Sonos Move Lowdown: All You Need To Know In Under 5 Mins

Sonos Move Lowdown: All You Need To Know In Under 5 Minutes

Considering the Sonos Move? Here’s everything you need to know in under 5 minutes.

Hi everyone, Emily from Smart Home Sounds here and I’m back with another lowdown for you, designed to give you everything you need to know about the product in under 5 minutes. This time we’ve got the Sonos Move portable speaker. Don’t forget we offer a 30 day hassle free returns policy so if you decide the Move isn’t right for you, you can return it back to us. We also offer an extended 6 year warranty on all Sonos products so you know you’re covered for longer.

Key Features

Ok let’s get into it. So the Sonos Move is Sonos’ only portable speaker offering both WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity with an RRP of £399. The great thing about having both Bluetooth and WiFi means you can enjoy the benefits of both. Connect to your Sonos WiFi ecosystem at home and switch to Bluetooth when you’re out in the garden or away from home. You have the choice of using the Move’s rechargeable battery which lasts for about 11 hours before it needs to be recharged using the charging base or you can simply keep it docked on the charging base which hooks up to mains power and keeps it charged at all times. From zero battery, it will take roughly 1 and a half hours to recharge to full which is quite impressive for a speaker of this size. You can also charge the Move using your own USB-C charger if you don’t want to use the charging base, as long as it outputs a minimum of 18V. This is particularly useful if you’ve taken it out and about with you and you want to connect it to a power bank so it doesn’t lose its battery.

Durable, Weatherproof Design

When you first look at the speaker, you’ll notice it’s larger than other portable speakers on the market and this is entirely intentional from Sonos. It’s been designed in a way that it can be moved around from room to room or outdoors using this handy carry handle, while still sounding more powerful than many other portable speakers on the market. It’s not really a lightweight speaker for carrying with you on the go or tucking into a backpack as it is more for using in any room of your home, outdoors, taking to a friend’s house or even the odd weekend away. It has touch controls on the top panel, a mesh grille and a rubber base and it’s also available in two colours, black or lunar white. The move offers a durable design with an IP56 weatherproof rating meaning it can deal with snow, rain, dust, extreme heat or cold and UV rays. The rubber base is non-slip and it has a drop-resistant exterior so it can handle a few knocks and bumps.

Internally, it boasts two Class D digital amplifiers, one mid-woofer and one downward firing tweeter which all together offer a balanced, smooth sound and decent bass which sounds great when in large open spaces. 

How It Works

So how do you get the music playing on this thing? Well obviously you’ve got Bluetooth and we are all familiar with how that works but when you’re at home connected to WiFi, you can stream from the Sonos app, Spotify Connect and it also supports AirPlay 2 if you have an Apple device so you can simply cast music from your iPhone, iPad or Mac straight to the Move. It’s also got both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant built in so if you’d like to go completely hands-free, you can use either of these voice assistants which is a great benefit to have in a portable speaker.

You can also stereo pair the Move with another Move when using WiFi if you’re looking for a left and a right speaker but it cannot be used as rear surrounds to a Sonos soundbar unfortunately. It can however be used with a turntable using Bluetooth but it does not have a line in for connecting either to a TV or turntable directly.

Automatic Trueplay

One of its best features is Automatic TruePlay. Trueplay enhances the speaker for the space that it’s in. Unlike other sonos products where you need to walk around the room using your Apple device, the move will automatically do its own little TruePlay process when it senses it’s been moved to a different location and has stayed there for 15 seconds. This means that everyone can benefit from the TruePlay tuning on this speaker, rather than just Apple device owners. We tested this in our in-depth review and you can really hear the difference so definitely check that out.

Sonos Move Accessories

There’s also a couple of neat accessories available for the Sonos Move too such as a wall mount for £29 so you can mount it on the wall so it doesn’t use any surface space or you can even put it on a floor stand too for £149.99. 

Pros & Cons

To wrap up then, the strengths of the Sonos Move are that it uses both WiFi and Bluetooth which is hard to find in a portable speaker, it has a good battery life for a speaker of this size, the Auto-TruePlay works great and the voice assistants are a real plus. On the other hand, the weaknesses are they can’t be used as rear surrounds to a Sonos soundbar, you can’t pair the Sonos Sub with it and it is quite pricey for a portable speaker although it is meant to be more of a heavy duty portable speaker than what we are used to seeing.

Summary

We’d recommend this speaker if you want to benefit from the Sonos ecosystem and take advantage of great Sonos sound quality but don’t want to have to rely on WiFi or a mains power connection at all times. It’s made to be used around the home from room to room, in your garden or balcony or even a short break away. The main take-away message of this speaker is that the Move will let you listen to your favourite music anywhere.