I run several different systems around our home including Sonos systems and do not use the app for anything else than tunino. My Apple TV, airplay and Roon are my music apps. And they all work perfectly with Sonos.
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Sonos Working on New 'Era' High-End Speakers
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Ok so what's the trick. I have a linksys mesh network and when I had just the OneSL, it would play music for 5 min then start cutting out. Only way I could fix it was to plug directly into one of the nodes. Now, I have added to my Sonos collection with 3 OneSL, Beam, and mini sub. I haven't tried to run it completely wireless. The beam is connected to one of my nodes...
That's dependent on the user and the environment their to be used in (Sonos/HomePod).
Fidelity is just as dependent on the acoustics of the environment as well as the entire sound system used within right?
I live in a decent size apartment, no carpet, not a lot of wood furniture (something I'll change over time this year). Although my apartment doesn't allow for echo's or for reverb from the walls/ceiling.
I chose Sonos Play as a decent speaker - before the HomePod OG debuted. Kept it during 7mths during the vague promise of a speaker supporting AirPlay2 but the Play:1 was not it. SOLD.
I choose HomePod OG for fidelity and ecosystem: mostly as a hub before that was taken away months ago.
I switched to Sonos One for independent music streaming while kittens have something soothing beyond dog barking/whimpering next door during the day when I'm working in office. Apple Music which I pay for doesn't allow me to stream music to my former HomePod nor to Sonos One Gen 2 while playing my playlists to AirPods/Beats Fit Pro's when I'm not at home. I have to ugprade to a family tier when I live by myself! really ridiculous.
So I'll be choosing a HomePod OG in the next week or brand new HomePod 2nd Gen.
Sure, but let's not kid ourselves into calling Sonos/Apple or any other "smart" speaker high-fidelity. True high-fidelity equipment is extremely expensive. Think Cambridge Audio, KEF, etc. These smart speakers are great at what they do, however.
If you aren't using the term in the traditional sense when talking about audio equipment we may be talking about different things here.
I agree... which I why I am not using Alexa or Apple in the speaker realm, smart assistant and home automation yes, speakers no. I have been testing other products and systems that are not closed and require a few more hops...
Back to spitballing on the speaker itself, I think the naming is interesting since the Era 300 is said to be a replacement for the 5. Replacing the 1 with something named 100 is logical, and it follows that the replacement for the 5 would be called Era 500, not 300. So I'm thinking that it's really a replacement for the old Play 3 which has been a hole in their product line for too long.
Or maybe it's both. Maybe it fills the price gap between the 1 and 5, but they think it will actually sound better than the current 5, so in the short term the 5 is discontinued and the 300 will be the top of the line until they come out with an even better 500 model as a true 5 replacement.
Or maybe it's both. Maybe it fills the price gap between the 1 and 5, but they think it will actually sound better than the current 5, so in the short term the 5 is discontinued and the 300 will be the top of the line until they come out with an even better 500 model as a true 5 replacement.
I don’t see Apple dropping support of the OG anytime soon. I agree that they obsolete some products for what seems like little to no real reason, but if they are trying to convince people to buy into this ecosystem, obsoleting one of their three speakers would be a big warning sign for many to look elsewhere.
Sort of like abandoning Aperture users and giving them no option for moving their libraries to another professional app. Apple is no angel when it comes to products they want to forget ever existed.
Many ( if not all) of the inexpensive Dots have aux out which makes that easier. My issue with the generation of echo products i have it’s the mics completely suck, so good luck getting them to hear you over Music. Apple was smart to include great mics on the homepod products, but they need some ability to rename Siri for those that have several devices with “ hey Siri” turned on.
It is a problem.
And it kind of baffles me in a way. I think they made a mistake by getting caught in Amazon's game. Amazon launched speakers as a way into the home simply because that's the only option that they had. I think Apple could have sidestepped that by just realizing that there's no objective reason that home automation has to be tied to a hifi speaker. HomePod buyers are practically guaranteed to have an iPhone within audible distance at any moment. Or a watch or iPad or whatever. In retrospect, tying HomePod to HomeKit has been a huge headache for Apple and users alike.
I'd rather see Apple have a simple HomeKit device that's cheap and all it does is act as a controller. Put one in every room and yeah it's got a speaker for communication but it's not trying to replace your stereo. Then have a separate speaker lineup if they want, to compete with Sonos, but make it focused (like Sonos) on audio and not HomeKit.
I won't hold my breath, since I think if Apple could sell a single device that morphed into a phone, iPad, Mac, speaker, TV, car, and floor wax, they'd do it.
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I already said Apple obsoletes stuff… read my post again. No where did I call them an Angel. The fact is that Aperture wasn’t a physical part of an ecosystem they were just starting to build up. Apple needs some of the people already using Homepods to buy more speakers for other rooms. Obsoleting one of their 3 speakers on the market would not be a way to do that.
It would also make other consumers much more wary of buying any HomePod.
While I agree that it doesn't make sense to drop support for the OG Homepod soon, Apple doesn't have a great history with supporting 1st gen products, with the 1st gen iPhone only receiving 3 years of support, the 1st gen iPad only receiving a (shocking) 2.5 years of support, and the original Apple Watch receiving just over 3 years of support. Given that, it wouldn't be uncharacteristic of Apple to drop support for it soon.
I know. I use it on the Sonos speakers that I have left… but I don’t want to buy more Sonos stuff again.
I was going to suggest setting audio compression to automatic but interesting that was just a single OneSL. If it's a been a while it might be worth unwiring and see if Linksys issued an update that fixed it.
I'm on an Eero mesh (pre-Amazon purchase) with 2 Play:5s, 2 Play:1s, Playbase, Arc SL+Sub+OneSLs. On a rare occasion I get some audio stuttering when I'm streaming something with Dolby Atmos where I have to stop the stream and resume.
No. I sold the Sonos stuff to make a decent profit and downsize my absurd Sonos collection and stop using Alexa.
It no longer receiving software updates (which hasn’t happened yet) isn’t the same as it losing functionality, though. It being unable to invoke Siri or it not appearing as an AirPlay target will probably happen much later.
How many speakers? Usually more than 3 and apple HomePods start having issues. Lots of forums on this kind of problem.
Agreed. if we are talking about new features, the chip could be a future issue. Though, I don‘t see it not working for its current purpose for a long time to come.
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Ah, I don't use Alexa but recently enabled Sonos Voice Control. It seems to work with Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Deezer.