If you’re among the millions who own Sonos speakers, then you don’t need a paragraph explaining how great they are (the speakers, not the owners).

A Sonos is an internet-connected speaker. It can deliver music from 50 music sources (Spotify, Pandora, Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.)—and you control it from an app on your phone or computer.

These speakers sound amazing for their size and cost. They’re entirely wireless, and they’re easy to name and group—Kitchen, Living Room, etc. In other words, they let you create a whole-home audio system for a fraction of what a professional installation would cost.

View photos The older Sonos Play:One (left) and the new Sonos Play are suddenly voice-controllable. More

Well, fine—until the Amazon Echo came out. The Echo sounds flat and tinny compared to a Sonos speaker, but it overtook Sonos in sales last year (5 million sold vs. 4 million) for one key reason: The Echo lets you ask for music by voice. “Alexa: Play ‘The White Album.’” “Alexa, play some cooking music.” “Alexa—play ‘Mr. Blue Sky.’”

This is what’s known as a killer app, people. It feels like “Star Trek,” like “The Jetsons,” like magic. You come home, you throw your keys in the bowl, you say, “Play some classical music,” and there it is.

But over on Planet Sonos, people still had to haul out their phones to start music, stop music, change tracks, or change the volume. I realize how first-worldly that sounds, but trust me: Sonos owners looked with longing over the fence at their Echo-owning neighbors.

People came up with all kinds of hacks to connect an Alexa to a Sonos (buying a Dot and using a wire, for example)—but in general, this was a missed opportunity the size of Texas.

The end of the era of suffering

Well, it took Sonos some time, but I’m happy—really happy—to report that it has finally come to its senses. The Sonos One ($200) speaker looks, sounds, and costs the same as its predecessor, the Sonos Play:1. (Who comes up with these confusing names—someone from Microsoft?)

View photos Here it is: The Sonos One, a combination Amazon Echo and internet speaker. More

There are two tiny differences: The new speaker doesn’t have a mounting bracket on the back, and its top buttons are touch-sensitive spots instead of physical switches.

View photos Both the Play:1 and the new One cost $200, but they look and sound identical except for the top buttons. More

And there’s one huge difference: the new speaker is an Amazon Echo. It has Alexa built in. So you can ask it for the time in Paris, for a 20-minute timer, for a joke, for last night’s sports results, for an NPR news update, for an Uber ride, for a Domino’s pizza, to set your Nest thermostat, and so on—and you can ask it to play any music in the world. (See my video above.)

But meanwhile, it’s a Sonos. So now you can not only ask, “Play Billy Joel”; you can say, “Play Billy Joel in the living room.” Or, “in the kitchen.” Or wherever you’ve set up your Sonoses.

You don’t have to replace your existing Sonos setup, either. Just one Sonos One speaker (with Alexa) can control all your older Sonos speakers (without Alexa).