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.

  

   

Sonos / Sonance Outdoor Music Streaming System

   

When I purchased my home a few years ago one of the things I really wanted to do was install some speakers outside on my deck.  I started purchasing Sonos speakers and components and really loved their platform so my hope was that Sonos had plans to add a wireless outdoor speaker to their lineup.  Unfortunately as I did more research I came to the realization that Sonos has no plans to add an outdoor wireless speaker.  I think the components inside a Sonos speaker are just to sensitive for outdoor use.  As a workaround we have been bringing one of our Sonos Play:1 speakers outside or putting it in the window to get our music outside.  This has been an Ok temporary workaround but not a great long-term solution.

Sonos' solution to outdoor speakers is their Connect Amp product and aftermarket outdoor speakers.  The Connect Amp has been around for a while.  It allows you to connect a turntable or CD player and you connect to any speakers you have.   The Amp, obviously is not meant for outdoor use but if you connect it to a good pair of outdoor speakers you are good to go.  The reason most people buy Sonos speakers is because it is so easy to setup and is wireless.  So putting wired speakers on a Sonos product seems a bit silly but if it gets my music outside it works for me.

When I was researching options for my outdoor music solution I was really unaware of who made good outdoor speakers and was really not interested in some of the rock speakers that were popular a few years back.  Eventually I cam across the Sonos / Sonance outdoor music streaming system.  The system is comprised of:

• Sonos Connect Amp
• 2 Sonos MAG06 Outdoor speakers
  
• Xpress Audio Keypad

The system is sold on Amazon and BestBuy and retails for $1,200.  It does frequently go on sale and I have seen it sell for as low as $600 which is what I paid.  The Amp and speakers will run you well over $1,000 separately so if you can get in on sale it is a great deal.  Speaker wire is not included by the way.  When reading reviews some people were complaining that speaker wire was not installed but I think it makes sense not to include speaker wire as some installations will need longer runs and different wire gauges.

Sonos recently released a new Amp product that has twice the power as the Connect Amp as well as HDMI ARC inputs.  I was considering this new product but it is quite a bit more expensive and the HDMI ARC would be useless as I am using the speakers outside.  The new Sonos Amp is rated at 250 watts versus the old Connect Amp at 110 watts.  Based on reviews I have read the power is sufficient for driving a pair of speakers.  If you are planning to drive more than a pair the new Amp is probably a better choice.

My electrician was out last week and snaked the speaker wire through the wall and I am now up and running with the new system.  I am pretty happy for the price I paid.  The speakers are pretty large and seem to be high quality.  I am a little concerned about how they are going to hold up through a new England winter but we will see how it goes.  The sound is good and they work like just another pair of Sonos speakers.  They are not going to blow my neighbors away but get sufficiently loud.  The only odd thing I notices is that I need to have the volume in the Sonos app up to at least 50% to hear anything from the speakers.  Once over 50% the volume gets exponentially louder and there is no need to turn it up to 100%.  I was thinking the issue may be some setting in the app but I couldn't find anything.  I searched through the Sonos community forums and found quite a few people reporting the same issue.  It appears to be just how the amp performs with these speakers.  As I mentioned before they get pretty load so it is not really an issue for me.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the Xpress Audio Keypad Remote that came with the system.  It is kind of a redundant piece of hardware as I usually have my phone with me when I am outside listening to music, this keypad does less than the app does.  I initially thought I would just sell it on Craigslist but it is kind of an obscure product and figured it would not get a whole lot of interest.  So installed it and will use it going forward to see if it adds any value.  It does provide the following functionality.

• play/pause
• track skip
• favorites
• volume up/down

The back is magnetic and you can mount it to your wall with provided double sided tape or in a Decora faceplate.  It sets up as a wireless device, the process was a little convoluted but I was able to get through it in 10 or so minutes.  The only issue I have had is if I put the keypad in my pocket I have accidentally turned the music on without knowing it only to find out hours later when I went outside.  Unfortunately it only pairs to one Sonos/speaker device and there is no screen on it so you can't see which song or favorite station is playing.  Might be more useful if I could toggle through all my Sonos speakers.

Overall I am really liking the system as a whole.  Time will tell how well it hold up but I am going to really enjoy music on my deck for the rest of the season this year. 

Echo Show 5

I have been wanting to replace the 1990s era clock radio in my bedroom with an echo device since the Echo Spot was released.  The issue was my wife refused to allow a device with a camera in the bedroom. So we have been holding off hoping that Amazon would release something new that would work for us.

Then a couple weeks ago Amazon released the new Echo Show 5 which seems to check most of the boxes that were preventing me from upgrading in the past.  I pulled the trigger and purchased the Echo 5 the day it was released.  Below are my thoughts after using the device for a couple days.

Price - For $89 this is a pretty good deal compared to the Echo Spot ($130) and Echo Show($230). 

Sound - Obviously this isn't going to compare with a Sonos speaker but for a clock radio to wake up to it is sufficent

Size - This is a small device, about the size of a standard smartphone.  But the form factor is much better than the Spot especially when viewing video which were cropped way down to be basically unusable.  Not that I am going to be watching movies on the device but the larger size will be useful when streaming video from my security camera's 

Privacy -  This is the big addition that I think will make people who were hesitant to bring an Echo Show device in their bedroom consider it.   The new Echo Show 5 does have a camera but also has a little shutter switch which will cover the camera when not in use.  This definitely alleviated some of the fears that my wife had about using a spot as a clock radio.

Functionality -  Think of this as a smaller version of the Echo Show.  It looks very similar and has most of the same functionality just in a smaller form factor.

Clock Radio - One of the issues that I has with my existing clock radio was that the blue background of the led screen was too bright and I would have to turn it away from me while I slept.  The Echo Show senses the brightness in the room and adjusts the display accordingly.   When all the lights in my room are out the numbers turn an orange like color and is almost too hard to read but I think I just need to get used to it.  I am on vacation this week so I have not used the alarm yet bit I have to assume it woks just fine as teh other echo devices do.

What's Missing - The Echo Show 5 checks almost all the boxes for me the only feature missing in my opinion is a battery backup.  This is a standard feature on most clock radios.  It is especially useful here in New England as we lose power a couple times a year, a battery backup would allow the alarm to still wake me up in the event of a power loss.

Overall I think this is a great device for the price.  Amazon definitely listens to their customers and releases products that fix the problems in the previous models.  Looking forward to getting to know this little device better over the next couple months.

Echo Dot

The days of kids having a digital clock radio in their bedroom to use as an alarm clock and listen to their favorite radio station are long gone.  They now apparently have Echo Dots.  As a high school teacher I know than many high school students no longer know how to read an analog clock.  Soon I think the digital clock will be gone as well.   We will just ask our devices what time it is.   Amazon is making it really easy to fill up your house with these Echo devices.  Lowering the price on the 3rd generation Echo dot to $30 for the holidays was a smart move.  I am sure they converted a lot more customers into their ecosystem as well as got many more existing customers to purchase more devices.

Interestingly, this is the first Echo Dot device that I have purchased, I have a 1st generation Echo Show that I am pretty happy with.  The Echo dot had been reviewed ad-nauseum so there is probably not much I can add here.  It looks a lot nicer than the previous generation and the sound output seems pretty good for a device its size.  Won't come close to teh sound of Sonos speakers obviously.  The external speaker jack is interesting and something I may experiment with although I am invested in Sonos speakers so I probably won't go too far down that path.

My only complaint has to do with the echo device integration with Sonos speakers.  Every time you say the wake word to any Echo device all Sonos speakers in my house are muted.   So my daughter was playing a game on her Echo and all of our Sonos speakers that were playing music muted while the was talking to her Echo.  I think it does that so that the Echo devices can hear more clearly but it really causes an seemingly unnecessary interruption.  Something I may have to look into a workaround for.

First Alert Onelink Safe & Sound Smart Smoke + Carbon Monoxide Alarm

This is the killer smart home product that I have been hoping for Nest to release for the past couple years.  I love Nest products, I have a couple of their thermostats and have been lusting after their smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.  For $119 though they are just too pricey for just a smoke and carbon monoxide detector.  I have almost 20 smoke and/or carbon monoxide detectors in my home so replacing them all would not make economic sense.  I would have considered replacing a couple if they packed a couple for features into the product.

Now First Alert is releasing a smoke and carbon monoxide detector with a high quality speaker and Alexa built in.  The product is set to be released May 1, 2018, I can't wait to read the reviews and hear about the quality of the speaker.  Unfortunately it is pricey at $250.  To me, if the speaker has high quality sound it is worth it.  You are getting an Alexa device, a wireless speaker, a night light, a smoke detector and a carbon monoxide detector.

As good as it sounds I still have some questions and see some potential issues:

• If you have already bought into the Google or Apple smart speaker eco-system having an Alexa device may not work.  No word on whether they will release Apple home kit or Google versions of the product.  I am guessing Nest is probably working on something similar for their next version of Nest Protect.
•  My assumption is the product needs to be hard wired.  Which means you can't just swap out your battery powered  smoke detectors without some major electrical work.
• Will it interconnect with other smoke detectors n the home.  The fire code in my town requires smoke detectors to be interconnected, so if one goes off they al go off.  Does it support the interconnect wire or does it interconnect wirelessly like Nest Protect.
• It has a battery backup but I assume that only powers the smoke and carbon monoxide detector in a power outage
• Most smoke detectors have a 10 year expiration date.  Do I need to throw away my $250 smart speaker when the smoke detector expires.
• The App.  Sometimes non tech companies do not produce quality phone apps.  This is a wait and see, hopefully they put some resourced into developing a quality app.

I think this is a really cool product that I would consider purchasing.  Yes it is pricey, but could be worth it considering all of the functionality they are packing into the device.

Sonos Play: 1

Over the holidays I picked up a Sonos Play: 1 speaker for my bathroom.  The speaker replaces an old. ugly 1990s boom box type radio we had sitting on our counter.  It was ugly, got bad reception and I really wanted to replace it with something smaller and unobtrusive.  The speakers went on sale for the holidays so I pilled the trigger.  My only debate was whether to get one of the new Alexa enabled Sonos One speakers or to stick with the Play: 1.   I decide that since the speaker would reside in our bathroom I didn't really need the Alexa functionality and the price was still $200 so I figured I would save the money.  If the speaker was going in another room I probably would have gone with the Alexa enabled One

When the One came out it was priced the same as the Play:1 which seemed odd to me but now with the $60 difference in the speakers it seems priced right.  Sound wise I think the speakers are the same.

So far I am pretty happy with the Play:1.  Setup was easy, I was up and running in about 15 minutes.  My bathroom is rather large with high ceilings and the speaker does fill the room even with the fan and shower running.  Bass output on the speaker is good.  The speaker is rated for damp environments so no worries about damage from moisture, but we will see I guess.

I do have one complaint, the app.  I loved the app when I had just one set of speakers, but the app seems a little clunky now that I have two rooms to control.  I find myself searching around for which room the music is playing in and how to start and stop it.  This could be just a training issue and my unfamiliarity with the app but it definitely isn't as intuitive as I would like.  Luckily we usually listen to the same station in the morning so we just press the button to start / stop the music.

I still need to get a speaker for my office, I would love a Play:5  but not the price.  I may experiment with my Play:1 in the office and compromise with the Play:3 if the Play: 1 does not suffice.  Probably will wait for an Alexa enabled Play:3 though as it would be nice to have Alexa functionality in my office.

Great speaker and sound overall.  Getting it for under $150 was a good value, not as overpriced as the Playbase and Sub.

Amazon Alexa and Sonos Integration

I have been anxiously awaiting the release of the Sonos / Amazon Alexa integration.  It was released this last Wednesday along with the news that Sonos is releasing their own smart speaker.

Overall the integration is pretty good, nothing mind blowing, is just works as you would expect it to.  I attempted to set it up without any instructions and failed miserably.  Usually Sonos products are extremely simple to setup but when you are dealing with integration with other products things can get complicated.  Overall setup wasn't too bad.  It only took me 10 minutes or so one I fount the instructions online.  Sonos has a great instruction video below.

First you need to add the Sonos skill in the Alexa app.  You will then be prompted to log into your Sonos and Amazon accounts and give Alexa permission to control your Sonos system.  Next you will be prompted to discover devices in the Alexa app so it can find all of your Sonos speakers,  Then you can add the music services that Sonos supports to the Alexa app.  That is pretty much it.

You need to tell Alexa which speaker your would like to control but it works as you would expect.  You can use the following commands.

Play song or artist in a particular room
Volume up / Volume down
Pause
Stop
Next track
Previous track
Add a Station on Pandora

One disappointment is that I cannot control my music library on my computer.  Hopefully this functionality is coming as right now I can only control Pandora or TunedIn as I am not an Amazon Music subscriber. It is a nice start and works fine but I hope they keep adding functionality as time goes on.

Google pulls YouTube from the Echo Show

Last week I was disappointed to find that I could no longer play YouTube videos on my Echo Show.  I asked Alexa to play a particular video and her response was that "Currently, Google is not supporting YouTube on the Echo Show".

After a little googling I found that Amazon and Google have been in negotiations for a while but Google pulled YouTube because the Echo implementation violates their terms of service and creates a broken experience, but they hope to reach an agreement and resolve the issue soon.

So each company is blaming the other and the customer loses, very unfortunate.  My guess is googles issue if that on the Echo you can't subscribe, comment, like or most importantly view and click on ads.  That is a whole revenue stream google is missing out on so that are taking their ball and leaving.

My guess is the Amazon could just serve up YouTube videos through a web browser which the Echo show must have.  Then ads and all the other functionality would be available and wouldn't violate their TOS.

For me the loss of YouTube on the Echo Show is kind of a big deal as I am not an Amazon Prime or Music Subscriber  so I have no way to listen to music on the show.  But that may be a non issue now that Sonos has released Alexa integration.  I will post about the Sonos/Alexa Integration after I have had a chance to play with it a little more.  So far though it looks pretty good.

I think as more companies get into the home automation and music streaming game there will be more and more issues like this as the companies jockey to come out on top.  Will be interesting to see how it all plays out over the next couple years.

Sonos Sub

I purchased my Sonos Playbase a few months ago and it drastically improved on the sound of my TV speakers but I still felt it was a little weak on bass.  Even though the Playbase has a built in subwoofer port I felt I was just not getting the lows that I was used to with my old home theater.

I demoed the playbase and sub a few times and knew the sub would make the difference I was looking for but the $700 price tag was really making me hesitate.  I could get similar subs for around $250 but I have bought into the Sonos ecosystem so I knew I has to pull the trigger.  Then I got an email from Sonos that they were having a 15% off sale and that tipped the scales for me.

I picked up the Sub a few weeks ago and I have to say I am pretty happy with the purchase.  Is it worth $700?  That is debatable but for me to be truly happy with my home theater system it was what I needed.

Setup of course was very simple.  I just unboxed the sub, plugged it in, added the sub to my room, synced it, ran through TruePlay and I was up and running in about 10 minutes.  The sub really adds a lot of depth to music.  The room I have mu home theater in is about 25' x 25' with cathedral ceiling so it is a lot of space to fill with sound.  The PlayBase and Sub are up to the task.  But where it really shines is movies.  The explosions can now be felt but it feels to be like a more natural low rather than sound that you would get from a cheaper Subwoofer.  Even my 10 year old daughter commented on how much more fun it was to watch Beauty and the Beast with all the extra rumbling and growling.

I've yet to watch a movie to really test it.  I may wait until I am home alone and play Saving Private Ryan at good volume to not disturb the wife and kids.  Overall pretty happy with the purchase I am still struggling a bit with the price but the 15% off makes it a little more palatable.

Next on my Sonos wish list is probably going to be a Play 1 for my office but I think I may wait a bit as I am reading rumors that Sonos will be releasing a new speaker with integrated microphone and voice control.  Sound pretty interesting....

Update:  My sub died.  This is the second sonos product that has died on me too soon.  No lights, would not turn on, nothing.  Makes me worried about the QC of these product but maybe 5 years is what you get out of smart products.   I quick search on the sonos message boards and it seems I am not the only one with this issue.  I do feel like the price you pay for Sonos products, they should last at least 10 years.  When my playbase died, it was just out of the warranty period so they sent me a new unit,  I was not expecting the same with a 4 year old product but they did give me about a 45% discount on the purchase of a new sub.  So I would consider that pretty good customer service, although I do have some concerns moving forward about quality and reliability but for me there is no real alternative to Sonos.

Sonos - Playbase

For the past year I am been browsing around looking for a good soundbar that would fit in my family room.  In my old house I had a pretty good Cambridge Soundworks  6.1 surround sound system installed, which did not come with me to the new house.  In my new house wanted better home theater sound, but I did not want to run wires. With the layout of the room, it would be impossible or at least extremely ugly to run wires around the walls.  I have been looking at higher end soundbars, but I was unable to find one reviewed well enough to encourage me to pull the trigger.  My other issue is my TV sits so low on the base that most soundbars would block the IR receiver.  This seemed to be another instance where the technology was not yet where I needed it to be but if I waited long enough something would eventually be released.  I have not been real impressed with the performance of any of the Bluetooth speakers I have owned and I have never really been a fan of Bose products.

I had read about a bit about Sonos products, and really wasn't looking very closely at them as they are pretty pricey.  Then last month I came across a couple reviews of the Playbase.  Although pricey, it seemed to fit the criteria of most of what I was looking for.

• Great Sound
• Plenty of bass for movies
• Expandable
• Wireless
• Can play music form just about anywhere

So after a lot of research I pulled the trigger and picked up a Playbase.  I have to say I am impressed.  The sound obviously does not rival my old 6.1 system but it is pretty damn good.  I no longer find my self turning the volume up to hear dialogue and then down when the explosions get too loud.  It also looks great under my TV.  Very sleek and unobtrusive.

What has impressed me the most is the ability to stream different types of audio.  I have been a Pandora user for a while so it was great to be able to use it on the Playbase as well.  I am also able to listen to local radio stations through TunedIn.  The system supports 49 streaming services so most likely your favorite is supported.  Most impressive is I am able to share out my whole music library on my PC and stream it to the Playbase.  The great thing is it just works.  The app is great, very intuitive.  You don't get any drops like on Bluetooth.

I can't really find much to complain about regarding the system but if I had to come up with something....

• Its expensive - Yes it is expensive but for me it is worth it
• Limited connection options - The playbase connects from your TV using an optical cable only. 
• It does not support DTS or other advanced audio formats

The problem is now I am wanting to add more components to the system.  While the bass output is good I am sure it would sound a lot better with the sub so I will probably be adding one soon.  And once I have the sub I might as well get a couple Play1s for the rear.  Then of course I need a Play 3 for the office.   Not to mention the kids rooms and bathroom.   The good thing is once I do build the whole system out it will be so easy to setup and manage through the app.  You can have one audio source playing in one room and another audio source in another room.

Also on the horizon is integration with Amazon Echo so if you are a user of voice control products it is coming toward the end of 2017.  Overall very happy with my Playbase and looking forward to adding more components as budget permits.