The imminent arrival of the HomePod may be considered a threat to smart speaker brands everywhere but Sonos is looking at it as an opportunity to highlight what it has that’s missing from the upcoming Apple home speaker. And to entice people to buy it, they’re offering a discount for the Sonos One, as well as showing off all its features that you can’t find yet in the HomePod, like linking two wireless speakers, multi-room listening, and of course, flexibility when it comes to virtual assistant technologies.
The Sonos One can actually become Sonos Two. Well, sort of, since you have the ability to link two wireless speakers together and actually use them as stereo speakers. Another thing that you can do with this brand of smart speakers that Apple can’t is to have multi-room audio or playing songs simultaneously in speakers that may be located in other parts of the house. However, Apple said that there may be a firmware update for the HomePods later this year and theses features may be added.
Sonos One also has more flexibility when it comes to the virtual assistant you can use with it. Currently, you can use Amazon Alexa, but Google Assistant support may/will also arrive later this year. No news yet if Siri will eventually become available as well but another Apple proprietary product will make its way to Sonos too: Airplay 2 or their Wi-Fi streaming protocol/technology.
Originally, the Sonos One costs $199 each. But now, for a limited time only, you can get a pair for $349 instead of $398. We don’t know yet how it will stack up to the HomePod, quality-wise, but if price is the consideration, then this is a goo deal.
VIA: SlashGear
