The Google Assistant, Alexa or Sonos own Voice Control Assistant supports Apples. Airplay 2 protocol has a premium, build quality design and, most importantly, it sounds incredible.. But in a world with a lot of first party, smart speakers, why would you get a Sonos One over a speaker made by Amazon, Apple or Google Thats? The question? I think a lot of people face when they look at getting a Sonos One. So Ill. Take you through my answer to that question and some reservations I have about recommending the Sonos One and first lets talk about design.. The Sonos One has a solid construction. It feels premium and has some weight to it.. It also has a nice aesthetic and should blend into your home with its simple design. At the top of it. Youll find the touch controls for the device.. These controls have been solid over the past 6 months and Im big fan of how Sonos designed them. Theres a mute mic button play pause, button volume, control buttons and to skip forward and skip back. You actually slide across the top between the volume buttons.. Another great part of its design is the Sonos One is designed with high humidity environments in mind, so you place one in a bathroom to listen to music on.. Now the main benefit of getting a Sonos One, in my opinion, is its sound.. It outperforms every other. Smart speaker, I have tested at this point, including the Amazon Echo Apple, HomePod, Mini Nest, Audio Nest Hub Max, etc, And to see more reviews of smart speakers in general.

. Like those speakers make sure you subscribe to the channel., The Sonos One produces a very crisp detailed, sound which is pleasant to listen to and has a surprising amount of bass given its size. Overall. It is definitely the speaker. I prefer to listen to anything on compared to all of the other smart speakers that I own. One feature that helps give Sonos speakers incredible. Sound is Sonos TruePlay feature which is found in the Sonos app. TruePlay is an audio tuning feature that helps your Sonos One balance its sound output based on the overall size of your room, as well as where youve placed your speaker.. Once you place your speakers, the Sonos App will use the mics on your phone to collect info about your room as your Sonos One emits a semi, loud sound., But the result is your speaker or speakers are going to sound way way better. If you use Trueplay in my experience., This feature will also take into account other Sonos speakers and will work with two sonos speakers paired together as well. Pairing. Two Sonos speakers in the app is very easy and gives you an even better sound stage.. You can also group together multiple Sonos speakers together in a room in the app. And because the Sonos One supports Apples, AirPlay 2 standard, they can be grouped in with any other AirPlay 2 speakers you have, which is a great feature.. Now another thing that really stuck out to me with the Sonos One is its setup: experience.

Oftentimes, when youre trying to set up a device like this, the process can be a bit confusing, but the setup experience with the Sonos one is actually very good. After I Unwrapped the nicely packaged Sonos One plugged it in opened the app to begin setup. I was gobsmacked, the device was already showing up in the app, which is what should happen, but with a lot of smart speakers, its not always this immediate.. I also like that. The Sonos app is smart enough to automatically pull the WiFi network information from my phone, so all you have to do is put in the WiFi password. And when the speaker updates its software during setup, the app shows you cards that walk you through more features of The speaker, which is a nice touch, while you wait. Now one of the main ways to control the Sonos One is by using the Sonos app. One of the cool things Sonos did with their app. Is they make it very easy to connect all of your favorite music streaming services into the Sonos app? So you can play them on your Sonos devices and they have a lot of services to choose from not just the main ones. Youd expect like Spotify Apple, Music, YouTube, Music, Amazon, Music, Tidal, Pandora, Deezer and TuneIn.. You can also connect to services like Pocket Casts for podcasts Libby to listen to audiobooks. You checked out from your library, Audible. Many more Sonos also has their own radio feature as well, which is free with ads and has live radio stations like NPR and BBC.

. They have an HD version for 7.99, a month which gets you an ad free experience with unlimited skips and lossless quality. But for that price Im, not exactly sure why you would subscribe versus just subscribing to a music service.Now when you link a service in the Sonos app youll, be able to access, basically a mini version of that app with Spotifys. Looking the best to me out of the ones Ive linked., The Sonos app is also where youll find all of the settings for your Sonos system., Like TruePlay audio compression alarms. If you put one of these in your bedroom, media server and music library settings the ability to put the Google Assistant or Alexa on the speaker, parental controls and a transfer system ownership feature which is a nice touch. Now after six months, I have to say I Dont really use the Sonos app.. Typically, I find myself casting media from my phone via AirPlay to my Sonos system or Ill use, Siri on a nearby HomePod Mini to play media on my Sonos system or Ill use. The assistants that you can put on the Sonos speakers to play and control media. And the Google Assistant, which is the main assistant Ive used on the Sonos One over the past 6 months, actually works quite well.. Unfortunately, though, the Assistants you can run on the Sonos One arent quite up to parity with competing speakers from Google and Amazon., I ran into several issues trying to play music through them.

. First, if you use either Alexa or the Google Assistant to play music from Apple Music or YouTube Music, and you ask either assistant to just play a song, it will play that song, but then itll play nothing after it. It just stops.. Now, if you use either assistant to play Spotify on the Sonos One, it will correctly play something after the original song you requested. Also for the Google Assistant. Specifically after you request a song. The Sonos One will dim its volume, so the Assistant can continue listening for a request, but often it does this for way too long. You can be easily fooled to thinking. The volume is actually turned way down, so you go to turn it up and then youll get blasted.. Also, the Google Assistant is much slower playing music on the Sonos One versus. If you use Alexa or Sonoss own voice, control, feature., Sonos, voice control, uses the Sonos Ones, onboard mics to control your music and your Sonos system without using Google or Amazon to process your voice. Data. And in my limited testing of this feature. Since it came out right at the tail end of our review, period. Its very fast, but it does come with quite a few downsides that hopefully Sonos will be able to iron out over the coming months.. First, you cant use the Google Assistant on the Sonos One at the same time as Sonos Voice Control, which is a limitation imposed by Google, not Sonos and its stupid.

. Now, thankfully, Amazon doesnt impose such a limitation and you can have Alexa on the device at the same time as voice control. At the time of recording you also cant play Spotify or YouTube Music through Sonos Voice Control. Apple Music is currently the only big player that has been implemented, and it also suffers from an issue where youll ask Sonos to play a song and itll just play that one song, but nothing after it.. You also cant use Sonoss voice control feature to group. In other AirPlay2 speakers, like you, can with Siri on Apples, HomePod Mini.. However, you can use Sonas voice control to play and pause when playing media on a group of AirPlay speakers that include a Sonos One.. So those are some of the downsides Ive encountered with Sonos voice control. Feature. Now lets talk about a few other downsides with the Sonos One. And the first one is chord. Management. Sonos doesnt even include cable clips for their speakers and honestly, given Sonos is a more premium brand. I wish theyd spend a little bit more time with the design of the speaker in making cord management easier, especially when youre placing these speakers in areas like a kitchen counter its just not as easy as it should be to hide the cord.. Now the biggest downside Ive found with the Sonos One is its lack of Google Cast support.. There is simply no way to directly cast audio from the Android operating system to your Sonos system, like you can do on iOS through Airplay, which in 2022 is honestly surprising.

. The only way to play music from an Android device to a Sonos system is either through the Sonos app or an app that can control your Sonos speakers, like the Spotify app using Spotify Connect., And this lack of support its. Why Im so conflicted about recommending Sonos. Sonos seems too focused on trying to keep people within the Sonos app for playing media on their Sonos system. and, unfortunately, the music service integration within the Sonos app is subpar compared to just using the app built by the music Service., This is especially true when you go into a service in the Sonos app and select a single song to play. The Sonos app will just play that single song on a service like Spotify or YouTube Music, but then nothing after it. Theres, no automatically generated play queue that appears like on the music service apps. Now, obviously, going with the Sonos system has some upsides as well. Youre. Not locked into just using a single assistant like you would be if you bought a speaker from Amazon, Apple or Google.. Sonos has some great accessories. You can get with your speaker, like the Sonos shelf wall mount. You can group other speakers, together with your Sonos One. Like the One SL which doesnt have a microphone, the Sonos Arc, sound bar or the Play 5 for even better sound in your room. And a lot of Sonos speakers, you can pair with your Sonos One dont have mics built in which could be great for those Who have some privacy concerns or just dont need a mic built in to every speaker, they own.

And, of course, by going with Sonos youre choosing one of the best sounding speakers. You can get that are so easy to connect together and set up.. So considering all of the upsides and the downsides with the Sonos One, is this the all around best smart speaker? I really wish I could say it was because, in my opinion, its the best sounding smart speaker for the money.. It just hits this really nice sweet spot, but unfortunately its just not the all around best smart speaker for a lot of scenarios. About the only scenario I can think of where it is the best smart speaker is. If you have a lot of Apple products, you have an iPhone and you want to run Alexa on the Sonos One. It is the best smart speaker for that particular scenario., But Sonos own voice. Control right now is too limited, with its music service integration and the Google Assistant implementation on it, isnt as good as on Googles, own Nest, speakers. And if youre, an Android user. The Sonos One certainly isnt a slam dunk of a product because of its lack of cast support and subpar music service integration in the Sonos app. Right now, I think Android users are better off going with speakers made by Googles Nest brand, which dont sound nearly as Good as the Sonus One, which is a situation that kind of sucks. Now, if you have an iPhone or iPad, you use to play music on, and you primarily want to use smart speakers to play music.

I think the Sonos One is a great choice because of its great sound and AirPlay 2 support, and if you want to purchase one, you use the links in this video and in the description below to purchase a Sonos One.. But I still cant get over. How big of a miss it is for Sonos to not have cast support in their products in 2022., And I know some of you are going to point to well theres been ongoing litigation between Sonos and Google and frankly, I dont care.. I am just looking at the user experience and after spending six months with the Sonos One, there is no denying the user experience is negatively impacted and significantly so by not having cast support and look. I know Sonos has broader aspirations for their company and brand and to grow their user base past affluent people who just have Apple products.. If you look at their most recent products like the lower cost, sound bar to compete with Vizio and the low cost portable Bluetooth. Speaker its obvious, the companys trying to reach a broader demographic of users and become a larger brand, which makes the omission of cast support even more glaring.. So those are all of my thoughts about the Sonos One.. If you have any further questions about this product, leave them in the comments below and Ill answer them there. And while youre down there hit that thumbs up button. If you found this video helpful and liked it and subscribe to the channel for more reviews of audio products like this one.

, If youre looking for what to watch next check out some of our other audio product reviews, like a reviews of the Apple AirPods, Max the Nest, Audio Amazon, Echo and our recent review of the Sony, WF 1000XM4s terrible name but great product, great set of earbuds, and you can check those reviews out by clicking on the playlist to my right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7JeTPCsE-4