Sonos Era 100 review
The one smart speaker you need that does stereo sound on its own
Sonos Era 100 review score: 4.5/5
🏆 Editor’s Choice Award
Pros
✅ 🔈 Stereo sound gives you the power of two speakers in one
✅ 🪄 Advanced Trueplay tuning improves sound quality throughout a space
✅ 🎼 Crisp, detailed audio with fantastic sound separation
✅ 📱 Added Bluetooth and support for multiple music apps
Cons
❌ 🤖 Sonos voice assistant comes with extremely limited functionality
❌ 🔌 Ethernet and 3.5mm analog ports now require a dongle
❌ 🙁 Weak bass
The Shortcut’s skinny review (1 min read)
The Sonos One has been the premier wireless smart speaker since it was released way back in 2019 and for years I was wondering if Sonos would ever introduce anything to replace it. Well after all that time, the Sonos Era 100 is the new product everyone has been eagerly anticipating. It’s not just a simple follow-up either, the Era 100 is an all-new speaker featuring stereo sound, Bluetooth connectivity, and everything else to keep it at the top though at a higher $249 price.
Stereo sound is easily the biggest feature, basically giving you the power of two speakers in one. That’s a big upgrade over the Sonos One, which required two separate units to produce stereo sound. On top of that, the Sonos’ latest smart speaker delivers much-improved audio that’s well worth its $249 price. Plus almost universal support for multiple music streaming services, AirPlay 2, and Bluetooth makes it more appealing than the closed-off nature of the HomePod 2. Short of having powerful bass, this is hands down the smart speaker you should buy.
Full Review
💅 A refined look. The Sonos Era 100 adapts a more oval shape than the rounded rectangular design of the outgoing Sonos One. It also stands a bit taller than its predecessor at 7.2 x 4.7 x 5.1 inches due to a redesigned audio layout that we’ll get into soon. The Era 100 features a clean aesthetic overall with a metal mesh front, plus a plastic top and bottom with a rubber foot to keep the speaker firmly planted.
🖲️ Sans buttons. There are no physical controls except for the Bluetooth pairing button and microphone power kill switch on the back of the speaker. Instead, you’ve got three touch buttons for play, as well as forward and back keys for navigating tracks. Behind those command keys, you also have a virtual volume slider to smoothly change the volume at minute increments. Lastly, at the very back edge of the top of the speaker, there’s a virtual button for muting the microphones, but it’s hard to tell when you’ve actually muted the mics without a status light and the fact it makes the same signal when you toggle it.
🔌 USB-C at a price. For its new smart speaker, Sonos replaced the Ethernet port with a USB-C. This change also lets you plug line-in devices directly into the Era 100 – instead of having to buy a separate Sonos Connect box – but you need to buy a separate 3.5mm adapter for $19 if you want one officially from Sonos. Luckily, there are plenty of cheaper, non-official options out there.
📢 Two tweeters and a bigger sub. Internally, Sonos has made plenty of changes too. The speaker is physically larger to make room for two tweeters instead of just one and a 25% bigger woofer. Amazingly those two tweeters allow the Era 100 to generate real stereo sound from such a small unit thanks to their custom waveforms and how they’re angled.
🔈 Stereo sound in one speaker. Previously, to get stereo sound out of the Sonos One you would have to pair it with another identical unit or another Sonos speaker. Getting stereo sound out of one speaker really helps to justify the $30-50 price increase to $249. Going from mono to stereo, the Sonos Era 100 easily sounds better than the Sonos One it replaces. Of course, the larger woofer helps too with delivering more bass – though not as much as I would like personally. Overall, the sound stage sounds fuller (like it sensibly should) with more detail and clarity.
😌 Fantastic sound separation. You can distinctly hear instrumentals and vocals apart from each other and you can really hear all the nuances of a complex track like Tame Impala’s New Person, Same Old Mistakes. The sound profile of the Era 100 feels warm and bright which makes it great for soulful music like Willis’ I Think I Like When it Rains. While the Era 100 produces great mids and highs, the low-end feels more like its present than powerful with other speakers like the HomePod. This is especially apparent in something bass-heavy like Do I Wanna Know? by the Arctic Monkeys.
🪄 Self-tuning magic. Of course, the real secret behind making the Sonos Era 100 great is Trueplay tuning, which allows the speaker to tune itself for the best audio experience. This time around Android users are finally getting some Trueplay support. However, it's the more basic version that only uses the speaker’s own microphones to analyze how it sounds.
📱 Advanced tunning for iPhone users. iOS users have access to the more advanced tuning where the Sonos app asks the user to walk around the room and wave their phone in the direction of the Era 100 to detect how the speaker sounds throughout your room. With the more advanced turning, the Era 100 sounds significantly better when you’re standing far from it.
🎵 Near universal music app support. Sonos’ biggest standout feature is it supports almost every music streaming service under the sun. Whether you like to play music from Tidal, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or the handful of Sonos’ built-in radio stations, you can listen to it all on the Era 100. And if your streaming service isn’t supported you can also shoot audio over from your devices with AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth. Bluetooth support is especially killer as you can hook up almost anything to the speaker as you could have a line-in Bluetooth adapter plugged into an old turntable or cassette player.
🍗 Are you listening to me? As for virtual assistants, the Era 100 is the first Sonos speaker that supports the company’s own voice assistant. When it first kicks on you might be surprised to be greeted by the dulcet tones of Giancarlo Esposito. Once you get used to being answered by the Breaking Bad and Mandolarian star, you can use voice commands for simple commands like playing music or changing the volume.
🤵🏻♂️ Limited use assistant. However, Sonos’ voice assistant isn’t very useful for much beyond basic music playback commands – and that’s mostly by design. For any search queries or smart home automation, you’re better off sticking with Amazon Alexa, which is also supported but Google Assistant is conspicuously absent. Whichever assistant you decide to use, you’ll be shocked by how well the Era 100 can pick up on your voice across the room thanks the the improved microphones.
Should you buy the Sonos Era 100?
Yes, if…
✅ You want to add room filling stereo sound to a room
✅ You’re a longtime Sonos One user in need of an upgrade
✅ You want a speaker that sounds great no matter where you are in your livingspace or room
No, if…
❌ You need a smart assistant do more than just play tracks and change the volume
❌ You want to easily connect a record machine or cassette deck to a new speaker