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Difficulties of using Sonos One and Move in the same room

  • 26 December 2019
  • 9 replies
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I’ve just bought a Sonos Move for myself and two Sonos Ones for my parents. After hearing how great the two Sonos Ones sound paired together I’m seriously considering ditching my Move for two Sonos Ones instead.

I’d ideally like to purchase a Sonos One for myself and use it with my Move in my bedroom. From my experimentation with my parent’s Sonos One it seems as though the Move must be its own “room” and be “grouped” with the One for them to play together. 

My issue is that I would like to simply select a single “room” from any of my Apple devices and have the audio automatically play from both the Move and One. When toggling between apple devices and sources, I often must go back into the Sonos app and regroup the Move and One for them to play together. 

I’d like to be able to open my Macbook Pro, select the audio icon from the menu bar and choose a single “room” or something from the audio drop dropdown and pump audio through both the Move and One. Is that not possible? When on my Macbook, must I always go back into the Sonos App every time I want to group these two speakers?

It seems as though the Sonos Move is designed to be a loner and should really live in a room by itself... mostly waiting to be taken outside. Do I have this right? I can’t image preferring the audio of a single Move over two paired Sonos Ones.

 

Thanks for all help and insights for this Sonos newb!

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Best answer by 106rallye 26 December 2019, 10:31

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9 replies

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You are right. The Move can only be stereo paired to another Move. A One can be stereo paired to another One, or a One SL.

I think the OP's request is, in effect, a request for pre-defined groups or 'scenes'. This has been requested many times over many years. It is a feature I would like to see but I think grouping and ungrouping is quick enough anyway.

I use Alexa to automatically group speakers in my living room / dining room using the 'preferred speaker' facility. 

Thanks Rallye, that much I had gathered;

I was hoping there would be some way to set up the Move with the One where they are grouped by default and easily selected as such from a MacBook. 

I was motivated to make this post because I was shocked by how weak a single Move sounds compared to two paired Ones, and was confounded about the comparable pricing. I then found it disappointing how many steps are needed to play it with another Sonos speaker from my MacBook, every time. I know I sound whiny but I would expect a state of the art product from a higher end speaker company that prides itself on integration would be able to provide this integration.

 I understand the Move’s selling point is mobility but it doesn’t impress me as a single speaker in a room for that price. Seems to be designed to bump beats outside rather than really serving double duty...

I don’t understand your comments here about grouping.   Once speakers are grouped they should stay grouped until you ungroup them or power off (and you shouldn’t power off).  This is determined at a system level, not controller.  Once grouped they will appear as grouped in all controllers.  Have I misunderstood what you are saying?

@John B  So the ideal situation for me is where I have both a Move and a One in my bedroom playing together. A few problems I see:

  1. I can group them fine, but when I manually (by physically tapping the speaker) adjust the volume of either speaker, only the volume of the speaker I’m tapping changes. That’s a little disappointing.
     
  2. Let’s say I’ve grouped the speakers via the sonos app on my macbook and they sound great. I then go off to work with macbook, play audio through some other output, then return home to my room and want to play music thru both speakers. It seems like I must then go back into the sonos app and group them again. I find that a little disappointing too.

    This same issue comes up if I’m playing audio from my macbook thru the grouped speakers, switch to playing the macbook audio through my airpods, then try to switch back to the speakers - I must go back into the sonos app to regroup the speakers.
     
  3. Let’s say I enable google voice assistant, and I say something like “Play: can't get no satisfaction”, will the song be played through both speakers or just one of them?
     

I love the idea of having a One and a Move in my bedroom, where I’d be able to move the Move around the apartment when needed. It seems as though having a One and a Move in the same room is pretty clunky and maybe I should just give up the convenience of having a Move for the convenience of seamless toggling between audio outputs. 

Thanks again for any help on this!

Hi. We are all getting used to the Move and how people may want to use it. But in general i would say very few people would mix speaker types in the way you are doing in a relatively small space because of the different audio signatures.

So on your first point, the behaviour of the volume controls is exactly what i would want and expect. Where I have two speakers they are identical and are stereo paired. And changing the volume on one speaker changes the volume of the pair.

On point 2, neither of these actions should break apart the group, which, as I have said, is not controller dependent. I don't know what is causing this to happen for you but this us not normal Sonos behaviour and mot in line with my experience.

On point 3 I know nothing about Google Assistant.  But I have set up my Alexa groups to group the speakers I want it fo group if I just say 'play....'. If I don't want to group then I specify the room required.

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The thing about volume adjusting of grouped speakers is reasonable and could be a user option about how one would wish grouped speakers to behave.  In the App all speakers are adjusted simultaneously u when you select the volume slider.  If you wish to adjust a single speaker you need to tap the volume and then change to the speaker you want to adjust.

I feel ‘scenes' or similar are pretty much certain to come soon as they are all done in other ‘Smart' systems.

Hi kids. My question is similar, though not related to pairing. I have a One and a Play5 and want to use my new Move with them. They are all part of a speaker group in the app and I can start and stop play using Alexa no problem. But if I ask for a volume change and the Move hears me, the Move will adjust its own volume and leave the other two out of the request. Conversely, if the One hears my request, it will only adjust itself and the Play5.

Hashtag: First World Problems

Anyone know if this is a bug or expected behavior? Play and pause affect all speakers in the group. Volume changes do not. :(

I think this is a case of “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. Traditionally, members of a Group are in different physical rooms and, when adjusting the Volume with a speaker’s physical control, it makes sense to adjust only that speaker and its stereo mate. If all members of the Group are adjusted, listeners in other rooms will be annoyed. On the other hand, if some or all of the speakers are in the same area, adjusting all Group members in that area makes sense.

Using a SONOS controller Volume Group Volume can be adjusted for all or individual members of the Group.