Sonos Era 100 vs Apple HomePod 2 Review

Tom's Guide

We asked three people to listen to the Sonos Era 100 and Apple HomePod Gen 2 to see which they thought was the better smart speaker.

Transcript

00:00 I really like the sound quality on this a lot better.

00:02 (mimics music)

00:06 Next track.

00:06 - Oh, okay.

00:09 - Oh, nice.

00:12 - All right, let's see.

00:14 - So here we have two of the newest smart speakers around,

00:17 the Apple HomePod Generation 2 and the Sonos Aero 100.

00:21 The HomePod 2 costs $299, while the Aero 100 costs $249.

00:26 Both of these smart speakers have a lot

00:29 of the same capabilities,

00:30 but they do differ in a few different ways.

00:32 So let's take a look at both of them

00:35 to see which one might be right

00:36 for your home entertainment setup.

00:38 So let's start with the design.

00:39 You know, both of them are roughly the same height.

00:42 Obviously the Sonos is a little bit taller,

00:45 but if you look, they're both roughly the same diameter.

00:49 Aesthetically, it's sort of up to you which one you prefer.

00:52 Looking at the top of them,

00:54 there's a little stylistic differences.

00:56 Apple has this cool touchscreen that if you touch it,

00:59 it lights up and there's a plus and minus here.

01:02 You have to think about the directions

01:04 and controls you wanna do a little bit more.

01:06 For example, like to forward and skip tracks,

01:09 you have to double tap, whereas on the Aero 100,

01:13 there are specific buttons for play and pause

01:16 and skipping forward and back in tracks.

01:18 One other thing I do like about the Aero 100

01:20 is if you look on the back of it here,

01:23 there is a little switch to turn the microphone on and off.

01:27 That's something the HomePod 2 doesn't have.

01:29 So if you don't want Siri or Alexa listening to you,

01:32 you know it's not gonna listen to you on this one,

01:35 whereas on the HomePod, you have to make sure

01:37 that you tell Siri to stop listening.

01:39 One thing I also really like about the Sonos Aero 100

01:42 is that it has this USB-C port in the back.

01:45 Now you have to buy a separate adapter,

01:47 but if you do, you can also plug this directly

01:50 into ethernet or if you have a turntable,

01:52 you can plug a turntable directly into this thing

01:54 so you don't need a separate amp or anything like that

01:57 if you're gonna play your records straight through this.

02:00 On the other hand, the HomePod works much better

02:03 with your home entertainment system.

02:05 If you have an Apple TV 4K, you can use a HomePod

02:08 as the speaker output for your TV, which is pretty nice.

02:12 You can't do anything like that with the Sonos Aero 100.

02:15 Unfortunately, you have to upgrade

02:17 to one of Sonos' soundbars if you want to get

02:20 that sort of output from your TV.

02:22 Speaking of your home entertainment system,

02:24 the HomePod does have one other feature

02:27 that the Sonos Aero 100 lacks,

02:29 and that's the ability to play spatial audio.

02:32 So you can play Dolby Atmos tracks through the HomePod,

02:36 but you can't through the Sonos Aero 100.

02:40 If you want to do that with a Sonos product,

02:42 you're gonna have to upgrade to the Sonos Aero 300,

02:45 which costs $449.

02:46 If we take a look inside these speakers,

02:49 you'll notice a few key differences.

02:51 Both have one large woofer, but in the HomePod,

02:54 it's sort of in the middle and directed upwards.

02:57 In the Sonos 100, it's right about here,

03:00 and it's facing forward.

03:02 Also, the HomePod has an array of four different tweeters

03:07 all around the bottom, sort of facing upwards,

03:10 whereas in the Aero 100, there are two tweeters right here,

03:13 sort of facing this way.

03:15 What that means is that the HomePod is better

03:18 for listening wherever you happen to be in the room.

03:20 It provides 360-degree sound.

03:23 With the Aero 100, it's best if you stand

03:26 sort of in front of it to get the best audio.

03:29 When it comes to playing music through these smart speakers,

03:32 you get a lot more choices with Sonos

03:34 than you do with the HomePod.

03:37 With the HomePod, you can play music through Apple Music,

03:40 and then you can also use AirPlay and things like that.

03:43 But with the Sonos, it connects directly

03:46 to hundreds of different music sources,

03:49 from Spotify to TuneIn Radio to, I think it does MLB.com.

03:54 So if there's a music source out there,

03:58 chances are that you can stream it directly

04:00 through the Sonos, which is a nice little feature to have.

04:04 I would say the Sonos gives you a bit more flexibility

04:07 when it comes to being able to stream things

04:09 natively through it, rather than having to go through

04:12 AirPlay or Bluetooth or something like that

04:15 as you would with the HomePod.

04:17 And speaking of Bluetooth,

04:19 it's finally come to a Sonos product.

04:21 Yes, after years of not wanting to include it,

04:24 the Sonos Aero 100 actually has a Bluetooth connection.

04:28 So it's a lot easier if you have your phone,

04:30 you can simply beam your music straight to the device.

04:34 Now that's something that Apple has had with AirPlay 2

04:38 on its HomePod, but so there's a bit more parity there.

04:42 And then speaking of wireless connections,

04:44 the Sonos Aero 100 actually has Wi-Fi 6,

04:48 whereas the HomePod has older Wi-Fi 5.

04:51 What that means for you, maybe not too much right now,

04:54 but as you upgrade your home network to say a Wi-Fi 6 router

04:59 you'll be able to get better performance

05:00 out of your Sonos speaker,

05:02 because you'll be able to get greater bandwidth

05:04 and possibly greater fidelity

05:06 depending on the throughput you have.

05:09 Of course, these are smart speakers.

05:11 So they're more than just about playing music.

05:13 Both of them have smart assistants built into them

05:15 so you can do things like ask the weather,

05:17 change the lights, and control other smart home devices.

05:21 But they both differ in a few key ways.

05:24 For starters, let's talk about voice assistants.

05:27 The Apple HomePod, as you might expect,

05:28 only works with Siri.

05:30 The Sonos Aero 100 works with Amazon's Alexa,

05:34 as well as Sonos' own voice assistant,

05:37 which is far more limited.

05:39 It can only respond to requests

05:41 for different kinds of music.

05:43 Now, it's kind of interesting,

05:44 the earlier version of this, the Sonos One,

05:48 used to work with, or still does work with,

05:50 Alexa and Google Assistant,

05:52 but because of ongoing litigation between Sonos and Google,

05:56 the newer model only works with Alexa.

05:59 The HomePod has a few other smart home features built in.

06:02 It supports Matter, which is a new smart home standard

06:05 that'll allow you to connect other devices directly to it

06:10 without having to connect it to Wi-Fi first.

06:12 And the HomePod also has a temperature

06:15 and humidity sensor built into it,

06:17 so you can ask Siri, "Hey, what's the temperature

06:19 in the room?"

06:20 The Sonos Aero 100 doesn't have

06:22 any similar features built in,

06:24 but because it can work with Amazon's Alexa ecosystem,

06:28 you can connect far more smart home devices

06:31 than you can the HomePod.

06:32 Of course, the big question is which speaker sounds better?

06:35 To find out, we're gonna cover them with a little cloth,

06:38 and then we're gonna bring in a few people

06:40 to listen to both and tell us which they prefer.

06:43 - Hi, I'm Tony Polanco,

06:45 and I am a consumer, according to Brandon.

06:48 (laughing)

06:49 - I'm Elisa James.

06:50 I work for TechRadar as a US computing staff writer.

06:54 - I'm Marcus, and I'm a producer/director at Tom's Guide.

06:58 (upbeat music)

07:00 (opera music)

07:05 (opera music)

07:08 - Which one did you prefer?

07:34 - Oh, the second one.

07:35 Here's the thing, I think both of them are really,

07:38 they're really good, but the second one,

07:40 it seemed like there's a better balance between everything.

07:44 Although I could clearly hear everything

07:46 that was going on in both of them, especially.

07:48 Even though the foreground stuff was in your face,

07:52 I tried to see which one produced the background

07:55 a little better.

07:56 This one did, but especially when the really high notes hit,

07:59 this one didn't seem as piercing.

08:02 Like, it was a little bit more balanced

08:04 than the first one was.

08:05 - Which one did you like better?

08:06 - I'm gonna go with this one.

08:07 - Yeah, and how come?

08:09 - I feel like the sound quality was a little cleaner

08:12 and like, crisp.

08:13 This one wasn't bad, but I'm not sure how to describe it,

08:18 but it was kind of like, a little crackly, maybe,

08:22 in the background.

08:23 Like, it wasn't very, it wasn't as clear,

08:27 like the sound quality as this one, I feel like.

08:29 - All right. - Interesting.

08:32 Okay, what do you think?

08:33 - Okay, so my immediate reaction is that the second one,

08:38 this one, felt bassier.

08:41 It felt like a little richer.

08:44 Everything was a little higher on the first one.

08:47 That was kind of the main difference, I think, what I felt.

08:52 Yeah.

08:54 - Did you prefer one or the other?

08:56 - I think I probably, yeah, preferred number two

08:57 for that reason.

08:58 It just sounded deeper and a little bassier

09:01 and a little more well-rounded.

09:03 - Okay.

09:04 (dramatic music)

09:11 (dramatic music)

09:13 (dramatic music)

09:16 (dramatic music)

09:19 (dramatic music)

09:22 (dramatic music)

09:27 (dramatic music)

09:36 (dramatic music)

09:43 (dramatic music)

09:46 - Again, I thought this one was gonna be hard to beat.

09:57 It just sounded really good, punchy,

09:58 but this one has more bass to it, which I like.

10:02 I still think that the mids were better on this one,

10:04 but, you know, this one, not so much,

10:07 but like the bass was just so booming

10:09 and I wanna hear it with a song like that,

10:11 so I prefer this one.

10:12 So I'm still gonna say this one,

10:14 but interestingly, I was kind of tempted

10:18 to say this one at first because like,

10:21 with this theme, I'm used to hearing

10:23 like that sort of sound quality

10:25 since it's such an old like theme.

10:28 So it sounded, you know, very nostalgic to me.

10:31 But then with this, it's just,

10:32 I get to hear things like the very intensity

10:37 of like the drum pounds, like once again,

10:40 the complexity and like that, or archaic, like swelling,

10:44 you know, just a lot of stuff that like,

10:47 I don't hear in this, you know,

10:49 but I was able to pick out through this

10:50 because it's just so clear.

10:52 - I feel kind of similar.

10:54 They sounded more alike that time, I think.

10:58 The only main difference I noticed is

11:02 after the two goes through,

11:04 the first speaker seemed to really distort

11:07 and I don't know if it was just a little bit louder

11:09 or a kind of, but it was seemed like it was struggling.

11:11 But then also that did kind of happen slightly later

11:13 on the second one as well.

11:16 - Yeah. - Let's see.

11:17 - Okay, ready? - Yeah.

11:19 Oh, wow, Apple, you got me.

11:22 You should be happy about that.

11:24 - Oh, wow.

11:27 - So yeah, you picked the Apple HomePod.

11:30 - Oh, wow.

11:31 - Yep. - Okay.

11:32 - With the Sonos Aero 100.

11:35 Let's see what you picked.

11:36 - Yeah, go on.

11:38 - Oh, okay.

11:40 I didn't know what the Sonos looked like,

11:42 so I was assuming it was the other way around.

11:44 That's quite interesting.

11:45 - So there you have it.

11:46 In a taste test, if you will, of the Apple HomePod 2

11:50 and the Sonos Aero 100, we have a split decision.

11:54 Two of our testers preferred the HomePod,

11:57 one of them preferred the Sonos.

11:59 I'm gonna have to listen to it a little bit more

12:02 before I come to a final decision

12:03 on which one I prefer better.

12:06 But there are certainly advantages to both speakers.

12:10 This one is great if you're in the Apple ecosystem

12:13 and you wanna connect it to your home entertainment system.

12:16 This one might be the better option

12:18 if you have a lot of streaming music sources

12:20 or you wanna hook it up to, say, your turntable.

12:23 So there are pros and cons to both,

12:25 and it's really gonna be up to you to decide

12:28 which features that you want the most.

12:31 To check out our full review of the Sonos Aero 100,

12:34 the Apple HomePod 2, as well as countless other phones,

12:38 TVs, and other consumer electronics,

12:40 be sure to check us out at tomsguide.com.

12:43 And be sure to subscribe to our channel

12:45 on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

12:48 For Tom's Guide, this is Mike Prospero.

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