Sonos Play Review: Performance Meets Convenience

Sonos doesn’t make stand-alone speakers: Every Sonos speaker (or soundbar or amp) is built to connect as part of a greater ecosystem, the same way an ant or bee is part of a colony. So when a Sonos speaker’s connection to its colony breaks down, as the new Play did for me in the first week of review, it’s extremely frustrating. When it follows a massive software debacle that affected users for months, it’s akin to a recurrence of a chronic injury. “This again?!”

Sonos has worked hard to repair its software and its reputation since its 2024 app collapse, and the company quickly hopped on a fix for the Play’s tendency to fall off my network after it shut down. Now that I’ve spent a second week with the Play bug-free, I can confidently say that this isn’t just an excellent speaker, it’s arguably Sonos’ best model yet.

The Play, which borrows its name from earlier Sonos models like the Play 1 and Play:5, fills a crucial new niche in the family. As the third Sonos portable, the Play utilizes both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to stream and link with other devices, leveraging the best traits of its siblings while offering some clear advantages.