Sonos 1 From Sonos (Obvs) Is a Multi Room Speaker With Alexa in It

Whilst amazon echo released we notion it changed into an exquisite ‘platform’ for music, thanks to the manner it incorporated amazon music unlimited and Spotify, however lamentably one that sounded pretty cack.

Our advice thus far has always been to shop for an echo dot and plug it into a respectable speaker with a line in. A Sonos speaker, as an instance.

Nicely now Sonos 1 offers some other, greater stylish option: for £199, it is a Sonos speaker with Alexa built in.

If you have any echo and a present Sonos setup and might rather now not shell out an in addition £199, you can also now control your older Sonos via Alexa too – a new Sonos echo talent is available to access proper now.

Regardless of searching a lot like Sonos’ vintage play:1 speaker, besides the color choices, are now very black or absolutely white, the Sonos 1 has been nearly entirely redesigned on the inner.

What you turn out to be with is something that, at the start pay attention, appears to sound a good deal similar to play 1, but with a quad-core processor and six-mic array letting it serves as each an ai assistant (Alexa at gift, but it is able to in concept guide google assistant or maybe apple Siri in the future).

The boosted processing electricity additionally suggest it could be up to date and adapted to an awful lot greater flexible approaches within the destiny. It’s miles a real ‘platform’ as opposed to only a wi-fi speaker with knobs on, as stenoses (son?) have been thus far.

Early impressions: it sounds first-rate for the dimensions (like the play 1). Alexa works most however not all of the time (like echo and every different ai assistant device to date). You could use voice instructions to get tunes from amazon limitless and Spotify, as traditional with Alexa-interior gadgets

However, you can additionally inform the speaker to play through your other Sonos audio system (“Play female gaga in the kitchen”), although they’re older ones that aren’t Alexa-well matched. As with play 1, you can pair Sonos 1s in stereo or use them as the front and/or rear speakers in a setup with a Sonos playbase or playbar.

It’s far, in truth, all very seamlessly finished. For just shy of 200 quid, it is terrific.

In different interesting Sonos information, its speakers assist eighty 3rd party services – particularly track, however additionally clever home – with a further 50 approximately to roll out thru an open API and ‘favored companion’ programme.

Through 2018 this can additionally encompass apple airplay 2 and google assistant. That feels like a large deal.

Sonos, in short, is fully abandoning its original, walled lawn approach so its largely wonderful audio system can act as the output for all of the key music services. Sonos wants to be the default musical part of your clever domestic, and the output for whatever content streaming services you appear to favor.

In spite of that, it has now spruced up its personal app. This has long been a piece idiosyncratic (or ‘a dog’s breakfast’, if I’m being much less diplomatic) but now promises to provide less difficult access on your tune and much less head-bangingly tense manipulate of multi-room.

As a further-cool characteristic, as you use Alexa to use the song, the Sonos app updates to expose that, letting you flow seamlessly among voice and cell manipulate. And there are nonetheless buttons (well, touch controls) on the top of the Sonos 1, so there may be constantly that choice, too.

We concept Amazon would release an extra ‘hi-fi’ model of echo at its recent event. The fact that it didn’t now both seems pretty stupid, or (if their cope with Sonos is a beneficial one) very clever. Who knows?

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