With the Apple HomePod release date finally confirmed, multi-room specialiast Sonos wants you to know there’s twice the value to be had with its Sonos One speaker.
The company has launched the Sonos Two bundle, which gets you a pair of Sonos One speakers for the around the same price as Apple’s long-delayed speaker.
The bundle is $349/£349, which is the same price as HomePod in the US and just £30 more than HomePod’s UK price.
The $199/£199 Sonos One arrives with the Amazon Alexa assistant, while support for the Google Assistant is incoming, so it’s comparable to the Siri-powered HomePod in this respect.
Sonos has said it plans to support Apple’s own AirPlay 2 platform, which enables audio to be sent to multiple speakers around the home.
Given Apple is delaying the rollout of this feature until “later this year” there’s every chance Sonos will enable it before Apple does.
Apple is also delaying the rollout of its automatic stereo pairing feature when two HomePod speakers are placed in the same room.
Related: Apple HomePod vs Amazon Echo
The Sonos One, which is essentially the classic Play:1 with additional smarts, arrived in October and received a highly impressive 9/10 score in our review.
Home technology editor Ced Yuen wrote: “The Sonos One sounds great, it gives you access to a tried-and-tested multiroom ecosystem, and it is beautifully integrated with the super-useful Amazon Alexa assistant. If you crave AI convenience and you’re not willing to sacrifice sound quality, this is what you need.”
The only negative we had was the absence of Spotify voice controls at launch. This was quickly rectified.
How the speaker will match up to HomePod in audio quality remains to be seen, but we’ll find out for sure soon enough. HomePod will go on sale on February 9 in the UK, US and Australia.
Are you tempted by this deal? Or are you waiting for HomePod to arrive? Drop us a line @TrustedReviews on Twitter.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
