Sonos announced on Wednesday the Sonos One, its first smart speaker. Designed with music first in mind, the new device fills up rooms with rich sound and it is smart enough to listen attentively when people prompt Alexa and one of her many skills. It launches this October 24 for $199.
The announcement came just as Google introduced new smart speakers to the crowd in San Francisco waiting for the Pixel 2. The Google Home Mini won’t put up much of a fight, but the Home Max might turn into a serious rival for the new Sonos.
Of course, Sonos is arriving late to this game for a reason, and that is that it waited to integrate all the voice assistants in one place. In 2018, Google Assistant will gain a new home in the Sonos One; while Siri will squeeze in later on via AirPlay so all three AIs coexist in one device.
Sonos One supports a massive music streaming library
Sonos has always been all about music first, and that is not changing just because it gained some smarts. Hence, more than 80 streaming services are supported by the new Sonos One, so you can get as picky as you want with the tracks you want to listen.
Usual suspects like Pandora, Spotify, TuneIn Radio, and Sirius XM are available for you to listen to your playlists, but you can also hear tracks you bought from libraries like Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Google Play Music.
If you want to listen to the hottest mixtapes and freshest EPs, you can also tune in to Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and more. Deezer is also supported, as well as Tidal and even the recently defunct Groove Music by Microsoft.
Sonos shares more with Amazon than just Alexa
The Sonos One is based on Amazon’s open source design, original for the Echo speaker. The six far-field microphone array is the same, and even the top control panel is reminiscent of the smart home hub pioneer with its LED indicators and touch controls.
The company, however, chose to keep connectivity simple and stick just to the internet. There are no Bluetooth adapters, but Sonos does include both an Ethernet port and a Wi-Fi adapter. Other than that, there is just a power supply outlet, so there is not even an auxiliary jack.
Sonos will compensate, however, with other aspects. The first smart speaker by the firm will also be one of the smartest in the market next year, as it adds direct support for Google Assistant and AirPlay 2, which technically makes it possible to control music using Siri as well. All on the same device for just $199.
Source: Sonos
