When you think about wireless music, one name comes to mind. Sonos. And unless you’re a diehard analog music fan who shuns anything digital, you’ve likely encountered the Sonos brand. It effectively pioneered and normalized the idea of multi-room, digital wireless audio, and it’s still the gold standard to beat.
Curious about what exactly Sonos does, and how it works in the same world that already includes Apple, Spotify, and even your old Technics turntable? Is Sonos right for you? We will explain all.
What is Sonos?
Sonos is an audio equipment company that specializes in wireless, multi-room systems. It started in 2002 with software and hardware that let people play their personal digital music collections wirelessly on existing audio gear, and then rapidly expanded into designing and selling all-in-one wireless speakers. Those speakers now include portable models that cost as little as $120 to full Dolby Atmos-capable home theater soundbars that cost almost $900. It has partnered with Ikea on a range of affordable home-décor speakers under the Symfonisk brand, and you’ll even find its speakers in some recent Audis.
All of Sonos’ hardware products, as well as those Ikea Symfonisk speakers, are controlled by the Sonos software, creating a full audio ecosystem. The biggest benefits that comes along with this ecosystem are ease-of-use, simplicity, and flexibility: You can configure up to 32 different Sonos components in one household, each in its own room, or grouped together in any combination you want. Better yet, each of those components can play a different song, or they can all play the same song in perfect sync, or you can create smaller groupings, each with its own soundtrack. It’s all managed through a sleek, powerful, yet simple-to-understand app on your phone, tablet, or computer.
Sonos speakers and software
Is Sonos a speaker or a software company? It’s both! Sonos considers itself to be a software-driven audio company. This means that while it certainly makes speakers and other audio hardware components, it’s the software that ties it all together that truly sets it apart from other companies.
But don’t let this emphasis on software lead you to think of it as a tech brand; its audio credentials are rock-solid (pardon the pun), with world-class music industry producers like Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) and Rick Rubin (Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Kanye West, etc.) on the consulting payroll. Unless you’re a fanatical audiophile, the Sonos sound is unlikely to disappoint.
Along with its all-in-one wireless speakers, Sonos still offers components that let you turn your traditional, non-wireless audio equipment into wirelessly-connected gear, just as it did when it launched almost 20 years ago.
What kinds of products does Sonos make?
Sonos makes three major types of wireless speakers:
Speakers aimed at those who primarily want to listen to music:
- The bookshelf-sized Sonos One* and Sonos One SL
- And the larger, more powerful Sonos Five
- Included in this category are the three Ikea Symfonisk models:
Speakers aimed at music, home theater, or simply improved TV listening:
Battery-powered, Bluetooth-enabled speakers meant to travel with you wherever you go:
Sonos also makes two components that can complement existing audio gear:
- Sonos Port, which lets you connect to an external audio source and send an audio signal to an amplified set of speakers
- Sonos Amp, which works similarly, but lets you use a non-amplified set of speakers
Finally, Sonos makes a series of accessories like wall-mounts, plus it has partnered with Sonance to sell three kinds of non-amplified speakers for use with the Amp: A ceiling speaker, an in-wall speaker, and a weather-proof outdoor speaker.
*These are voice-enabled speakers that are compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Sonos Voice Control.
Does Sonos make smart speakers that work with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri?
It does. As you can see in the list above, the Sonos Roam, One, Move, Beam, and Arc are all compatible with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Sonos Voice Control thanks to their built-in microphones. For each of your voice-capable Sonos products, you select either Google Assistant or Alexa in the Sonos app. Each voice speaker can run its own AI — so you could have Google Assistant in the kitchen and Alexa in the living room — but you can’t run both AIs simultaneously on one speaker. The exception to this is Alexa and Sonos Voice Control, which can both be active on one device.
Once enabled, you can do pretty much anything with these AIs that you can do on other smart speakers, like asking for the weather, controlling smart home devices, and more. But one of the best features is being able to use these AIs to play music on any Sonos product in your home, whether or not that product is itself a voice-capable speaker. More on that in a moment.
Siri is also possible, but it’s more complicated and very limited: You’ll first need to set up your AirPlay-enabled Sonos products in the Apple Home app (it won’t work with non-AirPlay Sonos products). Then, using your iOS device as the microphone, you can issue commands to Siri about what you want to listen to, and on which Sonos speaker. You’ll be limited to the music services that currently work with Siri, and as with any AirPlay connection, if you shut down the music app, or leave your home, the music will stop.
Does Sonos make portable speakers?
Indeed they do. They offer two sizes: the $399 Move is the company’s larger model. It’s voice-enabled, water- and dust-resistant to the IP56 standard, comes with its own charging station, and has an an 11-hour playtime.
The smaller — and newest — portable speaker is the Roam, which has a voice-enabled version ($179) and a non-voice version (Roam SL, $159). Both are dust- and waterproof (IP67 standard, meaning you can submerge them in a meter of water for 30 minutes); they’re both good for 10 hours of play before recharging.
All three of these speakers work as part of the home system outlined above, meaning you can locate them in any room in your house; they’ll work over your wireless network like all the other Sonos products you own; they also both work over Bluetooth, which means you can take them camping or to your friend’s house, well outside your home’s Wi-Fi network, and you can still play the music on your phone through them without problem.
When in Bluetooth mode, you won’t be able to use the Sonos app, and you won’t be able to use Google Assistant or Alexa, but Sonos Voice Control will still work for basic playback functions.
How much does Sonos cost?
The first step into the Sonos ecosystem can be as low as $120 — the cost of its most affordable speaker, the Ikea-branded Symfonisk Bookshelf Speaker. From there, the sky’s the limit.
You’ll find speakers and components for a variety of room sizes and listening activities, including portable speakers, ceiling-mounted architectural speakers, outdoor speakers, and soundbars, including the $899 Dolby Atmos-capable Sonos Arc which can be used on its own or with additional Sonos speakers for a full home theater package. The Sonos app is free to download.
I’ve heard that some older Sonos speakers don’t work anymore. Is that true?
It’s a little complicated. In 2020, the company announced that some of its older products would stop receiving updates, and that if users continued to use these “legacy” components alongside newer Sonos products, none of the products would receive planned updates. The initial hope was that these customers would accept a 30% discount on new products for every legacy product they agreed to trade-in. Unfortunately, Sonos’ trade-in program actually involved making those legacy products completely unusable, effectively relegating them to the landfill.
This touched off a firestorm of controversy, and ultimately caused Sonos CEO Patrick Spence to backtrack on the terms of the trade-in program.
Today, any legacy Sonos products will still work, and Sonos has committed to keeping them operational for as long as possible, but with the following caveats:
- As originally announced, if you run legacy products on the same system as newer products, none of these products will get software updates.
- However, you can choose to run all of your legacy products on their own system, separate from your newer products. This keeps your newer products up-to-date, while letting you continue to use the older products too, albeit in a much less convenient fashion as there’s no way to group products between systems, and each system requires its own separate instance of the Sonos app on your phone.
To aid this new reality, Sonos split its single control app into two versions: The S1 app is now strictly for legacy products and/or any components that you are fine with not receiving updates. Its functionality will never improve, and in fact, many of its current features may disappear over time. The S2 app is the current Sonos app and it will get all new updates as they are released. Many of Sonos’ newer products, like the Sonos Beam Gen 2 or Sonos Ray, will only work on the S2 app.
Well, the first-generation Play:5 speaker — originally launched in November 2009 — is no longer able to accept software updates. Neither will a number of non-speaker components: the first-generation Connect and Connect:Amp, five versions of the Zone Player, the Bridge, and the CR200, none of which are required to set up Sonos in your home. If you’re still using these products as part of your overall home system, that means none of your components will get updated, since the Sonos system’s ability to upgrade is dictated by the oldest component[MOU18] . If you want to keep using these legacy products without preventing newer products from getting upgrades, you can set them up on a parallel system. Doing so reduces the simplicity of having a single system, but it can keep older products from being recycled or going to landfill.
After some controversy a couple of years ago with Sonos bricking older products once they were removed from your system, the company now offers an Upgrade Program whereby you can receive up to 30% on a new speaker if you own an old component – and even better, no obligation to dispose of your old one.
Setting up Sonos
Setting up a Sonos system is super easy. If you have an existing Wi-Fi router at home, you can add up to 32 Sonos speakers or components, one by one, using the Sonos app.
Once you’ve plugged in your first Sonos product into a power outlet, the app will automatically find it and prompt you through the creation of your initial system, including connection to your Wi-Fi network.
You’ll be asked what room the component is in (with the option to customize the name), and when that component is a Sonos wireless speaker, you’ll be given the option to tune your room with Trueplay, which uses your iPhone’s microphone to assess the audio environment in which your speaker is located, and adjust the speaker’s equalizer accordingly (sorry Android users, no Trueplay for you yet). It’s the same process for all additional components.
But even if you don’t have Wi-Fi at home, you can still enjoy Sonos products wirelessly. In this scenario, you’ll need to plug your first component directly into your modem or router with an Ethernet cable. This lets Sonos establish its own wireless network called SonosNet.
Don’t want to have a speaker or other audio component tethered to your modem? Sonos sells a $99 accessory called a Boost, that will take care of establishing the SonosNet. Simply plug the Boost into your modem and then place all of your Sonos audio components anywhere you like. In some cases, where Wi-Fi networks are especially congested, people choose to use SonosNet even if they have their own Wi-Fi, for improved performance.
Once your components are set up and running, you only need to add music sources to start listening.
What are some of the best features of a Sonos system?
Sonos has a niche and has been working steadily towards owning it. Its best features include:
- Wireless capabilities: Put a speaker anywhere you have a power outlet
- Portable capabilities: Take the Roam or the Move with you wherever you go, and it will reconnect with your home system as soon as you get back
- Expandable: Add up to 32 Sonos products into a single home
- Flexibility: Play a different source of music to every one of your products – up to the system maximum of 32 – or combine them all together with one click (and every option in between)
- Range: Accommodates the most number of streaming services, plus local digital files, plus legacy audio components
- High-quality audio: Well-made, premium products with great sound
- Great app: Simple, intuitive, with support for tons of streaming services, and supported by the best universal search you can get
- Home theater: Integrate your big-screen audio set-up into your Sonos system easily
How do I get Sonos to work with my existing audio gear?
From sound sources like vinyl-spinning turntables to CD players, and sound systems like your classic Marantz receiver with vintage Klipsch speakers, Sonos is able to integrate all of these existing components into its wireless, whole-home ecosystem.
To play records, CDs, cassette tapes, or even the sound from a TV through a Sonos system’s speakers, you’ll need a Sonos product that can accept an analog or digital “line-in.” These include the Port, the Amp, and the Five speaker for analog sources like turntables, cassette decks, or CD players with analog outputs, or, the Sonos Amp or any Sonos soundbar for TVs with either optical or HDMI ARC/eARC outputs.
Once connected, these sources can be accessed in two ways:
- Analog sources connected to a Port, Amp, or Five can be selected from the Line-In option in the Browse menu in the Sonos app. You’ll then be shown a list of the Sonos products that currently have gear connected to their audio inputs. If your turntable is connected to a Port called “Bedroom,” you’d select that option.
- A TV connected digitally via optical or HDMI ARC/eARC to an Amp or soundbar works differently. TV sound can be played through the soundbar (or speakers connected to the Amp) and through any Sonos component that is grouped with either of these components, but it can’t be accessed independently like a true Line-in component.
But you can also use the Sonos system as a source for any of your amplified or non-amplified speakers.
If you have an A/V receiver or a stereo receiver, you already have a source of amplification for your speakers. In this case, connecting a Sonos Port via its analog or digital outputs will effectively turn your amplified speakers into a Sonos speaker. If you have a set of non-amplified speakers, you can hard-wire them to a Sonos Amp, which has a built-in class-D amplifier that’s powerful enough for a pair of small or large speakers.
How can I use Sonos to control multiple speakers in my home?
Sonos can accommodate up to 32 different components on a single system, so you could have Sonos speakers or other components in the living room, kitchen, kids’ bedrooms, master bedroom, back patio, and so on. You can have multiple speakers in one room, and if any two of those speakers are identical (e.g. two Sonos Ones or two Symfonisk Table Lamp Speakers), you can set them up as stereo pairs. It’s up to you.
They all show up individually in the app, by tapping the System button (looks like a stylized LED volume meter). Sonos allows you to easily rename them too, so you can identify them by room, by speaker, by color, or by personal nickname. You can direct each of your speakers to play a separate song, playlist, or station as you wish. Perhaps your spouse wants to listen to 80s New Wave on the back deck, while you want to listen to today’s alternative rock in the living room. Meanwhile, your kids can keep listening to Taylor Swift in their bedrooms.
But with a few clicks, you can combine any number of speakers together to play a single source, so, for example, you could direct Sonos to play Baroque Classics in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and laundry room (assuming you have speakers in all these locations), and it will do so without lag or delay – you can walk from each of those rooms to the other and the same music will just be there, flowing normally.
All of this is independent from the speakers you choose to omit from this grouping, so your spouse can still happily listen to 80s New Wave on the back deck without interruption. There’s also a single Play Everywhere button that will direct the music of your choice to play through all of your Sonos components.
Another handy aspect to the Sonos system is that control and playback are independent of each other. In other words, you can think of the Sonos app as a remote control for Sonos components, and everyone in your house can have that remote on their own devices. If you start an Apple Music stream on your kitchen Sonos One, you can quit the Sonos app, or even leave the house with your phone, and the music will continue until the playlist comes to an end, or someone else in your home takes control using their Sonos app.
The only down-side to this arrangement is that there are currently no user profiles within the Sonos system. So if you install the Sonos app on your daughter’s phone, she’ll have just as much control over all of the Sonos components in your home as you do.
Search and you will find
Of course, having this level of control over the sound in your home is only useful if you can find and play the music you want to hear. That’s where Sonos’ universal search feature comes in. Simply type whatever you’re looking for in the search field, and the app will find all relevant matches from all of your sources, including your personal library, internet radio stations, and streaming music services.
The results are sorted by source, so you’ll see which of your available services contain matching music, but you can also filter those matches by a huge number of subcategories, including:
- Artist
- Song title
- Album title
- Playlist
- Station
- Genre
- Podcasts & shows
- Composer
- Radio episodes
- Radio shows
Feel like listening to The Clash? Typing “Clash” in the search window will first bring up any artist with the word Clash in it across all music sources. A swipe of the finger will next bring up songs with “Clash” in the title, again across all sources; same of albums, playlists, and so on.
Can I control Sonos with my voice? How does that work?
Once set up, and as long as your voice instructions are precise (for example, you identify the name of the Sonos speaker/room accurately), you can pass instructions through a voice-enabled Sonos speaker, using Alexa or Google Assistant (GA). If you don’t own any voice-enabled Sonos speakers, you can use a third-party smart speaker, like an Echo Dot, or Google Nest Mini.
What you can with Sonos will be determined by what those AIs can do. General commands like “play,” “pause,” “skip this song,” and “turn the volume up,” will work for all music that’s playing, but each AI has its own list of supported music services. For instance, Alexa doesn’t support YouTube Music, and Google doesn’t support Amazon Music (naturally), so you’ll have to some research to make sure your chosen service works with your chosen AI.
As long as your music service is supported, you can set it as your default, using the Alexa or Google Home apps. After that, telling Alexa/GA to play music (on a particular speaker) will use that default service unless you ask otherwise. You can ask for specific bands or songs and Alexa/GA will comply.
As of June 2022, Sonos has its own version, called Sonos Voice Control. Once set up, you can say, “Hey, Sonos,” to any voice-enabled Sonos speaker, followed by a command. Say, “Hey, Sonos, play Shirley Bassey radio in the living room and dining room,” and Sonos will make it so. As long as your older Sonos speakers are on the same Sonos system as your newer, Voice Control-microphone-enabled speakers, you’ll be able to control them that way, too.
Sonos Voice Control isn’t meant to be a replacement for Alexa/GA, as it’s not capable of responding to non-Sonos requests like asking for directions, or finding a recipe. Instead, it’s a way to do all of the same things you can do in the Sonos app, but with your voice.
Does Sonos charge a subscription for any of this?
No. Sonos only charges for its hardware and there is no cost for using the Sonos software. If you want the upgraded version of Sonos Radio (HD), then you’ll need to pay the $8 monthly fee for that service.
Music services on Sonos
Sonos offers the ability to play music from a wide range of sources, including:
Your existing digital music collection
If you have a collection of digital music located on a PC, network-attached storage (NAS) drive, or an Android mobile device (for iOS users, see our section on AirPlay 2, below), Sonos can play it, along with any playlists you may have created. The software can also scan and index your iTunes library if that’s how you’ve chosen to organize your music. Supported audio formats include MP3, MP4, M4A, WMA, AAC and HE-AAC, OGG, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, and WAV.
Connected sound sources
Sonos also works with external analog and digital audio equipment if you want. This can include a turntable, CD payer, or tape deck, but also your TV, through an optical or HDMI ARC/eARC connection. You’ll need specific Sonos components to make this work: The $449 Sonos Port, $549 Five, or $699 Amp for analog sources, or the Amp or any Sonos soundbar for digital TV audio connections. We’ll discuss the Port and Amp’s other uses in a moment.
Apple Music, Spotify, and other streaming music services
Sonos also plays nicely with streaming music services: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, TuneIn, Tidal, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, Audible and many others are also readily available through the Add Music Services option in the Services and Voice tab in the app settings. In fact, Sonos supports more streaming services than any other multi-room music system. It also offers its own streaming music service called Sonos Radio — in both free and paid tiers — as a homegrown alternative.
What is Sonos Radio?
Sonos Radio is a streaming service of curated playlists and radio stations. The free version, simply called Sonos Radio, comes preinstalled in the Sonos app. A paid version called Sonos Radio HD is also available for $8 per month. In both versions, music is primarily organized into genres (Rock, Country, Jazz, Classical, etc.), with multiple stations living within each genre; for example in the Rock genre you can choose between stations/playlists for Early Classic Rock, Soft/Yacht Rock, Glam Metal & Ballads, Grunge, Punk Rock, and so on. Other Sonos Radio stations/playlist are categorized by celebrity guest curator, such as Thom Yorke, Dolly Parton, Eryka Badu, and so on. The service also gives you one-touch access to hundreds of local and global music, talk, sports, and news radio stations: News Talk 98.9 ‘Roar of Memphis’ is right there for you if you wish.
If you opt Sonos Radio HD, the Sonos-created playlists and stations go from a very lossy 128kbps to 16-bit/44.1 kHz lossless, CD-quality audio. It also eliminates the ads, and adds the ability to skip songs on station playlists (and immediately replay your faves). You also get more radio stations: 60,000 in total.
Unlike almost any other streaming service, both versions of Sonos Radio only work on a Sonos system using the Sonos app – there’s no standalone app for Sonos Radio available to either iOS or Android users.
Is Sonos compatible with hi-res and lossless audio?
To a degree, yes. Sonos can handle lossless music files up to 24-bit/48 kHz, which is better than CD-quality, and generally considered hi-res audio. To get this level of quality, your system will need to be running on the S2 version of the Sonos app and your music source will need to support it too.
For music files resident in your personal library, this means either FLAC or ALAC formats. Uncompressed AIFF and WAV files are also supported, but only up to a bit-depth of 16-bit.
Lossy formats, like MP3, MP4, and M4A will all stream at bitrates of up to 320kbps.
When it comes to streaming music services, Sonos is currently compatible with 24-bit/48kHz hi-res audio from Amazon Music and Qobuz, but with one important caveat: If you attempt to stream a hi-res track from these services with a sampling frequency that’s higher than 48kHz (which is quite common — many hi-res tracks are 96 or 192kHz), the entire track will be delivered at lossless 16-bit/44.1kHz CD-quality instead.
AirPlay and Bluetooth on Sonos
You may be wondering why you’d want to buy Sonos products when there are now a wide variety of speakers that support Apple AirPlay 2 and Google Chromecast, not to mention the countless ones that have Bluetooth. Here’s how these four technologies compare.
Both AirPlay 2 and Chromecast use Wi-Fi to create a wireless audio link between a phone or computer and a compatible speaker, soundbar, or home audio system. They both support multiroom playback, via Apple and Google’s respective Home apps.
Chromecast is closer to Sonos in that once you initiate a playback session on a Chromecast-enabled speaker, you don’t need to keep your music app open on your phone — the speaker establishes its own connection to the content. But, for Chromecast to work, both your speaker and your audio app need to be Chromecast-enabled. And not all Chromecast connections work smoothly. For instance, even though the Tidal music streaming app is Chromecast enabled, and Bose soundbars have Chromecast built in, Chromecast won’t connect the two.
Airplay 2, on the other hand, is a peer-to-peer connection. You can stream any audio from your Apple device to a compatible speaker using AirPlay, but if you close that audio app on your phone while in the midst of an AirPlay session, the audio will stop.
But the biggest difference between Sonos and Airplay/Chromecast is the way you interact with them. With Chromecast or AirPlay, you pick an audio source on your device — like the Spotify app — and use that to control what you’re hearing. But to control where you hear it, or on how many speakers, you need to use the Google Home or Apple Home app. Want to change what you’re listening to? You’ll need to open a new app, like TuneIn or Amazon Music, and go and find your new song, artist, etc.
But wait, I thought Sonos speakers also have AirPlay?
Yes, all of Sonos’ recent products, starting with the Sonos One in 2017, come equipped with AirPlay 2. And while that might seem like a contradiction, it’s more like an enhancement of the core Sonos system. Using AirPlay 2, you can stream any audio from an iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, or even tvOS product, to a Sonos component directly, without needing to use the Sonos app.
This accomplishes two things: It lets you play any music you may have stored on your device, and it lets you use your Sonos equipment for much better audio when watching video from sources like YouTube, Netflix, and others.
Want to hear that content on more than one Sonos component? You can group the AirPlay-connected product with any other Sonos product, and it will pick up the same AirPlay content, even if that speaker is older, and doesn’t have AirPlay itself (like a Sonos Play:1).
What’s the difference between Sonos and Bluetooth?
The core Sonos system is built on Wi-Fi. As a wireless technology, Wi-Fi has several key strengths: It has a lot of bandwidth, so you can stream even the highest resolution, lossless audio without any bottlenecks. It’s literally networked — all Wi-Fi devices on the same network can speak to each other, passing data back and forth, and that allows for incredible control within the Sonos app. Being able to add, remove, and group Sonos components relies on Wi-Fi.
It also enables mesh networking when you’ve set up your Sonos system using SonosNet — each Sonos device can act as a wireless bridge to the next-nearest Sonos device, letting you spread out your speakers and components much farther than you could using a regular Wi-Fi router. Because Wi-Fi doesn’t use the same part of your phone’s audio system as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi music doesn’t have to stop when your phone rings, or you want to place a call.
But Wi-Fi also has limitations. It’s very power-hungry, so Wi-Fi devices are usually plugged into power continuously instead of relying on batteries that can die. Wi-Fi (with a few rare exceptions) needs the presence of a Wi-Fi router, or in the case of Sonos, a component that’s wired to your modem/router, so it simply doesn’t work when you’re away from home.
Bluetooth, on the other hand, is a wireless technology that’s ideal in these situations. It takes far less power to operate, and it works device-to-device, from a phone or tablet direct to a Bluetooth speaker — no network required. But the absence of a network can make it hard to manage multiple Bluetooth speakers. Companies that have managed to do so typically rely on a repeater-style solution, where you can daisy-chain multiple Bluetooth speakers, but there’s no individual control, and all of the chained speakers must play the same audio.
Bluetooth has also been bandwidth-limited, traditionally. This is changing, but the vast majority of Bluetooth devices can only play highly compressed music streams. Where Bluetooth is able to achieve wireless, hi-res audio, it requires specific, shared Bluetooth codecs on both the source device (like a phone) and the sink device (the speaker).
For years, Sonos did not make any products that used Bluetooth, but with the launch of the Sonos Move, and then the smaller, Sonos Roam, Sonos owners now have two Bluetooth options. When these speakers are at home, they join the same Wi-Fi-based Sonos network as the rest of your Sonos products. But then you can pick the up and take them to the beach or anywhere else you like, and use Bluetooth to stream your mobile device music to them (within about 30 feet).
Sonos alternatives
Wireless home audio systems are popular, and so there are a number of companies competing with Sonos. Bose has its own ecosystem of whole-home wireless speakers, which are compatible with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Chromecast, and AirPlay. You control it through the Bose Music app, but the software isn’t as simple or intuitive as the Sonos software, and Bose does not currently support Apple Music, which could be a problem for some users. Bose also doesn’t handle multiple sources of music across multiple rooms and/or speakers as effortlessly as Sonos.
Google Nest Audio is another alternative, and works better than Bose across multiple rooms and products, but it only has two models of speaker to choose from. If you have only one room, or a bachelor flat – and no immediate plans to expand – then Google Nest Audio might suffice.
The Apple HomePod mini is the Apple ecosystem’s AI speaker, and it can also play streamed music in small spaces. You can manage multiple HomePod minis from the Apple Home app, and there have been rumors that the company is planning a successor to the larger but discontinued HomePod.
For larger and/or multiple rooms, Denon’s Home family of wireless speakers offer more robust audio credentials, but its HEOS app is tricky to navigate, and it offers only limited features compared to Sonos; Denon speakers tend to be larger and a bit more powerful but are also more expensive than comparable Sonos speakers.
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