Speakers are foundational to the way we enjoy music from Spotify, Apple Music, and other services — and our own music collections. And increasingly, they’re also a convenient way of controlling smart home devices compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or Siri. Companies like Sonos offer multiroom audio platforms capable of synchronizing music across speakers of all different sizes. Whether you’re looking for a smart speaker or a simple Bluetooth speaker to take everywhere, The Verge covers the best of what’s out there in 2025.
The more affordable Era speaker improves upon the Sonos One by nearly every measure and will likely find the same success and popularity among Sonos customers.
Giles Martin, the senior vice president of sound experience at Sonos who mixed the first-ever spatial audio album, and Sonos CEO Patrick Spence joined Nilay Patel for a Vergecast interview about the company’s new speakers and make a case for spatial audio.
Martin:
...we can project sound and because we have channels of projection. Spatial audio is multichannel, stereo is two-channel, mono is one-channel.
They join The Vergecast to discuss Sonos’ new Era 300 and 100 speakers, the ins and outs of spatial audio, and why this is the time to get behind it.
Available for preorder today and shipping March 28th, both speakers make a good first impression with new features and upgraded sound.
This Reddit post shows an email announcing an event in four days time, and I think you can guess what we expect to see.
Namely, a spatial audio-focused Era 300 that should cost around $450 and an Era 100 speaker priced around $250, both with Bluetooth audio playback and USB-C line-in.
Read Chris Welch’s full report here for the details we have so far, and if you’re looking for current Sonos hardware check out their ongoing sale.
The three new covers for the Sonos-collab Symfonisk picture frame speaker are inspired by Latin American street art.
The covers snap onto the speaker and add some much-needed color to the current options. I love to see more adventurous decor in the smart home — and don’t forget, you can pair two of these speakers with a Sonos Arc or Beam sound bar for surround sound with some serious style. The new covers go on sale in April.
Hours after our own Chris Welch revealed what will likely be Sonos’s next two speakers, a leaker has tweeted what appear to be additional images of the Era 100 and Era 300. You can check out all the images in the thread. Sadly there is not a 3.5mm port in sight.
Check out iFixit’s take on the second-generation speaker in its latest teardown. And after you do, check out our review we posted last week.
Apple’s second-generation HomePod is available starting today. And the consensus in our review and others I’ve seen is that while one HomePod speaker sounds pretty good solo, it’s when you pair two of them together that you experience the best, most immersive audio.
Creating a stereo pair with two HomePods only takes a few steps. Just remember that you can only do so with two of the same model.
If you’ve ever used Sonos’ Trueplay feature to tune your speakers for the best sound quality, you know what a difference it can make. But since the process relies on microphone measurements from supported iPhones, Sonos is often slow to include new models.
Case in point: the company only just today added Trueplay support for Apple’s iPhone 14 lineup — nearly three months after the phones went on sale. Recent iPad buyers are still out of luck, and the tuning feature remains unavailable on Android altogether. Sometimes the best option is just borrowing a friend’s iPhone.
It’s one that French audio company Devialet could sell you on, with its new $2,900 Dione Opéra de Paris soundbar.
This version has a 22-carat “moon gold” finished layer that its weird orb center channel speaker is nestled into. Considering you’re getting something “inspired by the gilded interiors of Paris’ Opéra Garnier,” it’s probably worth it, right?
Add gold versions of the new Mania and Phantom to complete your life.
