Sonos Era 100 Smart Speaker Black (Single)

The Sonos Era 100 is the successor to the Sonos One and sits at the entry level of Sonos's Era generation of smart speakers, launched in March 2023 alongside the Era 300. Priced at £199, it replaces a speaker that defined the compact smart speaker category, yet delivers a substantial step forward in acoustic engineering, processing power and connectivity. A single Era 100 produces genuine stereo sound thanks to its dual angled tweeter design; two units can be bonded in the Sonos app to form a dedicated stereo pair, or deployed as rear surrounds with a Sonos Arc, Beam, Ray or Amp.

Acoustic Architecture

The Era 100's driver array comprises two angled tweeters and one mid-woofer. The tweeters are positioned to direct high frequencies outward to the left and right, and custom waveguides — described by Sonos as designed to amplify dispersion of sound waves — broaden the resulting stereo soundstage. The mid-woofer is 25% larger than that of the Sonos One, delivering meaningfully greater bass weight and lower-midrange authority. Three Class-D digital amplifiers, one dedicated to each driver, are tuned specifically to the cabinet's acoustic geometry for controlled, clean output at all listening levels. Equalisation is adjustable via the Sonos app across bass, treble and loudness parameters.

Processing

A quad-core processor — four ARM Cortex-A55 cores running at 1.9 GHz — handles all audio processing, streaming decoding and multi-room coordination, supported by 2 GB of DDR4 RAM and 8 GB of eMMC storage. Sonos describes this as a co-neural processor architecture, enabling the Era 100 to run more demanding signal processing tasks than its predecessor, including the extended Trueplay auto-calibration across both iOS and Android platforms.

Trueplay Room Optimisation

Trueplay analyses how sound reflects off the walls, ceiling, floor and furnishings of the room and then fine-tunes the speaker's equalisation accordingly. On the Era 100, Trueplay is available on both iOS and Android — a significant expansion from the Sonos One, which restricted automatic Trueplay calibration to iOS. A far-field microphone array with beamforming and multichannel echo cancellation handles the room measurement sweep. The microphone can be completely disconnected from power using the hardware toggle on the rear panel.

Connectivity

Wi-Fi 6 (802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) provides the primary wireless streaming connection. Bluetooth 5.3 enables direct audio streaming from any Bluetooth-capable phone, tablet or computer without requiring a network connection. A USB-C port on the rear panel accepts the Sonos Line-In Adapter (sold separately) for analogue line-in via a 3.5 mm connection, and the Sonos Combo Adapter (sold separately) extends this to provide both a 3.5 mm line-in and a wired Ethernet port simultaneously. Apple AirPlay 2 is supported for streaming from iPhone, iPad and Mac (iOS 11.4 and above). Spotify Connect and over 100 other streaming services are accessible through the Sonos app.

Voice Control and App Integration

The Era 100 is compatible with Sonos Voice Control and Amazon Alexa for hands-free playback management, volume control and multi-room grouping. Touch-sensitive controls on the top panel provide direct access to play/pause, track skip, volume adjustment, voice-assistant muting and speaker grouping without requiring the app. The Sonos app delivers a unified interface across all connected streaming services alongside EQ controls and system-wide multi-room management.

Multi-Room and Home Cinema Integration

The Era 100 integrates fully with the Sonos multi-room ecosystem, playing in synchronisation with any other Sonos speaker in the home or operating independently as a standalone zone. Two Era 100 units can be stereo-bonded in the Sonos app for a wider and more precise soundstage. They can also be designated as rear surround speakers when paired with a Sonos Arc, Beam (Gen 2), Ray or Amp, extending a soundbar system into a full surround configuration.

Design, Build and Sustainability

The matte black finish is fingerprint-resistant and the cabinet is humidity-resistant, making the Era 100 suitable for kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living-room environments. The chassis uses 48% post-consumer recycled plastic. Dimensions of 182.5 mm (H) × 120 mm (W) × 130.5 mm (D) keep the footprint small, while the 2.02 kg weight ensures a stable, planted feel.

What Hi-Fi? Award

The Era 100 earned a five-star rating from What Hi-Fi?, with reviewers citing its big, open sound, crisp detail, and engaging rhythm and timing as standout qualities.

In the Box

The Era 100 is supplied with a 2 m mains power cable and a quickstart guide. The Sonos Line-In Adapter required for USB-C analogue input is sold separately, as is the Sonos Combo Adapter for wired Ethernet connectivity.