speaker at the start of your music session! ok google play swing music....
I wish I'd have read this before buying the one, I probably would have bought a dot instead. My plan was also to pair 1s with ones and go to more rooms. Now I feel kind of cheated
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I wish I'd have read this before buying the one, I probably would have bought a dot instead. My plan was also to pair 1s with ones and go to more rooms. Now I feel kind of cheated Just return them and your feelings of being cheated are gone. 🙂
I either buy 4 more sonos one's or return the one I just got and get echo dots and an echo plus. I have 5 rooms with a pair of play ones, I would change one in each then move the others to the larger areas. Does Sonos want to compete for wallet share? If it's technically possible, the return on investment is there, without factoring in customer satisfaction (I have 10 play 1's, 2 Play 3's, a Play 5), now I'm waiting on the new apple product since a complete upgrade brings in the possibility of a switch. Competition is getting heated, defend your install base.
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I sure hope this is a hardware compatibility issue and not a marketing decision. Either way, it's stupid. Sonos must know that customers would want to interchange existing Play 1 pairs with the new Ones. A super bonehead move! And it's costing customer dissatisfaction as well as sales. I was going to get a couple of Ones to mix with my existing Play 1s, then gift the two Play 1s to a friend. But, I guess everyone loses.
This feels like something apple would do, and the reason I don't own any of their products.
It's a sad day in my otherwise happy sonos house.
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Hi, it is possible to pair a Sonos One and a Play:1 but you have to use a 3rd party app. I do not want to make any promotion but there are so much threads about this topic... Looks like many of us want to do this:
https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/pairing-a-play-1-with-the-new-sonos-one-6791476/index5.html#post16164099
You can use the official Sonos app after you created the stereo-pair and it works like a "normal" one ..
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even tho i just picked up a open box Sonos One at Best Buy for $160, the shelves are loaded with returned Sonos ones here in my area, i am thinking about returning it also, just buy another cheap echo dot to do the same thing...i cannot pair my sonos one with the play:1 in the same room to get that stereo sound that i thought i would get... 😞
You can pair them quite easily with an app called Sono Sequencr.
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Yeah I fluke to see this too. Right now I have both and can’t play stereo. This is ridiculous.
See this link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sonosequencr/id967043604?mt=8