Second Chance Sonos Era 100 Black

The Sonos Era 100 is the successor to the Sonos One and what a sound it produces! It fills my room with beautiful sound, even at a low volume. In addition, it fits nicely in my interior. It's just a pity that it doesn't have a battery so I can't take it with me.

Room-filling sound
The first thing that immediately blew me away is the fullness of the sound. I also have the Sonos One SL and I put these 2 side by side. What struck me is that with the same volume, the Era 100 sounds a lot fuller. I placed the speaker in the corner of my room and no matter where I was in the room, the sound remained strong. The Sonos Era 100 also has a good deep bass. It is wonderful to listen to music with this speaker.

Installation was easy
I set up the speaker via the Sonos app. That was really squeaky. In 5 minutes I already listened to my favorite music and I really liked that. With the app I controlled the sound, adjusted the bass and quickly switched between different streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music.

Beautiful design
I think the speaker looks nice. It is box-shaped and feels solid. I can easily operate the speaker via the touchpad. I myself chose the white variant and it stands out nicely in my room. It is not very big, only slightly larger than its predecessor. It's also not very heavy so that's nice.

Not very portable
It is a pity that the speaker does not have a battery. I wanted to take the speaker to a park, for example, to stream music. The Era 100 has bluetooth which would have made this possible. Unfortunately I always have to turn it on to listen to music,

Good value for money
I am impressed with the sound quality of this speaker. The music fills the space in which it stands with deep and detailed tones. It has a compact design so you can hide it in your interior. For these reasons, I think the speaker is more than worth its money.

I am impressed with the audio! If playback via Bluetooth is a big plus for you, be sure to read the following before you buy this speaker!

I bought this speaker a week after its release in the Netherlands. And have had it for two weeks now. I already have one Sonos Five at home. My goal was not only to enjoy music more (via Deezer app, goes via Bluetooth), also to play Netflix via Bluetooth on my laptop, so that I no longer need a line audio cable, which sometimes wants to disturb if you move (I don't have a TV). I want to send Netflix audio and music to the Sonos Era 100 via Bluetooth, and have it forwarded through my Sonos system.
Unfortunately, I encountered a major downer in this.

- Every time I play content I have to group the two speakers in the app. Often the speakers ungroup very randomly, without my command to do so. Then the audio will only play on one speaker. I have to grab my phone, open the Sonos app and group the two speakers together again. Or shout via Sonos Voice control: Hey Sonos, group everywhere!
- After about an hour of playback via Bluetooth, I hear an echo, the audio between the Era 100 and Sonos Five is no longer in sync. This can only be solved by stopping the audio, ungrouping the two speakers and restarting everything. And hopefully it will work again for a while. Not always.

Sonos support says the following about these two issues:
Echo in my setup: "Okay, I just checked here and that's not a supported setup. If you're going to use the speakers like that, it could cause lag or other issues, like that echo. It should work better if you groups speakers over Wi-Fi and not over Bluetooth." --> unfortunately not possible for me when playing Netflix on laptop.

Grouping again and again: "I see that one of your speakers connects to WiFi channel 11 and the other connects to WiFi channel 44. You could contact your internet provider to ask if they can assign a fixed WiFi channel to your router ( 1, 6 or 11)."
--> Channel 1, 6 and 11 belong to the 2.4GHz network. Channel 44 belongs to the 5GHz network. So I would have to split my network OR somehow get the Sonos Era 100 on the 2.4GHz network. I am currently looking for a solution to this.

I'll keep the Sonos Era 100, because it's nice sound, but I came home from a rude awakening when I encountered these Bluetooth problems. Good to know for your purchase!