I took the Sonos Play to the park, and you should too (while it's hot, anyway)

It never takes long for the Great British Public to embrace a heatwave – even one that's slated to end *checks notes* tomorrow?! That's a bit of a bleak prospect, but a few days of glorious sun have nonetheless brought some real succour to those of us desperately hoping for the actual turn of the seasons to bring some proper warmth.

When it hits the mid-twenties in London this early in the year, I can confirm that the parks become packed literally immediately, and there's nothing that goes with chilling in the park quite like a decent speaker. Too many times, as you stroll around the UK's parks, you'll hear tinniness and distortion, and know that people are enduring flaky battery life and a total lack of durability or weatherproofing, just to get some tunes on for the vibe.

I'll be honest – while I swallow my pride and do it for outdoors testing whenever I review speakers, I'm normally a little reluctant to bring a speaker to the park in my own free time. I love a bit of music, but I can sometimes feel like I'm setting the tone for other people, whereas some earbuds would give me the same vibe without that imposition.

That changes when it's a gathering, though, and this hot and sunny weather has made me look again at the Sonos Play, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago and on which I lavished plenty of five-star praise.

After all, the whole point of the Play is that, while it's a great home speaker that integrates with Sonos' multi-room system beautifully, it also has the flexibility to let you simply pick it up and take it out with you when you want something portable.

I did just that at lunch today, seizing the moment to grab an hour in the sun with a speaker that I was admittedly slightly leery of taking my eyes off to avoid anyone getting too jealous. I'd already used the Play outside for my review, but doing so again really underlined just how impressive I think Sonos' work here has been.

It's taken the sort of sound performance that you get from the Era 100, but put it in a package that feels stable and durable enough to take a little punishment in the outdoor world. It's also really quite pretty, in my view, especially in the white version that I've still got on hand.

I'm pretty confident that the white finish might scuff up over time, with grass stains being a real possibility, but I'm a picnic blanket kind of guy, so I'm hoping that keeps me safe from any lasting marks.

Crucially, though, it's the sound that really made its mark. Sonos says that its Automatic Trueplay system should account for your surroundings using the onboard mics, and I switched the Play back and forth on this setting to see how it impacted things. True to expectations, I did find that I got fuller sound when the speaker was able to detect the huge open space around me.

Staying true to my attempts to be sociable, I didn't crank the Play up to near its maximum volume, but I never found that it was weedy at the lower and medium volumes I explored more fully – everything I threw its way sounded great, and while there are bassier speakers on the market, none of them can match the other benefits that Play boasts.

So, with full awareness of a weather forecast that suggests we won't get another day like today for a while, my point is this: if you're on the lookout for a great home speaker that can also join you in the park, the Play is a terrific choice. It'd be great to have one on standby for when we get our next heatwave.