Sonos One is getting an upgrade – but it's not as exciting as you think

Sonos One
Image Credit: TechRadar

Sonos One is getting an upgrade this week ... but it's not worth tossing out your old speaker for. 

According to Sonos, the second-generation Sonos One will feature a few new improvements like an updated processor and increased memory, but it will still look and act a lot like its predecessor.

To that end, a Sonos representative confirmed that there would be no difference to how the speaker functions or looks. 

Why upgrade at all then? Sonos has noted that a lack of memory and processing power prevented some of its oldest speakers from receiving the AirPlay 2 update that came to the Sonos One and Sonos Beam.

There’s potential that this could eventually happen to the Sonos One, where the 2nd generation speaker might receive an update and the first will not, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon. In fact, Sonos explicitly stated in an email that “the original Sonos One will continue to be supported through regular updates."

Apparently, this upgrade is more about future-proofing the speaker more than anything else.

Sonos One (Gen. 1) at a discount 

The second part of today’s news is that Sonos will drop the price of the Gen. 1 speaker as it transitions to the updated hardware, which means you can expect to see the original Sonos One on sale for around $179 (£179) while Gen. 2 picks up the previous price tag of $199 (£199).

Interested in buying a Sonos One but can’t figure out which one is which? Sonos says that the 2nd Gen. speaker will have a label to help differentiate it. 

The Gen. 2 Sonos One will be on sale officially starting March 7. But, if you're lucky, you might be able to find them out in the wild today at the time of writing. 

Nick Pino

Nick Pino is Managing Editor, TV and AV for TechRadar's sister site, Tom's Guide. Previously, he was the Senior Editor of Home Entertainment at TechRadar, covering TVs, headphones, speakers, video games, VR and streaming devices. He's also written for GamesRadar+, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer and other outlets over the last decade, and he has a degree in computer science he's not using if anyone wants it.

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