After long deliberation I have decided to try out Sonos. For both ST integration as well as audio playback. I’ll only be starting out with a single speaker. I am considering the Play 1 or Play 3. Play 3 sounds nice if I stick with 1 speaker long term because it can do stereo. If it’s as nice as many community folks suggest I’ll probably get at least a second down the road (for audio in the same room not for ST type stuff). Cost is a factor especially with these expensive devices. Advice?
How big is the room? Can you place it near an Ethernet port? If not get a bridge or latest software.
Play 1 is in my office and works great.
I use play connect for my distributed audio for the house.
Play 3 is great but a play 5 gives you line in streaming.
Big room (13 x 27 x 13 high) but small budget. Or put it in kitchen where current ST voice is (tablet). Ethernet is available in big room. Not a huge fan or running beta software but I am on my ST hub already so to get Sonos single speaker wireless I guess I would do the same. I’m gong to keep my amp and current speakers for now so if/when a line in is needed I would probably go the sound bar route and ditch the amp.
Play 3 should get you what you need. Youd be surprised how well Sonos speakers fill a room. I have a play 1 in a room about that size and I kinda wish I had a play 3 but just barely.
I also have a play 1 and it fills my space nicely. I won’t be hosting crazy raves with it, but for just having background music going, it is more than sufficient.
For the money I like 2 Play1’s versus the Play 5.
I think the tech in the 1’s is newer/better than the 3’s and 5’s at this point too.
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Totally forgot about this, but you are 100% right. The speaker and wireless tech is updated in the 1’s and not the 3’s and 5’s
I’m ordering a Play 1 this afternoon. Planning to use for ST announcements. I’m getting a free bridge with a referral code, but it looks like the latest firmware negates the need for the bridge. First foray into Sonos. Don’t really need it for the music streaming capabilities at this point, but it’ll be fun to mess with.
I’ll report back on use cases and performance.
Thanks to all. I am setting up my play 1 now. Sounds nice so far. I was hoping to have all push notifications voiced through the speaker but have thus far not determined a way to do this. I’ll keep digging.
I love my Play:1 Great sound from a small package. I go the bridge free when it first came out at Target. I am trying to get it to tune to SiriusXM channel on Good Morning!, but haven’t been able to get it set up cause the Playlist screen, I think that’s what its called, comes up blank in ST.
Have you added the Sirius station to your Sonos favorites? (in the Sonos app)
yes sir. have a few favs.
If anyone else is thinking of getting a play:1 they are $30 off at Rakuten.com today and if you use promo code FLASH15 you get $25 off of your next order or something like that.
I just ordered another one from Rakuten. These don’t usually go on sale.
that was quick. sold out already
I have a Play 3 upstairs in the master bedroom and it sounds great. One speaker is fine. If you are building a music system for serious listening then I would consider the 5, and add another 5 and sub-woofer later. I have a Playbar for the TV in my kitchen, bur frankly, it’s not as good sounding as my Play 3, though great for its purpose of switching between TV, music and internet radio.
I also have a Connect for my home theater in the family room, and this works great as well. If you have a good music system already, especially with a spare optical audio input, then consider the Connect. It’s a cheaper way to go.
I have release an generic Media Renderer device type to use some cheap speakers. Help us to verity the working devices
Just an update on my Sonos Play 1 experience with the SmartThings hub.
I’ve been using a Play 1 as my SmartThings speaker for about 7 months now. I have it announce specific door and window openings (Front Door is Open, Living Room Side Window is Open, etc.), it announces when myself or my wife are coming home (but only when one of us is already home, of course), it announces if one of two flood sensors is going off, and which one, it also announces CO2/Smoke announcements from a FirstAlert combo unit, and triggers an alarm countdown if the security settings are tripped.
I also use the music streaming functionality when guests are over. The volume is full and sufficient enough to deal with conversations, but when it’s time to turn something up I still go back to the Yamaha 5.1 system. Pandora, Rhapsody, and Spotify all work very well.
Pros:
- Massively cool to be able to customize alerts and vary the volume level per alert
- The “resume song” function now works properly if an announcement triggers when streaming music
- The speaker is well built and gets surprisingly loud for both voice announcements and music
- Sonos streaming software is awesome
- No longer need a Sonos bridge to connect wirelessly
- $199 doesn’t seem expensive once you’ve used it for a while. It’s a good value.
Cons:
- Occasionally disconnects from the SmartThings hub for no apparent reason. Usually this can be re-set without completely removing and programming all announcements, but that has happened on one occasion.
- Announcements are usually delayed by anywhere from two to several seconds
- Spoils you for any other connected music systems
- Still a nice-to-have add-on rather than a mission critical, reliable component
The experience has been more positive than negative. The Sonos hardware itself is amazing. Amazing enough that when I move in a couple months I’m going to go with a full Sonos 5.1 system in the Living Room. It’s pricey, but as long as your TV can pass a Dolby signal via TOSlink (hint: all Vizio models do this), it’s an amazing system. Bonus: I already have one of the surround speakers in this Play 1.
I’m intrigued by this new DLNA driver, but give the thumbs up to Sonos as a connected speaker for ST.
What would be the advantage of this compared to a traditional 5.1 system + Sonos CONNECT? It seems like Sonos wouldn’t support the higher quality audio formats found on Blu-Ray but a traditional 5.1 system would.