The Test: Sonos Era 100 – Better sound and better user experience

The Sonos Era 100 is the successor to the Sonos One. The Era comes in two variants with the Era 300 being the most advanced with things like spatial audio and more speakers. Era 100 is simpler, but cheaper. However, this does not mean that the era of 100 spokes is boring. Like the second-generation Sonos One, we see the Airplay 2 in the era of the 100. But unlike the One (2nd generation), there’s now Bluetooth too, which means you can now use it as a regular wireless speaker without having to get the Sonos app installed. It also received a new interface to control via the speaker itself. I can’t say if it’s better or worse than its predecessor, but it works. However, I suspect most people will handle routing either over the phone or via voice commands.

When the speaker is installed, it is recommended to place it in 20cm free space all around, and you can also adjust the volume according to the place where it is placed. The function is called Trueplay and it includes a speaker that plays a few different sounds and a built-in microphone that picks up how the sounds bounce back. Then the volume is adjusted according to the sound in the room. At first, I don’t notice much difference, but after a while I tried to turn off the function, and then I noticed that with the Trueplay function turned on, there is a clear clarity of sound. The Sonos app also reports that the sound is getting better and better, so it’s not strange if you don’t hear a difference right away.

Good sound

As for the sound, it is good. Despite the relatively small size, it can be lifted so high that you don’t have to live near other people to use the maximum volume. However, you can set a volume limit in the app, which means no one can accidentally draw too much. In addition to their ability to play loud, they can also play well, the sound is clear and they work well for general listening to music, talk radio, or to be connected as part of a home theater system.

I wasn’t able to test it alongside the Sonos One, but the Era 100 has two speaker horns that should provide a wider sonic range and a 25 percent larger woofer for more bass.

However, I’ve noticed that when I’m watching YouTube on my laptop and using the Era 100 speaker, there’s a significant lag that makes this particular set not play.

Voice control

In the app, you can control your speaker by either connecting it to other Sonos products, adjust a simple equalizer, set alarms, activate Voice Control, add music services and more. So while you can connect to the speaker without the app, there is a huge benefit to using it. Once you connect Spotify to Sonos, for example, you can control the speaker, start and stop music playback, etc. directly from Spotify.

If you want to be able to control the Era 100 with your voice, you can do so either via Sonos Voice Control or Amazon’s Alexa. However, it lacks the Google Assistant, which the second generation One had. With voice control, you can play music, raise and lower the volume, link to other devices, and more. Voice control works well and I’ve never encountered cases where something didn’t work. However, it should be noted that Sonos Voice Control is not compatible with Spotify, but it is compatible with Sonos Radio, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora. However, you can play from Spotify via Alexa, so it’s not an insurmountable problem. But it does make Sonos’ voice control feel a bit clumsy even though it works well and there are many other things it can do. You could, for example, use Voice Control to start one of Sonos’ radio channels or one of the services mentioned above.

If you want to turn off the voice control, there is a button that does this, but at the same time the microphone can be used, for example, for Trueplay. If you want to turn off the microphone completely, you can also do that via a switch on the back.

All in one application

You can add your favorite listening services (there are quite a few) to the Sonos app and search for music, podcasts, or radio stations to listen to. Sonos tries to make sure that you can use the Sonos app as your digital music collection, but if you don’t use many different music services, I think it’s probably easier to just use the app you usually use, say Spotify or Apple Music. And since the Era 100 now functions as a regular Bluetooth speaker, there’s no problem doing that either. You can also connect other audio playback devices through the ERA 100 using the 3.5mm adapter to the USB-c jack on the speaker.

The Sonos Era 100 can be an integral part of the Sonos system, but keep in mind that you can’t pair it with all existing Sonos products, but only with those that are compatible with the Sonos S2 app, now called Sonos. (look here: https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/sonos-s2-compatibility) Of course the Sonos Era 100 also works as a standalone speaker. As an alternative, you could probably, at least as an iPhone user, look at the Apple Homepod, which is a bit more expensive but also has spatial audio and acts as a hub in your smart home.