W6205

I bought a pair of these to go along with my W6205 Soundbar so I have some experience working with this ecosystem. They sound great and once you get the hang of using the system is super easy to play music and stream audio too.For first time users of this system you will need to download the Play-Fi app in order to pair the speakers to your Wi-Fi connection. (This is probably the hardest part)To do so you will need to press and hold the Wi-Fi button and wait for two alert sounds. (bwang!....a few seconds later another bwang!) Take your finger off the button then you will want to wait a few seconds (5-15s) for the blinking light to start pulsing and then its ready to pair.Once everything is connected you can play music to it directly via Spotify or whatever music service app.If you have multiple devices connected to the system then you can control all the speakers through the Play-Fi app. Which my best advice here is...tap on everything. There's a bunch of features I just never noticed. When playing on one speaker you can tap on the speaker name to add/remove more or if you tap on the icon near the speaker name you can adjust the volume of each individual device. That sort of control is addicting when you mainly work from your living room. (Covid Lockdowns)Overall, I like this speaker but I think it really shines when you have more than one. Speaking of shine....I do actually like the rear lighting. I wish I could just control it all with one app but overall its a feature that I like way more than I was expecting. (You can also turn it off).

I was genuinely excited as this product supports all connectivity formats (Bluetooth, Chromecast, Airplay). This was very important to me as I do not like to be locked into any one ecosystem (e.g. sold my Sonos One SL speakers as they worked with Apple Airplay only and had no BT and Chromecast (Google and Sonos still locked in a court fight over patent issues)). I was so excited I ordered two of them and managed to set them up as a Stereo pair!Positives:- Excellent and great looking speakers. Simple and pleasant decor and fits really well with the environment (compared to other cheap looking plastic products)- I am not an audiophile but the sound was generally good and fine.- Great value and price (<$100 per device)- I have a lot of local audio/video content (on my NAS, iPhone/Android phones). I also have Spotify subscription and occasionally also use Amazon prime music. Play-Fi app does have the ability to connect to a huge number of audio services and it was relatively easy to connect to a few of them that I tried. It auto-detected and connected to my Synology NAS and I was able to cast music from there!Cons:- I am a tech savvy person and generally don't mind troubleshooting and debugging, if required. As other reviewers have already called out, setting these up was a bit of pain. Installing the firmware update was also needlessly slow, painful and overly complicated (as compared to Sonos which was ridiculously simple)- I generally like to keep things simple and don't like new 3 things to make one new thing work. In this case, I had to install 3 apps (Philips Sound, Play-Fi and PS Fine Tune apps) to make this work.- Once the speakers were setup as a Stereo pair using the Play-Fi app, they still show up as two separate speakers (not as one Stereo pair) in both iPhone as well as Google Home app. For instance, when I setup Sonos speakers as a Stereo pair, they showed up as one Speaker when casting music from my iPhone via Airplay. This was really annoying. For Android, this could be a limitation in Google Home app as it only allows Google made speaker products to be configured as a Stereo pair but not too sure...- You are required to use the Play-Fi app for everything, especially if you want the Stereo pair to work as intended. I have my other favorite music apps that I have been using for years on both iPhone and Android but they can only cast to one of the speakers at a time, not to the Stereo pair. This was frustrating.- Spotify, on the other hand, was the only app that auto-detected the speaker pair and I was able to cast to both of them as a stereo pair. I guess this should go in the positives section? :)- One can live with all these cons if the speakers worked consistently. But, alas, they don't and this was the most frustrating part. I start WiFi casting and they seem to be fine for one or two songs and then they suddenly stop casting for no reason whatsoever. I have seen this pattern of behavior with every app I tried (Spotify, Play-Fi, my NAS). For comparison, I never had any WiFi audio casting issues with Sonos and Samsung Soundbars that I currently use in my home.- Also, when the WiFi casting stops suddenly, the Play-Fi app doesn't seem to recognize the speakers anymore (as if they have lost connection to the home WiFi network) and, occasionally, I had to pull the plug to have them rejoin the network.- Also, one of the speakers in the Stereo pair would start and then stop playing the music. Some times, it is the left and, at other times, it was the right speaker. This was also really annoying.- Haven't tried BT so can't comment on how good that is but I see other reviewers have complained about stable BT connectivity so YMMV.I tried to tweak the settings in the Play-Fi app but that didn't seem to make any difference. I packed up both speakers after few days of trying them out and returned to amazon.Other product/s worth looking into are the Bose Home Speaker 300/500 as they also support Bluetooth, Chromecast and Airplay. While I did use Bose Home Speaker 500 for a few months (and it worked fine), I haven't tried the Stereo setup with these products so can't comment on that.Good luck!

I bought a couple of W6205 mainly for Philips TAB8805 surround speakers(with DTS PLAY-FI Surround).The surround pairing is easy if you use 5Ghz wifi6 router(2.4Ghz not recommended for surround 5.1 system), and the surround effect is great after you defined the whole play-FI Surround with app.Moreover, I also tested with play-FI Stereo mode for Spotify music, the bass is strong but not too punchy, and the voice is clear, W6205 really make me the room filling sound!!after all, despite the incapable of BT stereo pairing, the DTS PLAY-FI functionality is versatile and stable, if you are looking for a speaker with fair price and great sound, W6205 is the choice!!

It was time for a speaker upgrade, and the combination of a recommendation from a friend, and it being on sale for $99 made this purchase a no-brainer for me, and I’m glad I bought it.First up, like everyone else says, it sounds AMAZING! I have a soundbar paired to my television (non Philips) and this sounds better. I have this speaker in my workshop and listen to it all day. I’ll definitely get another one for the living room to enhance my tv watching.I don’t get why some of the other reviewers had trouble. I downloaded the Philips app and it set right up and instantly integrated with all my music apps. Note that it’s best to play your music apps through the Philips app’s interface.There are things I listen to that aren’t listed in the Philips app, like Audible, but no problem: this instantly connects to Apple AirPlay and it sounds equally amazing. As to the second app, if you’re a big-time audiophile who wants to tweak the sounds, it’s available. It’s also good if you’re connecting to any audio that isn’t on the Philips list, you still have the option to work with the settings!All in all, it’s a great purchase, and I plan on buying another one.