Amber Neely
Announced earlier in September, the Sonos One SL and Sonos Port AirPlay 2 speakers are now available for purchase.
Sonos has released two new products for audiophiles everywhere. The wifi-enabled Sonos One SL speaker gives users a reasonably priced entry point into smart sound. The Sonos Port gives users a chance to incorporate their existing audio equipment into their smart home ecosystem.
Sonos One SL
Sonos One SL is a compact, fit-anywhere wifi speaker designed to seamlessly integrate into your life. At just over four pounds, it's easily carried from room to room.
Additionally, it's humidity resistant, giving it the ability to be use in high humidity spaces like bathrooms and kitchens without fear of damaging it.
The Sonos One SL is AirPlay2 compatible and works with over 100 streaming services, including Apple Music, Spotify, and more. Trueplay gives users the ability to tune speakers for a custom experience within their spaces.
Multiple Sonos One SLs can be paired with each other, or with the Sonos One. The Sonos app gives users the ability to group speakers together by room and control them as needed. If you've already got a Sonos Playbar, Playbase, or Beam, a pair of Sonos One SLs can be used as rear home theater surround sound speakers.
The Sonos One SL does not feature a microphone, which is likely a boon for those who want a bit of added security.
The Sonos One SL is available in both white and black and retails for $179.
Sonos Port
The Sonos Port gives users the ability to turn their traditional stereo systems into smart devices.
Connecting a Sonos Port allows any amplified audio system to work with Apple's AirPlay2— stream music directly from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac with Siri integration. Additionally, users can stream music from most streaming services, like Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more.
Connecting the Sonos Port to your vinyl, cassette, or CD player will allow you to play your audio to other Sonos speakers through the Sonos app.
The Sonos Port features a sophisticated digital-to-analog converter, providing a crisp, clear listening experience.
The Sonos Port retails for $399 and can be purchased directly from the Sonos website.
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3 Comments
I have Had two Home Pods for a while now. When I take them to the backyard for a party, people are always impressed by their sound quality. Used to have two Sonos mid-sized speakers that were okay, but the Pods are clearly better and much easier to use. Sold the Sonos on Craig’s List for pretty good price.
Using a Sonos Port, could I ask HomePod to play music through it and end up with music playing from HomePod and whatever Sonos Port is connected to?
I currently have an Airport Express connected to a stereo. The only way I’ve found to get music to play through the stereo and HomePod simultaneously is to start playback from my iPhone and choose the HomePod and Airport Express as targets in the AirPlay menu. After that I can use Siri on HomePod to change the music (or whatever) and it will continue to play through both and my phone will no longer be in the mix. It’s an inelegant workaround that could certainly be improved.
Regardless of whether you use the Port or the Airport Express, the secret to getting Siri to play music on *from* the HomePod with the non-HomePod speaker as a target is to put that non-HomePod speaker in a room in your Home app. It's a pain in the butt, but the way you do that is: 1. Create a room in the Home app 2. Start streaming music from your iPhone to the speaker you want to add to that room. For some reason it doesn't work well (or at all) if you don't have music playing 3. Go back to the home app, add an accessory 4. When you get to the screen where it wants to scan the HomeKit code, tap "Don't have a code or can't scan". The speaker (AirPort Express or any other AirPlay 2 enabled device, like the Sonos Port) will show up. Tap it and it will add and then you can select the room you want it "in". Now, you can start music from the HomePod and say "Hey Siri, play this in the living room, too" and by virtue of the fact that HomeKit sees a speaker in the living room, it'll start playing. I have a nice little mix of devices... 2 HomePods, 3 Sonos ONE speakers, a Sonos Beam, an IKEA Symfonisk ($99 and worth every penny), and 3 Airport Expresseseses hooked up to external speakers. I can start music from my laptop, HomePod, iPad, or iPhone and then use voice commands to have Siri play in additional rooms. The audio will very occasionally get out of sync, but pausing and restarting the music fixes it every time. I do find, though, that the best user experience for playing whole home music is the iPhone or iPad. Gives me better control over individual speaker volume, see what track is playing and what's up next, etc. Now for my original planned comment: The Sonos Port is too bloody expensive. It has only one use case for me, playing vinyl throughout my home, and I'm not spending $400 to do that. If it was $200 I'd probably snap one up, but Sonos has once again priced their product out of my reach. The only reason I have the Beam and ONEs that I do have is that I got them way less than MSRP.