After flooding our homes with every Sonos model you can buy (and filling all remaining space with the boxes of said speakers), then using them for a couple of years, we’ve come to value their audio fidelity and ability to network seamlessly together. Here are our favorite aspects of Sonos:
Simple setup: The Sonos app guides you through the process of starting a new system or adding speakers to an existing one. There isn’t another speaker system that lets you string together multiple speakers as easily or connect them to stream in different rooms of your home while keeping the audio perfectly in sync. The closest thing may be Google Assistant speakers, and Sonos connects to that system as well.
Easy streaming: The Sonos app supports almost every streaming service in existence, and many apps, like Spotify, let you stream to Sonos speakers within them. The Sonos ecosystem can also handle home-theater applications and can support a full surround-sound setup.
All major voice assistants: Unlike most “smart” speakers, Sonos speakers will connect to any one of the big three voice assistants: Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri via Apple Airplay 2. You have to choose one assistant at a time, but they’re mostly fully functional, with the exception of some phone-call functionality through Alexa and playing white noise through Google.
They sound fantastic: Sonos speakers are all high-quality and deliver consistent, appealing sound. It’s easy to argue that Sonos hardware is too expensive, but it’s difficult to fault the sound. Not every Sonos speaker is the same, but they have an elegant synergy and sound that no other speaker system seems to have. If you have a few speakers in a room, it’s hard to tell where the sound is coming from. The crystal-clear music engulfs you.
Spotify voice controls: Spotify can be accessed using Alexa or Google Assistant voice control on the Sonos One and Sonos Beam. If you have one of these speakers, you can set Spotify as your default music service. Then, when you ask Alexa or Google Assistant to play something, it plays it directly from Spotify. (You can set any available music service as your default: Amazon, YouTube Music, and so on.)
