Sonos has unveiled two new speakers, the Sonos Play and Era 100 SL, both aimed squarely at making it easier to build and expand a whole-home audio setup, while the Play lets you carry that outside.
When writing the company name Sonos it takes an effort of restraint to not put 'beleaguered' in front of it. The Sonos app debacle was one of the great own goals of recent corporate history, and one suspects it might have killed off many other companies.
But Sonos seems to have had just enough credit to survive (certainly our review of the Era 100 stereo pair remains one of the most popular articles we've ever run). So, after a very quiet 2025, it's interesting to see the company double down with not one but two new speakers as it seeks to reassert its once-dominant position in high-end home audio.
The Play is the more interesting of the two. It's a compact portable speaker that comes in at 192.3 mm (7.57 in) tall and weighing just 1.3 kg (2.87 lbs). Effectively it takes the best qualities of the Era 100 and puts them into a portable speaker.
It provides genuine stereo sound from a single enclosure via two angled tweeters and a mid-woofer, driven by three Class-H digital amplifiers. Unlike the Era 100 it features two additional passive radiators to increase bass response. A 35 Wh battery provides up to 24 hours of continuous playback, and the design is IP67-rated, meaning it can take a dunking in 1 m (3 ft) of water for up to 30 minutes. The battery is user-replaceable, and there's a USB-C port that doubles as a phone charger on the go.
The headline feature though is a new multi-speaker Bluetooth grouping trick: connect the Play to your phone away from home, then hold Play/Pause on up to three additional Play or Move 2 speakers to sync them together with no WiFi required.
Back home, it drops onto the included Wireless Charging Base (note: the base needs an 18W or greater USB-C/PD power adapter, sold separately) and joins the wider Sonos ecosystem as expected. Automatic Trueplay tuning continuously adjusts the sound to the current acoustic environment. There's also a far-field microphone array with a hardware mute switch on the back for voice assistant support.
The Era 100 SL (the 'SL' stands for 'speechless') is a slightly simpler proposition: a mic-free, streamlined version of the Era 100 that has been re-engineered to be a low-friction entry point into the Sonos world without smart speaker functionality. It measures 182.5 × 120 × 130.5 mm (7.19 × 4.72 × 5.14 in) and weighs 1.95 kg (4.3 lbs).
It features the same two-tweeter, one-mid-woofer driver configuration as its sibling, powered by three Class-D amplifiers. It handles stereo pairing, home theater expansion as rear surrounds, and full Sonos system integration. Trueplay tuning is available but requires an iOS device. A USB-C port supports the optional Sonos Line-In Adapter for connecting turntables or other audio sources.
Both speakers support WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, and 100+ streaming services. Both also run on a quad-core 4×A55 1.4 GHz processor.
Sonos Play is priced at $299; Era 100 SL at $189. Pre-orders are open now at sonos.com, with general availability on March 31, 2026.