Set up surround sound with portable speakers
This article will show you how to add two matching, supported portable surround speakers to your supported Sonos home theater. Set them down and they bond in about eight seconds, carry one away and both revert to standalone, all hands-free.
See our article on surround sound guidelines and limitations for information on which Sonos products can be used as surround speakers.
Before you start
- You must be updated to the latest version of the Sonos app.
- Your home theater product, and products you want to use as surrounds, must already be added to your Sonos system as separate rooms.
- Your Sonos home theater primary must be a Beam (Gen 2), Beam Ultra, Arc, or Arc Ultra, with the microphone enabled.
- You’ll need two matching, supported portable speakers: either both Sonos Play or both Move 2.
- Products used as surrounds will connect wirelessly to your Sonos home theater product. Make sure they are in the same room and have line-of-sight to your home theater product.
Sonos app for iOS or Android
- Open the Sonos app for iOS or Android.
- Go to Settings, and select the appropriate Room.
- Select Set up Surrounds, and follow the on-screen prompts.
Temporarily switch portable surrounds into stand-alone speakers
Portable surrounds will also allow you to temporarily disable the automatic bonding through the Sonos app. Selecting this option does not remove the surrounds, but instead temporarily switches the surrounds into stand-alone speakers.
From the Settings menu
- From the home theater’s Settings menu, you can see the Stop Using Surrounds button below your products.
- This button turns into Use Surrounds which will switch your portable speakers back into portable surrounds.
- Portable surrounds will still need to return to their position as surround speakers for Sonos Positioning Technology (SPT) to detect and assign left/right placement.
From the output picker
- Open the Sonos app for iOS or Android.
- Select the grouping icon from the output picker at the bottom of the screen.
- A home theater primary that is currently using portable surrounds will show a link button indicating they are bonded together.
- Selecting the link button here will present you the option to temporarily stop using portables as surrounds.
Additional details
- Portables act only as rear surrounds. Front, side, and other roles aren't supported.
- Sonos Positioning Technology (SPT) auto-detects placement and assigns left and right roles. No manual left/right selection is needed.
- Bluetooth, Line-In, AirPlay, and Direct Control are disabled on the portables while bonded as surrounds.
- Speakers stay individually visible in the app (never hidden).
- Customers can manually unbond/unpair, regroup, or switch to standalone playback using a long-press, or the Sonos app.
