I brought a Sonos One on Amazon Prime day for $200 with a $50 Amazon gift card included. I plan on using the gift card to get an Apple iTunes gift card on sale. Over the long run, the price of this speaker will come out to be about $145 (including tax!). You can’t beat this price (I did find one online from Lowe’s for $179.10 if your interested now that it’s past Prime day). I pulled the trigger because I was getting fed up with using my portable Bluetooth speaker around the house and wanted to dip my toes in the water of multihome audio. With Sonos getting AirPlay 2 support and finding this deal it was a no brainer.
I’m so happy with it I already want more! The AirPlay support is rock solid and the sound quality is better than everything I’ve ever had. I have a small apartment and it fills the entire place on 70%. I’m moving to a bigger house soon and I think it’ll be a great speaker for the living room. I’m hoping to pick up a few more the place around the house for the multi room experience. Maybe even extra to do a stereo pair.
Some of you, like me, may be considering a HomePod instead. I’ve only heard the HomePod in the store but I can say that I’m not upset with my decision to go the route of the Sonos. The sound quality is excellent, it has Alexa support, and with AirPlay 2 It’s easy to summon music to the Sonos. All I have to do is tell Siri on my phone or watch “Play my playlist in the bedroom” or “Play this song everywhere”. This is only going to get easier once watchOS 5 arrives and I don’t have to say “Hey Siri” everytime I raise my wrist. The only reasons I would still like a HomePod are for the the HomeKit hub support. I feel like Alexa and AirPlay 2 get me the rest of what I’m looking for. Sure I can’t just tell the Sonos to play an Apple Music song/playlist but I have a 4 month Amazon Music Unlimited plan for $1 so I can ask Alexa for that. HomeKit isn’t a huge deal either. Most of my accessories, like philips hue, have a separate app that communicates over the internet without it. What about workflows and Siri shortcuts? AirPlay 2. My watch is always on me and my phone isn’t far away either (it has “hey Siri” enabled also).
Overall I’m very impressed with this app. With the huge difference in price between this and a HomePod I don’t think it’s a comparison. Feel free to pick some up without the fear of regretting your decision.
I’m really liking the AirPlay 2 capabilities of my Sonos Play:5. The fact that Sonos allows the Play:5 to act as an AirPlay 2 receiver for my older Play:1s is really great.
I’m going back and forth as to whether I want to get some Sonos Ones or a couple of HomePods to round out my system.
I find the price of the HomePod to be such a turn off. If you can afford it then absolutely! However when I can get two Sonos Ones for the same price and still have a few bucks to spare…
If your not in a hurry throw a camelcamelcamel price watch on both and see if the HomePod ever comes down to a more reasonable price.
Long time Sonos user here as well and am so happy AirPlay2 works this well. I also hit the Prime sale for a couple of Ones to replace older gen Play:1s! I just wish you could join a One with an older Play:1 in a stereo pair so that the pair could take advantage of AirPlay2. Guess you can’t cross generations of tech, though.
I also got one of the bundles on Amazon yesterday. Would have liked to get a second one but they only let me check out with one (maybe I could have tried for the other color). I saw the Lowe’s deal but it looks like they are out of stock at the moment. The discount goes through September so this will give me a chance to try out the One that comes tomorrow to see if I can live with just one and grouping to other lofcatiins or if a second One would be helpful.
My Prime Day Sonos One arrived this morning. I now have it set up in the kitchen (replaced a Play:1 that is now in another room) and am now happily playing a podcast via Overcast and AirPlay 2 throughout the house.
Now to see if I have a need to leave the Echo in the same area or can move it elsewhere.
The gift card just arrived and I thought you would be right. Amazons own websites says that you cant’t use one gift card to buy another. I was throughly suprised to find out that that is not the case. My order went through just fine and so did reediming it on my itunes account. Perhaphs it was becasue it was a digital gift card? Not entirely sure why I was able to do this but I’m happy I can!
Your Amazon.com Balance cannot be used to purchase other Gift Cards, prepaid open loop cards, or certain third-party gift cards.
So some, but not all, third party gift cards are ineligible.
Reading between the lines, I think they’re concerned about preventing you from using a gift card to buy things that are too much like cash (due to the potential of fraud/exploits). Evidently an iTunes gift card is far enough from cash (and restrictive enough about how you can spend it) that it falls outside their concerns.
