Sonos Announces New Colors for Sonos One Speaker Coming This September

[CPTmom2wp]

Way to go, they missed blue...Why does everyone ignore blue?

Probably something to do with fighting male patriarchy............

They... are not pleasant looking.

The pink and yellow look like nursery colors that cannot be used anywhere else. The dark green is atrocious looking and likewise unusable in most rooms. I don't see the black? The white is still great and the red could be stunning in the right setting.

But what's the point? If they have done market research and found these to be the favorite colors, well, then, I stand corrected.

 

[44267547]

And most of the colors are bland as heck?.

I would say less vibrant versus “Bland.”The colors are likely more fitting and neutral for a household in a living room or bedroom setting. What colors were you expecting Sonos to release? Neon or fuchsia? Sonos likely wants the colors to semi-blend with various color schemes in a variety of households.

 

[oneMadRssn]

The pink and yellow look like nursery colors that cannot be used anywhere else. The dark green is atrocious looking and likewise unusable in most rooms. I don't see the black? The white is still great and the red could be stunning in the right setting.

But what's the point? If they have done market research and found these to be the favorite colors, well, then, I stand corrected.

You're still thinking of these as techie electronics. They're looking at these as furniture, or statement pieces that are used as functional decoration. Yes, black is a color for techie electronics, but who buys a black vase? A funeral parlor maybe... Likewise, white is actually a pretty bad color for accent pieces.

As you said though, the pink and yellow would be awesome in a nursery, which is actually where some parents might want a smart speaker. Or, a craft room. The green is odd on it's own, but might fit in quite well on a bookshelf among multicolor books or next to other things; or in a kitchen. If you have a bright room, dark earthy colors as accent pieces work quite well actually. I would put the bright orange in my garage.

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

Alright MacRumors readers, I expect all of you who whine about watch bands to be all over this!

 

[otternonsense]

HAY is pretty famous for its undersaturated “Scandinavian” palette. I think the right audience might be Dribbble posters who swoon over washed out color swatches rather than macrumors techies

As for the bad app.. you haven’t seen awfulness unless you’ve used the B&W app for the Zeppelin Wireless. It’s a UX crime against humanity. BUT, that speaker is fantastic and I wouldn’t ever consider a Sonos (or god forbid a HomePod) replacement in the coming years.

 

[OriginalAppleGuy]

Yeah but if you have multiple devices like I do, then you need to have an app in every single device. Which sucks. Not to mention that if you have different OS then it's even worse. It's just not fluid and intuitive.

Not following your logic on this one. One Sonos app for all Sonos speakers. Other apps have Sonos integration too. Don't know what you mean by different OS's either. The Sonos apps work great across platforms. In fact - Sonos is the defacto standard for multi-speaker setups.

 

[tw1ll]

Exactly! My wife, (keeps me around for the same reason), turns off our TV every night, starts her podcasts in the Sonos app and puts on a 20 minute sleep timer. If she can do that on her own...it is not too complicated. My 8 year old and 17 year old navigate the app every day. They play music from Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, and XM. We have 10 Play:1s in the house and 2 playbars...it is ridiculously simple to group rooms or split them. In my eyes, anyone saying that the app is too difficult has spent 0 time trying to learn it. Hell, the podcast app on the iPhone is more difficult that this one.

To the guy saying it hasn't got a long history...9 years is an eternity in tech, and the market share grab will forever be in the hands of the first. Happily, Sonos does not feel like the first to market..the product is anything but 1/2 baked.

Spot on! All the fanboy criticism is pathetic. Sonos is a good product, different from the Apple offering. It been around a while, has had very few upgrade snufus, it just works.....oh, that sounds familiar.

 

[Coffee50]

You're still thinking of these as techie electronics. They're looking at these as furniture, or statement pieces that are used as functional decoration. Yes, black is a color for techie electronics, but who buys a black vase? A funeral parlor maybe... Likewise, white is actually a pretty bad color for accent pieces.

As you said though, the pink and yellow would be awesome in a nursery, which is actually where some parents might want a smart speaker. Or, a craft room. The green is odd on it's own, but might fit in quite well on a bookshelf among multicolor books or next to other things; or in a kitchen. If you have a bright room, dark earthy colors as accent pieces work quite well actually. I would put the bright orange in my garage.

Yeah, the thing I noticed is the color palette (with he exception of the green) seems like they are meant to blend in with similar decor. The promotion photo included is an example of this.

The speaker doesn't look like it's out of place because of the accent colors around it. The only issue is you'd have to make sure is your decor always matches, so it does compliment it.....other wise it will stand out, not in a particularly good way.

The green, however, is an interesting option. It's a much darker shade than the other options , so you'd have to find similar color schemes for it.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Five month lead time for new colors of speaker housings? And most of the colors are bland as heck? I look forward to seeing them excoriated as a dying brand.

And yet still nothing specifically publicly announced on which products will get AirPlay 2 support!
Seems it's new products only. I'll keep my limited edition Play:1, maybe buy another used for now or maybe go with UE MegaBoom/MegaBlast if the sound quality and volume are similar since their splash proof & portable.

 

[dumastudetto]

I used to adore my Sonos gear. But they lost their way, fired a lot of talent, their technology stood still, and they never fixed the awful UI issues with their apps. Then Apple launched the incredible HomePod. It's now game over for Sonos, and game over in every color.

 

[Someyoungguy]

I used to adore my Sonos gear. But they lost their way, fired a lot of talent, their technology stood still, and they never fixed the awful UI issues with their apps. Then Apple launched the incredible HomePod. It's now game over for Sonos, and game over in every color.

Hmm, maybe, but these aren’t cellphones we’re talking about. What is the crushing blow here? Single source streaming? No control of local library? Lack of equalizer? Inability to provide exterior solutions or integrate with an existing system? Lack of stereo? Lack of synchronous whole-home playback? Integration with an extremely unpopular home automation platform? Lack of built in mesh networking between speakers? Inferior voice assistant?

 

[oneMadRssn]

Yeah, the thing I noticed is the color palette (with he exception of the green) seems like they are meant to blend in with similar decor. The promotion photo included is an example of this.

The speaker doesn't look like it's out of place because of the accent colors around it. The only issue is you'd have to make sure is your decor always matches, so it does compliment it.....other wise it will stand out, not in a particularly good way.

The green, however, is an interesting option. It's a much darker shade than the other options , so you'd have to find similar color schemes for it.

I don't think you need accent pieces around the speaker, I think the speaker is the accent piece itself. We had a fancy yellow vase on our mantle for a while, as the accent piece. No reason the sonos couldn't have been that accent piece - certainly would have been a more functional accent piece.

As for the dark green - I think it would work well in a wood house or a wall with lots of natural colors. Some like this:

 

[Sill]

Ditto your comments. It took me hours to get the "verification" email while trying to set up my new Sonos. I quickly discovered how poor the Alexa integration was - a number of songs that played perfectly on our Echo resulted in dead silence on the Sonos. Enough with the beta testing - I returned the speaker - it was delivered to their Memphis return center on March 27 and still waiting for my refund, even after phone calls to them. Totally unimpressed with this company.

Despite enjoying my Sonos "home theater" system (an HT that doesn't play DTS, TrueHD, Atmos, etc, but according to Sonos "most people" prefer to stream their music and movies and not play physical media with higher formats), I grow less impressed with them as time goes by, and the industry passes them by. I'm really considering getting a Denon HEOS soundbar and sub.

However, I found setting my stuff up to be simplicity itself. What verification email are you talking about? I never even signed up for a Sonos account. Despite getting badgered to do so at every single software update, I still have full functionality. I couldn't imagine what you'd need a verification for.

 

[FilipeTeixeira]

What do you mean? I have multiple Sonos devices and they all use one app just fine. Plus with Spotify connect, you don't even have to use the Sonos app - just use the Spotify app. Which then also works many non-Sonos stereos, like many modern home theater receivers support Spotify connect.

Not following your logic on this one. One Sonos app for all Sonos speakers. Other apps have Sonos integration too. Don't know what you mean by different OS's either. The Sonos apps work great across platforms. In fact - Sonos is the defacto standard for multi-speaker setups.

Well, simple. If I have guests coming over and if someone wants to connect to the speaker, it should be possible to user airplay. But that doesn't seem to be possible as you always need to go through the app.
On the other hand if I want to play sound from a movie or something I'm also restricted to it. Or from an analog device for example. The thing is that nowadays everybody assumes that we all stream music. To be honest I really do hate these streaming services like Spotify and so on. Not everybody has unlimited downloads, and not everybody is willing to pay a monthly fee to listen to music. I still get a lot of second hand CDs and Vinyls which cost nearly nothing.

In the end, Bose approach seems to be a bit better. You can connect to the speaker with an AUX cable even on their cheaper products. The only problem is that they are still using technology from 2015.

 

[threesixty360]

Hmm, maybe, but these aren’t cellphones we’re talking about. What is the crushing blow here? Single source streaming? No control of local library? Lack of equalizer? Inability to provide exterior solutions or integrate with an existing system? Lack of stereo? Lack of synchronous whole-home playback? Integration with an extremely unpopular home automation platform? Lack of built in mesh networking between speakers? Inferior voice assistant?

Lack of synchronous whole Home playback?

Is that real. The HomePod can’t sync audio like sonos???

If that’s true then the product is trash to me really. That’s the major thing for me with sonos. That I don’t hear “galloping horses” as I love from room to room. It’s all in sync like it’s coming from one source.

Chromes audio thing doesn’t do it either from what I remember. That’s why I was willing to pay the premium with sonos.

Can’t beleive Apple can’t do that. That’s crazy

 

[Sill]

If that’s true then the product is trash to me really. That’s the major thing for me with sonos. That I don’t hear “galloping horses” as I love from room to room. It’s all in sync like it’s coming from one source.

What are "galloping horses"?

Major props to you for being able to "love from room to room", btw. Many people wish they still had that kind of energy.

 

[threesixty360]

What are "galloping horses"?

Major props to you for being able to "love from room to room", btw. Many people wish they still had that kind of energy.

Haha.. maybe I should proof read a little before posting!

For the record “move from room to room” (iPhone autocorrect is such a great feature!)

“Galloping horses” refers to when two drum beats are slightly out of sync and what that sounds like. You normally here it when a DJ can’t mix two records in time properly (also called “clanging”).

 

[oneMadRssn]

Well, simple. If I have guests coming over and if someone wants to connect to the speaker, it should be possible to user airplay. But that doesn't seem to be possible as you always need to go through the app.
On the other hand if I want to play sound from a movie or something I'm also restricted to it. Or from an analog device for example. The thing is that nowadays everybody assumes that we all stream music. To be honest I really do hate these streaming services like Spotify and so on. Not everybody has unlimited downloads, and not everybody is willing to pay a monthly fee to listen to music. I still get a lot of second hand CDs and Vinyls which cost nearly nothing.

In the end, Bose approach seems to be a bit better. You can connect to the speaker with an AUX cable even on their cheaper products. The only problem is that they are still using technology from 2015.

That's not very accurate. With Sonos, if someone comes over, they can connect to your wifi and use Spotify Connect play to the Sonos speakers easily. Or, if they so choose, they can use the Sonos app which is very seamless because they don't need an account or login or anything - just being on the same wifi is enough. So yes, you do need some app to control the speaker which doesn't have a UI of it's own for obvious reasons, but it doesn't have to be the Sonos app per se.

People seem to think the app does it all though - it doesn't. The app is merely a remote control. The speaker itself does it all. You can start playing music using the app and then turn off your phone - the music will keep playing. Because, as I said, the app is merely a remote control.

In terms of streaming, I used to resist Spotify and say I like to own my music. And I still do - I have about 100GB of ripped music on my NAS (also archive.org is a national treasure). But the price of the family plan is just so darn cheap that it is hard to say no to ($2.50/month/user). Also, the price difference between a 256GB iPhone and a 64GB iPhone pays for years of streaming. So in terms of cost, it's a wash in the end. Sonos is able to stream files from a NAS or from a computer pretty easily. Also, if you get a Sonos with an aux input, that aux input can be played to any other Sonos speaker.

Honestly, in terms of set it and forget it whole home audio, I don't think anyone even comes close to Sonos. It's just so simple.

 

[swajames]

...People seem to think the app does it all though - it doesn't. The app is merely a remote control. The speaker itself does it all. You can start playing music using the app and then turn off your phone - the music will keep playing. Because, as I said, the app is merely a remote control...

...Honestly, in terms of set it and forget it whole home audio, I don't think anyone even comes close to Sonos. It's just so simple...

The first snip from your post is a great point that is so often misunderstood or overlooked, and I couldn’t agree more with the second.