Product Analysis: ZonePlayers

We have discussed the concept behind Sonos’ digital music system previously, and like the ZP100, the ZP80 is more or less similar to its predecessor. But as a refresher, here’s a quick overview of the system.

The Sonos music system will essentially let you listen to your favorite music throughout your house with a remote control, Sonos’ ZonePlayers, a pair of speakers and a home network. The ZonePlayers get connected to the home network (one of the ZonePlayers must be physically connected to the router for the system to function), while the rest communicate wirelessly to the company’s peer-to-peer mesh network. You can place the ZonePlayers anywhere throughout your house, although the number of ZonePlayers per network is limited to 32. All 32 ZonePlayers require a separate pair of speakers, but thankfully, you can save some money on a remote control. A single remote can control all of the 32 ZonePlayers with a single touch. The hardware also comprises of an application that synchronizes the process on the PC side of the equation.

With that said, a few things have changed for the better with the updated suite. The ZP80 is now much smaller than the ZP100, which is nice. We were never worried about the size of the ZP100, but now that Sonos has improved on that, maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all. Sonos is able to release a smaller version of the ZonePlayer 80 (ZP80) by removing the integrated amplifier. You can tuck away the small ZonePlayers in a nook and magically control your music now.

The back of the ZonePlayers consist of analog ports for audio, power input, digital audio out and Ethernet ports, while the front is integrated with a power button and volume up/down buttons. That’s pretty much all there is to the design.

Next