Sonos Move Portable Speaker

 

With our kitchen remodel complete we got rid of our 1st generation Echo Show and replaced it with an Echo Show 15.  I knew from reviews I read that the speakers on the Echo Show 15 were not great for music.  The speakers on the 1st Gen actually sounded a bit better than the Show 15 and that was my wife's primary device for listening to music while working in the kitchen.  So this gave me the perfect opportunity to upgrade our kitchen speaker.  I considered getting another Sonos One speaker but a little more power and the ability to move the speaker around my home was really appealing.  

The Sonos Move falls between the One and the Five as far as sound quality goes.  But the Move has a couple advantages:

• Battery Powered / Rechargeable
• Wifi and Bluetooth
• Alexa and Sonos Voice Control
• Indoor / Outdoor (IP56)
• Durable

I bought the Move for primary use in the the kitchen as I expect that is where it will live 90% of the time.  But the option to bring it with me in another room or outside where I am working is a nice option.  Sonos claims 11 hour battery life, I have not had a chance to test this out yet.  It does come with a charging cradle but you can also charge it using a USB-C charger. 

The wifi range on the Move seems pretty good, I have an acre and a half yard with a firepit quite a ways away from the house and the Move works fine there which is the furthest away I would probably be using it.  I did do some range testing walking the perimeter of my yard and I did have one drop out at the far end of my yard but the speaker reconnected quickly when I got back in range.

This speaker is a tank, it weighs about 6.5 pounds, it does have a carrying handle built into the back of the speaker but you are going to get a workout if you are carrying it any significant distance.  I like the rubberized base which will protect it from drops, although I have no plans to test the drop rating of a $400 speaker.  It also has a IP56 moisture rating so getting caught in a rainstorm isn't going to ruin the speaker.

I have owned cheaper BlueTooth speakers which is a nice option when on vacation.  Switching to Bluetooth mode is as easy as pressing the Bluetooth button on the back of the speaker and then connecting your device.  You switch back to wifi mode by pressing the Bluetooth button again.

The Move come in black and white, I opted for the white version to blend in a bit more with my white/grey kitchen.  Setup was very easy as it is with all Sonos products, I was up and running within a couple minutes.  Sound quality is excellent, it fills my kitchen up nicely with sound and the larger speaker has plenty of bass.  

Overall I am pretty happy with my Move, I have only been using it for a month though so I will update this post as I put it through its paces over the next few months.

  

   

Echo Show 15

 

When the Echo Show 15 was released about 8 months ago I knew I had to get one to upgrade my first generation Show which is really slow to bring up my cameras or do anything really.  The product is really at the end of life as far as functionality goes.  It was basically just serving as a kitchen clock and occasionally for viewing cameras, but that was getting unreliable and slow.  $250 is pretty expensive so I decided to wait until Prime Day and see if it would go on sale.  I was really lucky as it did go on sale and I was able to trade in my First Gen show, and got a gift card for the trade-in so the final cost was under $100, which was a no brainer for me.

This summer we were undergoing a kitchen renovation so it was a good time to rethink how we use technology and hopefully simplify things a bit.  One thing we really wanted to do is clean up the messy bulletin board we had on the wall with the dry erase calendar that we used for managing our family's appointments and schedules.  The echo show 15 has a sticky note widget as well as a calendar widget that would solve those use cases for us.  I also liked the idea of being able to manage all of my smart home products from the smart home widget but that leaves a lot to be desired at this point, more on that later.

My major use cases for the Echo Show 15 are as follows.

• Organization
• Calendar Functionality
• Smart Home Functionality

As far as organization goes I am really happy with how much cleaner the area looks now.  The Show 15 looks like a picture frame hanging on the wall and definitely has a cool factor.  See below:

I am most impressed with the calendar functionality.  We were able to connect our iPhone calendars with Alexa so now all of our and our kids appointments show up right of the Show 15.  This is really a game changer for my not having to remember when I have to pick up the kids from sports or whatever they have going on.

Unfortunately the smart home functionality / widget leaves a lot to be desired.  The widget only diplays six of my favorite smart devices and there is no functionality to go into a full screen to see all my devices / rooms like you can in the Alexa app.  Hopefully this functionality will be imporoved upon in the future.

Installation was pretty easy, they provided a sturdy bracket to mount the Show.  My wife weng back and forth a bit regarding where to put the device but decided to mount it to tge side of the wood enclosure for my refirgerator.  The issue with mounting ot there was the power outlet was on the other side ofteh wall.  I was ablr to pick up some plastic raceway and run the cable down the corner of teh wall which looks pretty clean.

One major issue that I am experiencing is that I am no longer able to drop in on my Alexa devices.  I was able to do this a couple months ago without issue but now it just attemps to connect but never does.  I don't think it has anything to do with the Echo Show 15 and I am unable to drop in on my Echo show 5 either.  I think it is some setting in my Alexa account that is preventing drop in but I have been unable to figure it out so far.  I even posted on some of the Alexa support message boards but they were not much help/

Another think I am a bit dissapointed with is the number of widgets available in the widget gallery.  I would hope as time goes by smart device manufacturers will create widgets for theor devices.  It would be great to have a widget that shows my sense status real time.    

I think overall this device has a lot of potentail.  I am looking forward to using it more once the school year starts and my familie's schedule starts getting crazy again.