Sonos One (Gen 2) – The Powerful Smart Speaker with Alexa Built-In, Black

The bass response from this is very good. Sonos radio app plays very high quality sounds. I am very impressed.

Quality product amazing sound one issue is airplay looks like I may have to sign up to apple to get the sounds off other devices

I purchased a pair of the sonos one gen 2 speakers for the home office. I play music at low volume and yet the music sounds really good, at the low frequencies too. Found it impossible to guide the PC sound to Sonos and purchased the Razer. Now side by side, see picture. Razer is much better suited for games than music

Its a great product with some limitations. The Alexa part with voice recognition is excellent. The sound is very ‘Bassy’ and the App does not seem to change the Bass and Treble levels. Also, there is limited connectivity: Biggest disappointment is it will not connect directly to my Samsung Smart TV via Wi-Fi. It requires a sound bar that I do not want or need. Please upgrade Sonos One to connect to Smart TV’s.

It was so easy to set up and works really well. I love the fact you can link 2 in different rooms and they sync so easily and play seamlessly at the same time.

Just added a Sonos Amp to drive my floor standers and powered subs, Wow! also added an additional sonos one to make a pair of surround sounds for the amp. Amp connected to TV, all synced perfectly and the sorround sound is fantastic. I (now) have seven of these and all work perfectly. They are linked to Alexa account and Smartthings and both integrate with routines flawlessly. I have over 100 sensors connected to Smartthings and Alexa which play verbal announcements and chimes for door/window and camera triggers. One unit is connected via ethernet and all others interconnect. Absolutely no problems for me, let’s not forget they also sound great and with a Sonos Port I can play synced sounds through my Onkyo amp. (Onkyo amp now replaced with Sonos Amp) Thoroughly recommended and suggest trying an ethernet cable connection to one unit if problems with your WiFi.

We bought the Sonos One after researching a number of different models. it is clearly the ‘best bang for your buck’ Smart Speaker – you have to pay a lot more for noticeably better sound quality . We have it in our Living Room and use it all the time. We’re still learning about using Alexa and there have been some comedy moments when it thinks we, or someone on the TV, have said “Alexa”. The jokes it tells are better than those in Christmas Crackers and it sings a little ditty when you say “Alexa – I Love You” which our daughter loves.

I have a couple of Sonos products setup around my home and they are all great. The Sonos one feels really solid with very good sound quality. Sound works really well in the mid range, just don’t tune up the base in the Sonos app otherwise you’d begin to get poor quality base. The Sonos sub delivers excellent quality there.
I have google assistant enabled on all my Sonos speakers in my home so playing music from Spotify and sending commands to my smart devices like Philip hue makes leaving at home in the lockdown quite bearable. And the kids love sending those commands as well. I recommend.

I’ve owned this for around 6 months now and here are my main points:

Positives
– This is quite a small speaker considering what else is out there. So very good when space is limited.
– It has great bass, too much actually, had to tone it right down in case it annoyed the neighbors! 😉
– Love the look and design of it.
– The App is okay. Could be better, but could also be a lot worse, and it’s really nice to have it!
– Really pleased with the sound at high volumes, no distortions and so clear!

Negatives
– The sound does sound better if you stand / sit in certain places so you might need to think about placement.
– Alexa Commands. This needs some serious work from the SONOS team. It has issues with the timer, where it would either not go off, or wouldn’t acknowledge that you had set one.
– Alexa Routines. They don’t work.
– Alexa Limitations. The weather is fixed to KPH when talking about wind (I’d like MPH). You can choose either of these if you have an Amazon Alexa device, but this third party SONOS does not give you that option.
– Alexa Music Commands. On any Amazon Alexa device you ask it to “repeat the song” and she says “I’ll repeat the song” (ONCE!) and you can tell it to repeat constantly if you want. The SONOS locks you into a repeat cycle from the initial command. When you ask it to stop playing it does. Then starts the song again. I actually had to pull the power cable out to stop it several times as nothing worked. Tip – I later found out you can make it stop, by saying “Alexa stop repeating the song”. This is not intuitive and should be changed.

I think this is a great speaker and if sound is your goal this is a serious contender. If you’re looking for good sound but also want it primarily for Alexa then maybe look at the Amazon own devices first. The problems with Alexa integration were quite bad I felt and I was so close to to sending this back. However I found a way to get the timer function to work in the nick of time ,so kept it (I use this feature almost daily).

I bought this for use in the family room to replace a broken HiFi unit. Initially I bought just the one speaker, but I was so impressed with the sound quality that I bought another one and paired the two of them. They work brilliantly together, sound quality is impressive and stereo separation first class. With Alexa built in I can access all the radio stations that I want to as well as listen to a vast choice of music. Perfect for me.

As expected from Sonos, a great all around speaker, amazing quality.
Although Alexa could be better, sometimes does not obey commands (I have an actual Alexa too which is more efficient than the Sonos integrated one.

I should of read the review from RJS first. Was led to believe I could purchase this to pair with my Sony Bluetooth turntable but you can’t. The product description clearly states this though so my frustration was short lived. The picture above is just to show what the speaker looks like. Speaker comes in a nice box. First impressions was the weight of the speaker, very heavy for a Bluetooth speaker which means quality. Love the design. Had it plugged in and set up in about 5 minutes. Used the Sonos app and starting testing it gently with songs by the Prodigy and Traffic. The sound is incredible. Now set up in my kitchen. Swapped with my Google home which links to my turntable while displaying family photos. Will get more use in kitchen to be honest so worked out well. Have already set up Alexa voice control to use for cooking timers while listening to my playlists. Have yet to try it on full volume. Love the hip hop station on Sonos radio. If your looking for a Bluetooth speaker to link with your phone then this won’t be beaten for the price. The sound quality is just so impressive. Only had it a few days so still playing about with settings but overall I’m very pleased with it (175 at time of purchase).

Good sound quality as expected. quick set up and compatible with iphone / samsung phone & tablets. used with spotify mostly. Voice command with Google assistant only seem to answer to the husband 🙁 Never mind, the phone commands work well.

My husbands purchase which I didn’t think was needed! However I’ve found myself using it all the time!!! So easy to use, great sound and a really nice size. Have it in the kitchen with the radio on in the mornings and tunes in the afternoon / evenings. Very easy app to change what you want to listen too as we don’t use the Alexa feature.
(Can’t stand everyone shouting “Alexa” all the time, would be good if you could personalise it!!! “Bob turn the tunes up”!)

I started with just one of these speakers. First thoughts its easy to set up. App is reliable, makes it super easy to play music.

I then brought a second to create a stereo pair… that was the WOW factor. It completely changes the listening experience. The audio sounds so much richer. I was shocked on how much it changed the music I was playing and now there’s two we havent actually gone above 50% volume because its so loud.

We was so impressed we brought a third for the bedroom. Now I can play music everywhere while I’m wondering around and doing the house work!

My issues with these speakers… all three of them in fact.
ALEXA just seems to have bugs on Sonos.

1st. If your broadband drops, well Alexa will refuse to reconnect, she just constantly says something along the lines “i’m struggling to connect at the moment, please check your Internet connection”. The weird thing is the Sonos side works fine and reconnects fine after a drop. E.g. I can play music via the app. You are forced to restart all the speaker everytime the internet drops to rekick in the Alexa integration.

2nd. Some features are limited compared to Amazons own devices. E.g. Alexa cant phone people. You can’t connect any multirooms with Amazons own alexa devices.

3rd. Alexa just randomly does not play music when you ask her to. “Alexa, play music from Harry’s Spotify account” and then she just stops… Check the Alexa app… and she heard me perfectly and understood (you can see your speech against text on how alexa understood what you asked).

Although we have now got to a point where we just don’t use Alexa, which isn’t a big deal for us but might be for others. All said, Generally Sonos is a fantastic eco system and Sonos Ones don’t fall short from what you should expect from the brand.

It works well, feels well built and sounds good even for a small speaker. Note that if you want to make a stereo pair, it must be paired with another sonos one (gen1 or 2 seems to work), and not a sonos play:1.

As well as Alexa, it supports the Google assistant, and it looks like it would be possible for sonos to add support for other assistants in the future.

However, having purchased a number of sonos speakers in the past, recent events where they drop support for older speakers has left me considering whether I’d purchase more, as it effectively gives some upper bound on how long this speaker will work, even if the hardware is well constructed. However, I suspect this will affect many (if not all) smart speaker brands eventually, as they do not have the resources to maintain firmware for endless iterations of historic models (and for security reasons as well as new functionality, firmware should be kept up to date).

When you buy sonos, you lock yourself into the sonos ecosystem, so you have to be content with the supported services. From what I’ve seen, Sonos tend to be very tight-lipped regarding their APIs, so third party integration and APIs is basically non-existent. Having said that, there are a number of services that are approved and supported by sonos including Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, YouTube music, Soundcloud, mixcloud, TuneIn to name a few.

Bought as a gift for someone who already has 2 sonos one’s, unfortunately they don’t want to be spied on so have not activated the the voice control, however the sound quality and volume are of the high standard I have come to expect from sonos.

Originally I bought two of these to create a Stereo Pair so I could have a great music setup and stop relying on a Beats Pill.

My goodness…

I returned one because boy do these pack a punch! One speaker alone is enough to power an entire room, and Sonos don’t mess around. The sound quality is amazing, the bass is intense and crisp! I wish I could have found a purpose for the second one but the one device filled my flat with music and that was only at half volume!

The Sonos app allows you to add multiple song services, so you can have the widest selection of songs possible! I have my Apple Music and my Girlfriends Spotify account linked so we can bounce between our own playlists easily, or even add a song to a queue.

Alexa is also a great addition, however she doesn’t have the same abilities as an Echo device. Rather, she does, but will tell you she can’t do it before actually doing it anyway. It’s quite irritating. For Example, I set up a routine on the Alexa App to turn my lights low for when i’m watching a movie. Echo would say the phrase I asked, “No Spoilers Please!” (Cheesy, I know), but the Sonos Alexa would say “Audio actions and routines are currently not supported on this device. No spoilers please!”. So routines work, but there just seems to be this irritating speech that precedes it every time.

Overall, I couldn’t recommend this highly enough. If you don’t need or want Alexa, go for the SL option which makes it cheaper for the same high quality audio.

Sounds better than I thought it would be at the new reduced price and the sound really carries across my bungalow. I have placed Sorbothane feet under a a piece of granite, with oak cone feet (point upwards) under the Sonos One which has helped to open up the sound with better clarity in voices as well as the individual musical instruments: I have been warming this up during the past few days which has also provided the necessary assistance to achieve a smoother sound all around but still with good punch at the bottom end which is surprising when looking at the size of the unit !
The only slight down is Alexa not being able to play certain radio stations through voice commands, although Alexa has no such problems playing the same radio stations through an Echo Dot?

Great sound from a small speaker…… much better than the echo in all iterations. It isn’t hi-fi but good enough for worthwhile casual listening. This from someone who is very choosy about sound quality. Am now thinking about linking it up with an SL as a stereo pair………. boys and their toys !!!!

Using it with Apple HomeKit – works perfectly – no Siri functionality but you can use it with Siri on HomePod or Apple TV. Ideal option if you want to extend your existing HomePod to multi-room experience at a great price. There is simply not many speakers with good Airplay 2 comparability at the moment or are very expensive. Once added to HomeKit the Sonos shows itself in Airplay menu on your iOS devices with multi-select option available (if you have other Airplay 2 devices). You can also use it Standalone or with Alexa via Sonos app (I did not enabled Alexa though). Sound is great but not as good as Apple HomePod (which is an of course an expensive option).

Have just received a pair of Gen 2 Sonos One speakers and am now enjoying high quality sound around my flat. The setup process is as simple as downloading the Sonos App and following the onscreen instructions. Very easy to alternate between using them as a stereo pair or listening to the same music in separate rooms (again by using the Sonos App). Added Alexa control via the Alexa App.
There is only one negative to mention, which does not relate to the product but to the way they were packed for delivery. The speakers individually are well packaged but were dispatched in an oversize box with no additional packing material.
All I need to do now is convince ‘her indoors’ that a third one is needed! 😉

I bought this speaker to upgrade from a Google Home mini in a small/medium kitchen. I wanted a better listening experience whilst retaining the Google assistants which has recently become available via the SONOS ONE (as an alternative to Alexa). This speaker is incredibly well made and premium feeling, sound quality is great but i was so let down by the Google assistant integration I had to sadly return it. It would activate to ‘hey google’ consistently but <50% would not be able to process a command and would then not respond. This is in direct comparison to a 25 google Home mini which missed commands <5% of time in my experience. At first i thought this may be a WiFi strength problem but it was the same when directly next to the router. I know integration of google assistant is fairly new in the UK (June 2019) and so maybe this could just be a software issue that will be fixed down the line but for a speaker of this price I wasn't prepared to take the risk and hold on to it! Having said that as mentioned in every other way i was impressed by the speaker and will seriously consider the Play 1 and other Sonos products in the future.

Love these. i bought two and stereo paired them. The stereo separation and the sound quality is superb. Easy to set up and easy to use. Alexa takes a bit of getting used to but she grows on you. You listen to much more music as it’s really easy to just go Alexa play 60’s rock or whatever and of ye go. Quite expensive but you get what you pay for.