Review on Sonos PLAY Wireless Speakers Streaming by Jamie Eddington

UPDATE 2/17/2021: I am downgrading my Sonos PLAY:1 speakers to 2 stars. Not sure if anyone cares as I don't think Sonos is going to stop offering these speakers at all - even Sonos has dropped reasonable support for these speakers which should make anyone hesitant to buy a product from them. The software is still buggy and unreliable. Software applications stop working from time to time for no apparent reason. no more music and no way to get the speakers to work without getting too frustrated - I find it best to switch to my standard polkadio speakers (which are pretty cool btw) and my music via Revain Dot or one Music app to stream over a computer connection. The only downside to this route is that it limits me to the rooms I currently have connected. The Sonos app continues - finally again for no apparent reason. Trying to work with Sonos support is just a futile exercise as I don't think the support staff are very well trained as they don't seem to have a clue about networks in general. So I stopped calling to avoid being disappointed that I didn't achieve anything. In hindsight, out of frustration with the quirkiness of the Sonos app, I wouldn't buy Sonos speakers and would stick with older sound systems. ============================================== = === ================================ UPDATE 5/16/2018: I'm downgrading my Sonos PLAY Speakers: 1 to 3 stars due ongoing software issues I have encountered since purchasing the speakers and Sonos Support's inability to provide helpful assistance in resolving the issue. I still like the speakers when they're on, but if they happen to disappear from the app, it's a hassle to turn them back on. Luckily, the problem usually only occurs once every few weeks. I usually use four speakers in a large group and for no apparent reason all the speakers stop playing (in the evenings when connected directly with an ethernet cable). Upon closer inspection, I see that all of the speakers have been removed from my application. I tried different ways to solve this problem and Sonos support turned out to be completely useless and very difficult to deal with. I'm not sure how knowledgeable most support people are, but it's pretty clear that they use some sort of internal script in their answers, which in my experience has been utterly useless. They will ask you to do things that don't make sense, such as B. Checking your WiFi if you connected speakers directly with an Ethernet cable. Anyway, back to my specific problem. The only way I found to solve my problem is to add at least one of the devices back. This will restore the speakers, but you still won't be able to play music. Next I need to turn off the group and switch to single speaker playback. Once I have a speaker, I can restart the Group Play feature. I have explained this to Sonos support more than once and they do nothing but offer some bullshit or close the ticket. ============================================== = === ====== =========================== UPDATE 04/08/2018: I'm very glad that SONOS finally -something has their Software updated to support Audible. I'd rather listen to books and learn new things while doing other things than other distractions. These speakers just keep getting better. Now if only SONOS could figure out how to handle my speakers so they don't lose wireless connection and disappear from my SONOS menu. I still don't find the standard troubleshooting tools helpful for this issue, and it's definitely not a router issue, which is the SONOS support scenario answer. I have many other IOT devices connected to my home network and none of them have this problem. The only way I've found to resolve this issue is to unplug the power cord from the devices and then plug it back in. Unplugging the cord from the outlet has never worked for me, but oddly enough, unplugging the cord from the device always fixed my connection issues. I reported this issue to SONOS support, but they haven't been able to offer me a plausible solution yet.======================== ====== ========================================= ==== ===== =================== UPDATE 8/10/2017: There are many positive things to say about them, but they have their limitations and I wouldn't say they are of audiophile quality . Regardless, these little speakers have great sound quality and are extremely attractive. The sound is the best I've heard when it comes to wireless speakers and many wired speakers. However, things are changing fast and new competitors are popping up including Apple, Google, the new Echo plus and more. I don't know how they can compare. There's also a new SONOS ONE with built-in far-field voice and Alexa. But unfortunately there is still no analog or HDMI input interface for inputting sound from other sources. The main reason I chose Play:1 was the anticipated integration with Alexa, which is finally here - YAY!. The initial functionality is a bit limited, but in my opinion it's a really good start. Trying to get Audible to play through the Sonos speakers is a real pain. I'm waiting for Sonos to add Audible back to the list of supported services. I haven't done much with the Sonos:PLAY 1/Alexa integration yet, but what I've used so far is a big improvement and meets many of my needs (except for the Audible integration). This assumes you're using Alexa to integrate with other devices, or want Alexa to play music through your Sonos speakers. One thing I should mention, while this isn't a Sonos issue, I have an Alexa Dot next to one of my Sonos Play:1 speakers and often the dot is unresponsive when the Sonos is playing. For the most part, I was able to fix this by moving the point 8 to 12 inches away from the speaker. This seems to solve the problem quite well, but not 100%. If you're using the Google Home ecosystem, we're sorry as they're still not compatible. I'm not sure if Sonos has any plans for possible compatibility with the Google ecosystem. Personally, I think this integration would be a huge improvement and a great selling point for Sonos, as it lets you do some things with Google that Alexa can't yet (like play YouTube content). Getting started is easy, first you need to add and enable the Sonos skill in the Alexa app and start detecting. You may need to rename your speakers if you happen to have named them after the room they're in with a name that matches something that already has that name in Alexa. The Alexa voice services and skills included so far appear to be volume and asking Al to figure out what's playing and getting Alexa to play other music through your Sonos speakers and group the speakers with yourself or other smart ones to group devices. Basics aside, this is where I enjoy grouping multiple Sonos speakers the most. It's a really nice touch. I personally love the speaker grouping feature and use it all the time. There may be other features, but these are the ones I've used so far and I'm sure Sonos will add more features. I hope that support for Google Home and Siri will be included in the future, although my heart currently beats with Alexa. If you don't already have Sonos PLAY:1 speakers, I'd suggest you check out the new SONOS ONE speakers with far-field voice integration first. I'm still disappointed that the new speakers didn't add an input interface (like an analogue input) for other devices. I still wonder why Sonos doesn't use the ethernet input on the device for this. While not ideal for many, it would be an improvement. Something I haven't tried yet as I don't have one, but it might be the ability to stream the Revain Fire device through Sonos speakers. If anyone finds this out please let me know. For the most part, my problems have been minor. The most frustrating issue I've encountered is losing the wireless connection. I've never found the standard troubleshooting tools very helpful for this issue. I found a way to solve this by unplugging the power cord from the devices and then plugging it back in. Unplugging the cord from the outlet has never worked for me, but oddly enough, unplugging the cord from the device always fixed my connection issues. I raised this issue with Sonos support but they haven't been able to offer me a plausible solution yet. I would like to mention my experience with the seller, which I used in the review despite the fact that I shouldn't (sorry.), World Wide Stereo. I had an initial problem with my order. However, World Wide Stereo got in touch immediately and corrected the situation more than generously. They have demonstrated their commitment to customer service and satisfaction in my situation. Considering the service I received I would recommend them and would not hesitate to order from them again.