I wanted to chime in here because I can see that this little speaker is getting an undue bad rep for basically being misunderstood... Here's the thing... If you are looking for a great Bluetooth speaker that sounds amazing and solves all of your tiny speaker needs all by itself, you are looking in the wrong place. Don't get me wrong, the play1 sounds pretty good and it is a well made, solid little speaker, but holistically speaking Sonos' thing is not to provide you with a little standalone bluetooth speaker. Sonos is meant to be a whole-home HIFI sound system. I would consider the play1 to be more of a component intended to work with a larger system. The play1 is not going to blow you away in a room all by itself, but if paired with another play1 and a Sonos sub and playbar for surround sound, it will sound amazing.
The Sonos software, the extra components (boost, connect amp...etc.) and the necessity to have a suuuuper strong wifi signal to use all of it are only going to be worth your time if you are taking advantage of a full system. Anyone who owns just one or two play1s and is frustrated with the app and all the software updates is absolutely right, its not worth it. When, however, you are using the app to group multiple rooms and taking advantage of updates that allow you to play different media in different rooms using Alexa (just examples) the updates suddenly become less burdensome.
I also touched on this a second ago, but it is important to understand that these are not intended to be Bluetooth speakers. You HAVE to use the Sonos app to play almost everything (Spotify Connect does let you play music from the Spotify app with a paid Spotify subscription - Some other services do this as well.) This, again, is because the intended use is to be able to connect multiple rooms in your home to the system and play music throughout. It makes sense that Sonos would not be able to ensure that there would be no sync delays or lag between rooms/speakers unless the Sonos system is controlling all output. An added benefit to this is that you can compile Sonos playlists that pull songs from multiple sources - have an album saved on Spotify, but can only find that live version of your favorite song on Google play? You can build a Sonos playlist that combines it all into 1 killer tracklist.
Additionally, these are not computer speakers. <Notice the period at the end of that sentence. Just about any review, you find on Amazon from someone saying that they were hoping to use them as really nice sounding computer speakers will be a 1-star review. I think that says more about folks' lack of research than it does about the quality of the play1.
Lastly, It should be understood that within the past few years Sonos has added Alexa integration (as well as other virtual assistants) to their service. Yes, it is true that because of this update their privacy policy has changed. It amazes me to see so many reviews by people who are so worked up about "Sonos invading privacy." I mean if you have truly been living off the grid... like 0% technology in your life, then I could see how there would be some concerns that your new Hifi system is spying on you for the government. Most people, however, have a smartphone with them at all times that knows where they go, what they buy, whom they talk to and what kind of media they enjoy. These folks almost certainly had no problem agreeing to what is most likely the same type of privacy policy, just so that they can use those devices to ask siri, alexa or google assistant about the weather every day. I'm just saying, the only difference between Sonos and Apple or Google, is that Sonos makes sure that you know exactly what you are agreeing to by making it impossible to use their product without agreeing, instead of hiding the ugly parts of the policy in a 55 page update doc that they know no one is going to read. Just trying to keep things in perspective here... Anyway...
If you spent any time recently standing on a ladder running speaker wire across drop ceiling, or poking holes in walls or buying area rugs to hide your wired system's shame... or worse yet, just have bundles and strands of cords and wires all over your home, and you are finally ready to shell out for that HIFI system to end the misery and sound amazing, no-brainer... Sonos is the way to go.
If you are sitting at your computer fooling around online and your favorite song just doesn't sound quite as crisp as you would like it to, or if you have a $200 budget to fill 1 room in your house with sound, keep looking, your speaker is out there somewhere ;-)
I hope this helps, Cheers!
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