To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more

Sonos cuts the cord, eliminates need to wire in first speaker in a system

Sonos

Sonos is experimenting with true wireless speaker systems, completely eliminating the need to have one Sonos speaker wired directly into your router in order to stream throughout the house

Multi-room music pioneer Sonos has announced plans to remove the need to wire the first player in a Sonos setup directly into your network router via Ethernet, effectively making the system truly wireless for the first time.

The announcement, which has just been posted to the official Sonos blog, arrives just days after the company teamed up with Google to add Sonos integration to the Play Music Android app and seems to be part of an effort to make the Sonos system as simple as possible to new customers.

Currently, you need to wire one Sonos player (or Bridge) directly into your home router, so that other players can connect to the main network and internet via the proprietary wireless mesh network. This applies to all Sonos equipment, including the entry-level Play:1, mid-range Play:3 and top-end Play:5, but the company has plans to do away with this requirement, letting the kit connect directly to your existing Wi-Fi network.

Although further details weren’t announced, Sonos plans to launch a wide-scale beta program for users to test the wire-free setup, which would help bring the system up to speed with the collection of rival multi-room speakers that have appeared on the market in the past few years. This includes Pure’s Jongo multi-room system, which connects to a Wi-Fi signal without needing a direct connection.

The move would effectively make the Sonos Bridge redundant for new users, but the company said it “certainly won’t be recommending that existing customers take out their Bridge” as it will “continue to be an excellent way to stream music around the home.”

There’s currently no time-frame for the beta rollout, or any indication of how many people Sonos plans to include, so Sonos customers eager to cut that final cord should be sure to check the official Sonos blog for more information as it appears.

Read more

News