SonosSonos Era 100 | Smart Speaker with WiFi, Bluetooth, compatible with Amazon Alexa - White

I already own a pair of the fantastic Sonos Era 100's that I use for listening to music in my bedroom and since upgrading to a Beam gen 2 soundbar for the living room TV, I had to compliment it by adding another pair or Era 100's to use as my surround speakers. And boy I'm so glad I did. They really make all the difference. The build quality is great and ease of use and connectivity . I only have a small space to fill but the sound is perfect for movies and listening to music and to be able to group them with my bedroom speakers to have music playing throughout. Definitely a good investment

I love this speaker, a great addition to our house. The most important factor is how it sounds, and it's brilliant. It's replaced an older Bose Bluetooth speaker we used to have in our kitchen, and the difference in audio quality is night and day - well worth what I paid for it. It is very easy to setup and control via an app on your phone, and for me it integrates seamlessly with Spotify and BBC Sounds. I would recommend this product to anyone who thinks it's reasonable to spend over £200 on a speaker.I originally wrote this review with the title "Excellent speaker - but voice control is poor". This is because the voice controls did not work properly in my first few weeks of owning the product in February 2024. Alexa was completely unusable - simple commands rarely worked, complex commands never worked. Also, there are no good alternative ways to control the device with your voice (this is still true - the built-in "Hey Sonos" is useless for everything apart from adjusting the volume, and it's not compatible with Google Assistant). However, as of March 2024 Alexa now works without any problems and the device works properly as a smart speaker. I've read that this was a known bug with Alexa on this particular speaker, and it has now been fixed. Therefore, I've updated this review with 5 stars.

Easy to setup and sounds great.

Super easy to connect where the older Sonos used to take ages. Bluetooth back up is amazing if your WiFi drops. Sounds awesome. I have two for my studio and always get comments!

Beyond the modern and tasteful aesthetic the sound is excellent. Listening to my studio monitors is great , but when casually listening to music I want a speaker that isn’t so clinical and embellishes the music while not fatiguing the ears.Here is where the era 100 excel. It’s almost like listening to everything through a 1/4 inch tape machine, it makes digital music sound as smooth and buttery as tape audio. Snares are clear with papery like harmonics , bass sits very well and when calibrated still is a little too much for my liking , although it still sounds detailed , almost pulling out every harmonic overtone to define it. The eq doesn’t stress out the compressor too much so your music doesn’t sound squashed , but reducing the bass a couple of notches in this smallish room made a world of difference , opening up the sound.I did find that there is a ‘wear In period’ for the drivers , so expect the sound to get better after about 5- 6 hours of listening time. The calibration routine gave me a forward mid signature that works well in this room, I removed loudness and dropped bass eq two notches and now I think I have my sweet spot for most occasions.I have eclectic taste but the majority of my music is Electronic and Jazz. This can means anything from Classical, I did find badly mastered piano music to distort the tweeters, most things are fine, to Drum and Bass and progressive techno, Coltrane and Classical Japanese music.The single speaker does handle stereo information via its two tweeters I believe , but obviously two would be best for larger rooms.The app is ok and I did find WiFi a bit dodgy at first with lag , I wonder if it’s downloading/ uploading initial data, because after 30 mins or so it began behaving as it should, bit like when you first use a new computer , takes a while to settle down. Voice control is very responsive after this and as I play mostly from Apple Music and Bandcamp , the main Sonos app integrates these, but using Apple play 2 directly and using the apps on their own is a quicker experience.So far it’s been reliable , the sound is really great for home listening and a welcome break from my sterile and clinical studio monitors.It only drops a star because the app is laggy compared to using things like Apple Music directly , but this is trivial compared to the overall experience , which is worth the asking price.

I don't like to leave 1 star reviews, but I struggle to give it anything higher.Sonos have really dropped the ball. Several months ago they updated their Android app, and it stopped you being able to use Alexa on the speaker. This still hasn't been fixed over there months later.Essentially, you can't add Alexa if you have the Amazon shopping app installed. You have to uninstall the app, add Alexa in the Sonos app, then install the shopping app again. However, you then need to add the Sonos speaker to your Alexa app... Well that turned out to be impossible. It could just not see it no matter what I did.Wi-Fi range is also poor compared to other devices I tried at the same time. It couldn't pick up a router from approx 10 meters away through a wooden door.The Sonos app is not a good experience. I had none of these issues with my older generation Sonos devices.It sounds fine. That's the only positive I have sadly. I hate to beat up on a device, but this one left me feeling very frustrated.

I've been thinking of getting a new speaker for a long time and finally took the plunge. So glad that I chose this one. The sound is amazing. We listen to a lot of reggae and the bass is awesome. As for the setup, it was no problem at all. All my favourite music platforms added in minutes. Connectivity no problem at all.