Sonos ZoneBridge 100 (BR100) | 
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| Brand: Sonos
Category: CE
Buy New: See price in cart
New (7) Used (1) Refurbished (1) from $79.99
Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 887
Color: Light Gray
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Modem: None
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 6 x 6.1 x 4.8
MPN: ZoneBridge BR100
Model: ZoneBridge BR100
UPC: 180501001147
EAN: 0180501001147
ASIN: B000X1TS54
Promotion: Data not available Terms and Conditions
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Provides flexibility to place your ZonePlayers in any room of the house and connect them all wirelessly. | | • | Improve Controller access to SonosNet by placing a ZoneBridge in areas where wireless coverage needs a boost | | • | Install a new ZoneBridge with one button-press. | | • | Easy Internet connectivity for other products in the house | | • | Automatic access to new features and music services |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
The Sonos ZoneBridge 100 makes setting up an all-wireless Sonos system wonderfully fast and easy. Instead of connecting a Sonos ZonePlayer S5 Music System to your router directly, simply connect the ZoneBridge to your router and the rest of your ZonePlayers will work wirelessly throughout your home. By installing ZoneBridge to your router, you can place your Sonos ZonePlayer S5 anywhere in your house without wires. With the Sonos Wireless Music System, one device has to be connected to your router. This creates the Sonos Wireless Mesh Network, which ensures that the music never stops. Then the all your ZonePlayers and controllers can operate wirelessly. Here s an example: Let s say you wish to purchase two Sonos ZonePlayer S5 units (fantastic sound, unlimited music), one for the kitchen and another for the bedroom, and neither of these rooms is near your router. In this case, use the ZoneBridge as the device that connects directly to your router. The S5 units in the kitchen, bedroom and all future units would work wirelessly from this point on, giving you a full home wireless music system. ZoneBridge is the fast, easy and very affordable way to wirelessly connect your first ZonePlayer S5 to your router from anywhere in your home. Order yours from Brookstone today!
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 24
 A Bold New Way to Listen to Music July 14, 2010
Matthew Schenker (Western Massachusetts)
A few months ago, I decided to upgrade my music system. I began looking at CD "jukeboxes" that could load my entire collection. Along the way, I discovered the world of wireless music systems, and began researching them. Sonos seemed to be well-received, so I finally made the decision to purchase a ZoneBridge and a ZonePlayer 120. This setup has fulfilled every expectation I had for a new music system, and more. It's an easy and pleasant way to listen to music you already own, and to discover new music.
Below is my review of all the main benefits I see to this amazing system.
1. System Setup
Sonos offers many hardware options, but they all have a few things in common. A Sonos ZoneBridge connects to your computer - it "indexes" music on your hard drive and connects to the Internet for music services (more on that later), then it beams all this to a ZonePlayer, which is hooked up to speakers somewhere else in your home. It creates a wireless network dedicated just to music and does not interfere with other wireless devices. You can add more ZonePlayers, and they all pick up the same wireless signal and allow you to listen to your collection in multiple locations throughout your home.
The ZonePlayer 120 has standard jacks for directly connecting speakers. You can also hook up an ethernet cable, if you want to stream music through a wire instead of using the wireless signal. Finally, the ZonePlayer 120 allows you to connect an analog device using standard RCA cables. For my setup, I just hooked up two speakers.
To get ready for this system, you must rip all your physical CDs into a music library. This is the most time-consuming part of the process. But there is nothing unusual here. You can use iTunes to rip CDs into your library, just as you normally would. To get the best sound quality from the Sonos system, you should rip everything using "Apple lossless" format (instead of MP3). This is really easy to do in iTunes. Lossless is not required (you can use MP3s if you want) , but it's better because you'll get CD-quality sound.
After you rip all your CDs into an iTunes library, you run the Sonos "Desktop Controller," which comes free with Sonos systems. This is one of the easiest and most intuitive software applications I've ever used. Just tell it to set up your music library. It finds your iTunes collection and "indexes" it in the Sonos system. Depending on the size of your collection, this may take a little while. With my collection of about 400 CDs, indexing takes about three minutes.
After that, there is an automated process where the software "locates" your ZoneBridge and ZonePlayer. On your computer screen, it literally shows a picture of the devices with arrows pointing at the buttons you need to press. In less than five minutes (seriously) the Sonos Desktop Controller can have the whole system done and ready to go.
Other than that, you just decide whether you want to use one of Sonos' remote controllers, or get the free Sonos app which runs on the iPhone or iPod Touch. I use the free app, and it it works great: I turn on the iPod Touch, click the "Sonos" icon, then scan my entire music collection and play anything, within a few seconds.
2. The Listening Experience
Of course, easy set up does not matter if the system doesn't sound good. Well, Sonos sounds great. The music that plays through the ZonePlayer is CD quality (remember to rip in Apple lossless format). It's as simple as that.
There is about a three-second wait time when you first click on the icon on your controller, as the Sonos systems starts up. But after that, you can run through your collection without delay. I like how my music collection is suddenly organized alphabetically by artist, album, or track names. If you're like me and have a large collection, this indexing of your music is itself a great improvement over looking through hundreds of CDs for the one you want! Of course, the accuracy of your index relies on the album and artist data you provide when ripping your CDs into your iTunes library.
Once the music starts to play, it just works. I've never had interruptions due to wireless connection problems. While the music plays, you see album artwork on your controller, plus the standard play/pause/forward/rewind functions we're all accustomed to. You can also create playlists.
3. Music Discovery
Of course, having your entire music collection easily accessible is great. But the Sonos system goes much further. I was pleasantly surprised after I started using my Sonos system to see some excellent music discovery options I had not known about before.
Through the Sonos system, you can access Pandora (the free Internet radio service) and play it through your stereo speakers.
You can also access radio stations from around the world and play them live over your stereo system. I've enjoyed cruising my local radio stations, or stations from around the world. You can find stations in obvious places like the US, Europe, Africa, and South America. But you can also find them in remote areas of the South Pacific, Asia, Antarctica (I'm not kidding), and places you may have never heard of before. It seems as though almost every corner of the globe is represented in this system. If you find a station you like, you can bookmark it as a favorite. It is important to point out that when you play a radio station through this system, it is not a canned pre-recorded program. You're hearing the actual broadcast, exactly as it would be heard by a "regular" radio.
You can also take out a subscription to an online music service. I chose Napster for $60/year. At any time, in about a minute or so, I can locate artists, albums, or tracks and play them on my stereo system. The sound quality of Napster is not quite the same level as the lossless files ripped from my CD collection, but it's very good. You can bookmark your favorite albums or artists to play them easily each time you start the Sonos system. Napster even has some interesting spoken-word "albums" like poetry readings and stories. You cannot create CDs from Napster music, but I use it all the time to hear enough to decide if I want to buy the actual CD, which I then rip into my library.
There are numerous other music services available through the Sonos system. All of them show up right on the main menu of your controller.
4. Product Support
The Sonos system often feels overwhelming when you're first looking into it. When I began reading about it, I was confused about all the different ZonePlayers, could not tell what I really needed, and did not know about the sound quality of the equipment. For me, it was great having the Sonos user forum, a group of customers helping each other. There are a lot of patient people there who are willing to help you understand what the Sonos system is all about. After purchasing the system, you may have a question or two about options and possibilities, and the user forum is great for all of this.
5. Conclusion
As you can see, I'm a big fan of what Sonos has done with their music system. It really has opened up all kinds of listening possibilities. I can play music easily and at high quality levels, and I even see my own collection better now - sometimes noticing CDs and songs I had forgotten about!
I recommend this system strongly to people who want to modernize their music library but keep the same music quality they are accustomed to with CDs.
 This device is an overpriced bridge July 8, 2010
Michael Jee
Unless you're really tied to the Sonos name, there's really no reason to purchase this device. It's simply an overpriced wireless to wired ethernet bridge. There are dozens of products which can perform the same task at a much better price point, even gaming adapters for many popular consoles perform this take effortlessly (I use the TRENDnet TEW-647GA which I purchased new for $30).
Sonos refuses to make the system more friendly and cost effective for users who don't want to tether their first Zoneplayer to a wired connection, and after many complaints decided to once again stick it to the consumer by offering them an overpriced bridge rather than just building this functionality into their system, which would require no hardware modification in their existing Zoneplayers.
Excellent system that JUST WORKS!! June 19, 2010
Gator (USA)
I just connected a zone bridge to my Apple Time Capsule and then a ZP120 to the prewired speakers in my house. The installation couldn't have been easier and the system works perfectly. I contacted the Sonos tech support folks to help in transferring my iTunes library to the Sonos. Not only did they take care of it with ease, but they actually connected to my iMac through an online "assist" program and adjusted the setting in my computer without my having to touch a single key. Then they started the transfer and all 57Gb of music flawlessly transferred to my time capsule as an actual file, versus the standard storage zip file, that the Sonos system can access and from which I created my own music library with ease. And of course I can continuously add to this library everything time I add music to my iTunes by "updating data" link. I am using my Apple iTouch and iPad as the wireless controllers using the free iTunes app that is available. The Sonos system comes with Pandora, and 90 day free trial versions of Rhapsody, Napster, and Sirius. Frankly, the system couldn't work better even if I had designed it for my home sound system myself. This system (in the words of Apple) JUST WORKS!! I can't wait to add some more zones to my house using the free standing S5.
Zone Bridge May 6, 2010
Robert C. Blondel (Lutz, Florida)
Sonos should include this item in its starter kits. Without it wireless access is not as good between zone players. This unit completes the system. I wish the zone controllers had an earphone jack and could be used like an iPod/MP3 type device. It would make it easiler to listen to music in bed or in the hot tub.
 Sonos Simple May 2, 2010
Images Per Second (Orange County, CA USA)
This little bridge was very simple to set up and made deploying the rest of the Sonos system very simple. The only two minor complaints I have are: 1) the Ethernet ports on the back of this box are not labeled - even a number would have been nice - just to identify which port was being used for the bridge and which was being used as a pass through. And, 2) the documentation is non-existent. (BE SURE to install the software on a control computer on your network and then everything becomes very easy after that, including help files.) I own a Yamaha MusiCast system with a couple of zones as well. This little ZoneBridge makes the Sonos system very easy to use while the Yamaha system constantly drops from the network and always has to be rebooted or reset to join the network before you can use it. Not so with the Sonos. It's on, it's ready, and it's reliable.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 24
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