Pros & Cons
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- Outstanding audio
- Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity
- Portable, waterproof design
- Feature-rich app
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- Supports only basic Bluetooth codecs
- A little heavy
Sonos Play Specs
| Bluetooth | |
| Built-In Voice Assistant | Amazon Alexa |
| Built-In Voice Assistant | Sonos Voice Control |
| Channels | 2 |
| Multi-Room | |
| Physical Connections | None |
| Portable | |
| Water-Resistant | |
| Wi-Fi |
The $299 Sonos Play slots in between the Roam 2 ($179) and the Move 2 ($499) in the company's lineup of portable speakers in both size and price. It benefits from the Move 2's rich feature set, which includes support for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi streaming, long battery life, and exciting sound, while adding extras like a waterproof design and a lanyard. It combines all this in a compact package that's easy to move around your home and bring on your adventures. Versatile, powerful, and portable, the Play secures its place as a standout in the company's lineup and earns our Editors' Choice award.
Design: A Dark, Enigmatic Tower
The Sonos Play doesn't stray far from the company's longtime industrial design. In fact, it looks like a scaled-down version of the Move 2. When viewed from the top, it has an oval shape and is meant to stand upright rather than rest on its sides. It comes in the same black or white options as most Sonos products.
It measures 7.6 by 4.4 by 3.0 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.9 pounds. The Move 2 is bigger in every dimension at 9.5 by 6.3 by 5.0 inches and 6.6 pounds, while the Roam 2 is a much smaller 6.6 by 2.4 by 2.4 inches and 0.95 pounds. The Bose SoundLink Plus ($269) is in the same ballpark at 3.9 by 9.1 by 3.4 inches and 3.3 pounds.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)The Sonos Play is certainly portable, as it's easy to pick up and move around. It's a little heavy to toss into a backpack and carry all day; for that, I'd want something lighter. But by all means, toss it in the back seat of your car and bring it to the park—as long as you're going to sit in one place and not hike around. For trail action, you'd be better off with something small like the $119 Bose SoundLink Micro or the $119.99 Marshall Willen.
The top and bottom of the Play are made from a hard rubber commonly used in portable speakers. Most of the chassis is a dense, wraparound plastic grille with a rubber section on the rear that runs top to bottom. You'll find playback controls built into the top surface. These include, from left to right, the volume down, play/pause, and volume up buttons, and a Sonos key behind them. You double-press the play/pause button to advance a track or triple-press it to go back one. I like that the volume keys make a sound and cause the indicator light to glow brighter for a second each time you press them. Three small holes in the top indicate the far-field mics.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)More controls line the rear. First is a dedicated Bluetooth pairing button, followed by a mic on/off switch, the power button, and a USB-C port that supports reverse charging another device, charging the Play itself, or connecting audio accessories. You can't just use any audio accessories; you have to buy them from Sonos. A rubber loop near the top edge lets you hang the speaker from hooks, nails, or anything else you might care to dangle it from. The flat bottom houses two pogo pins that connect with the included charging dock.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)The status LED, positioned on the front near the top, does a lot. When the speaker is on and connected to Wi-Fi, it glows white. If you see green, it's fully charged. A blinking blue light indicates it is in Bluetooth pairing mode, while a steady blue glow indicates the Bluetooth radio is connected.
One of the big upgrades over the Move 2 is the Play's water-resistant design. It meets the IP67 standard, meaning it is dustproof and can withstand a brief dunk in shallow water. The Move 2's IP56 rating means it can withstand most dust and being sprayed with water, but not dunking. The Roam 2 and Bose SoundLink Plus have the same IP67 rating as the Play. This makes the Play a much more durable companion than the Move 2 on your outdoor excursions.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)The Play has three drivers inside: two angled tweeters for stereo sound and a woofer for reproducing mid- and low-frequency sounds. Sonos has not specified the drivers' frequency response nor their power rating. The speaker connects directly to your phone via Bluetooth 5.3, which is disappointingly outdated. (The latest spec is Bluetooth 6.0.) Sonos doesn't say what Bluetooth codecs the Play supports. For reference, the Roam 2 and Move 2 support only the AAC and SBC codecs, and not advanced ones like LC3 or LDAC. That said, you can stream high-quality audio over Wi-Fi. The speaker connects via Wi-Fi 6 and supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, as well as Apple AirPlay 2 and TruePlay to tune itself to the room.
You can pair two Plays via Bluetooth for wider stereo separation, either directly from the speaker itself or from the Sonos app. You cannot pair the Play with a Roam 2, Move 2, or any other Sonos speaker over Bluetooth for stereo. You can, of course, add the Play to your home Sonos network via Wi-Fi, where it can be used in a multi-room arrangement. This is really good because it lets you stream high-quality music over Wi-Fi anywhere in your home.
Pressing the Sonos key calls up the voice assistant of your choice—as long as you don't mind choosing Amazon Alexa or Sonos Voice. The speaker doesn't support Google Assistant or Siri. I tested the "Hey, Sonos" callword, and it does a mostly decent job of perking up and finding the song you want to play. You can set this feature to wake automatically if you don't want to press the button each time. You can also choose to ignore it.
Battery: Rock and Roll All Nite (and Party Every Day)
Sonos says the Play's battery should last 24 hours per charge. The company doesn't provide guidance on what volume gets you that much playtime. The louder you listen, however, the shorter the battery life will be.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)You charge the Play by dropping it in the provided dock. The dock is oval, like the speaker. You can accidentally place the speaker in the dock facing the wrong direction, in which case it won't charge. Make sure the speaker faces outward by lining its rear controls with the cable that extends from the dock. Speaking of, the cable is 6 feet long; I wish it were a little longer.
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You can also charge the speaker via USB-C cable and a charging brick. Sonos suggests using a brick that charges at 18W or higher. Sonos doesn't say how long it should take to charge the speaker. There's no charging brick included. Last, you can use the USB-C port to charge your phone if needed. Like the Move 2, you can replace the Play's battery if it wears down.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)In comparison, the Move 2 also lasts 24 hours, while the Roam 2 lasts only 10 hours. The SoundLinkPlus lasts 20 hours per charge.
App Experience: Powerful, But Slightly Complex
The Play is one of the first genuinely new hardware products Sonos has launched since the enormous app debacle soured consumers on the company, delayed products, and led to the CEO's departure. The app is...complicated. There are two halves: One manages the Play and its settings, and the other provides access to your music services and helps you stream them. The app's interface for the speaker itself is perfectly fine, but the UI for choosing music is messy and overwrought.
(Credit: Sonos/PCMag)You'll get the best experience from the Play if you subscribe to one or more streaming services, such as Apple Music, Spotify, or Tidal. Add your streaming service to the app, and you'll be able to access all your tunes from the Sonos app or from the individual streaming apps. I added multiple services, including my SiriusXM subscription, and had no trouble accessing and using them via the Sonos app. It's still a bit kludgy, with a lot of screens to wade through, and you having to reauthenticate your subscriptions too often, but it works (which, after the May 2024 update, it didn't for a while).
More importantly, at least for the purposes of this review, the Sonos app is where you control the Play speaker. The Play gets its own screen, where you can quickly see what network it's using, what room it's in, set alarms, or add it to groups. Successive screens allow you to adjust battery modes, tweak a two-band EQ (just bass and treble), add voice assistants, adjust the status light, and more. It's all easy enough to sort through and set the speaker to behave the way you prefer.
The Roam and Move use the same app and have much the same controls. The Bose SoundLink Plus doesn't have an all-encompassing app that includes music services. In fact, its app is rather basic, but the EQ lets you adjust three bands.
Sound: Exceptional Sound From Abba to Zappa
The Play pumps out a lot of audio for a speaker that stands only 7.6 inches tall. Honestly, I'd love to know the wattage, because it's seriously loud. Bombast isn't everything, of course, and the Play does a lot more than bring the volume. It produces some of the clearest, most accurate sound I've heard from a speaker of its size—and I pushed it hard. I tested it with everything from Bach to Black Sabbath, from Johannes Brahms to John Denver, from Mozart to Metallica, from Stravisnki to Skrillex, and from Rachmaninoff to Radiohead. I played our usual test tracks, too.
(Credit: Eric Zeman)In a song that tests the Play's bass chops, The Knife's "Silent Shout" starts with low, pounding bass that thumps on the beat at first and swells throughout, adding layers as the song progresses. The speaker handles them easily. It's a busy track with elements that swing in and out of the mix, dotting the audio landscape as they come and go. All these passages find their own space to move through the audio without complicating things.
Moving on to Kendrick Lamar’s “Loyalty,” I found the Play struggles a little with sub-bass. Where standard bass notes are thrummed with gusto, about half of the lowest sub-bass notes at the song's 34-second mark are lost. Most Bluetooth speakers can't hit any of these notes, so the Play does better here than many. Lamar and Rihanna's vocals are present, clean, and come through without being overwhelmed. Highs are crisp.
Bill Callahan's "Drover" showcases the speaker's ability to step back and deliver a looser sound stage with pleasing dynamic range. The chut-chut-chut-chut of the drums drives the song forward, while the guitar helps keep the rhythm. Callahan's deep vocals shine in a delicate, personal way. The Play delivers stereo presentation thanks to its angled tweeters, but there's not much separation. This is a basic physics story that most single-piece speakers succumb to. Broader separation would help with tracks like this one.
Finally, John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, an orchestral track that draws on a bevy of timbres from the strings and choral voices, sounds excellent despite the narrow soundstage. Orchestral works beg for wide stereo presentations to allow for the whole group to find space. Even so, I was able to pick out violins, string basses, oboes, flutes, and the piano without any problem. Rather than come across as a thick jumble of sound, the Play found just a sliver of space for each to stand on its own in the mix. I can't recall the last time I heard such a clear rendition of this song from a Bluetooth speaker.
As noted above, the volume is quite something, but I have a couple of observations. The Play can get louder when docked in the charger. The few times I tried to blast it outdoors, digital signal processing kicked in to prevent distortion, and the volume dropped a few notches on its own. This doesn't happen when the speaker is charging (or at least it didn't while I was testing it). It's certainly loud enough to fill most backyards with enough music to keep everyone happy, except for maybe those seated closest to it.
Also, Sonos has tuned the speaker to have a flatter EQ curve. If you're looking for a speaker with mega bass, this isn't it (try the Bose SoundLink Plus instead). The Play has plenty of bass, but it's not so bone-rattling that it endangers your skull.