Sonos speakers are great, and they’ve popularized multi-room wireless audio. They still have weaknesses. They don’t do Bluetooth, they need to be plugged into power outlets, and even when Sonos opens itself up to Spotify early next year, you need Sonos’s app to play music from other sources.
Vizio sees those shortcomings as opportunities. The company has been making soundbars to slot under its affordable televisions a while, but its new SmartCast Cravespeakers are its first standalone speakers designed for wireless multi-room audio. Like newer Vizio TVs, they offer deep integration with Google Cast: Any Google Cast-supported audio app streams directly to the speakers over Wi-Fi or Ethernet. You use your mobile device as a controller, but the speakers form their own connection to streaming services.