Waiting to add Sonos stuff until it adds AirPlay 2.

by MattG, Monday, December 18, 2017, 12:58 (3030 days ago) @ BPH
edited by MattG, Tuesday, December 19, 2017, 05:36

Sonos allows you to play content from basically any music service (Apple, Spotify, SiriusXM, Amazon Prime, your iTunes library, etc.) from any combination of your selected devices.

You pick the content, the specific devices that you want to start playing that content, and then the respective volumes of each device.

So, you can play one song in the living room and kitchen - they'll be synced perfectly - and another in the upstairs bathroom or whatever.

We had a Memorial day party for my daughter's 3rd bday - the effect of having the same playlist going indoors and outdoors, in perfect sync, was really subtle and cool. It's the kind of thing that used to require a lot of $ and effort.

One other neat Sonos thing - the CONNECT has a line-in function. So if you have a turntable, you can plug it into the back of the Connect, and then play your LPs in multiple rooms.

NOW... Sonos is in a weird spot, because Amazon and Google and Apple are all muscling in on their territory.

Previously, all of these voice-controlled assistants weren't really Sonos competitors, because premium sound was kind of an afterthought on them. That's not the case anymore - new Alexa and Apple devices talk up their advanced sound quality.

So Sonos has decided to to platform agnostic. They FIRST incorporated Alexa into what used to be the PLAY:1. And, given how the devices work with each other, you should be able to control ALL of your Sonos devices (even the non-Alexa ones) by voice if you're within earshot of ANY of your Alexa-powered devices.

That should also be the case after Apple releases the HomePod and Sonos adds Airplay 2 capability -- you *should* be able to say "Hey Siri, play Beggars Banquet on the Sonos in the living room" to the HomePod, and the Sonos *should* respond.

Of course, we'll see if that's the case.

But in the meantime, I'm holding off on buying any Sonos stuff - we're pretty deeply invested in the Apple/HomeKit vertical, and I want to verify that it will all work together later.