Sonos’s All-In-One Connected Speaker System

The S5 provides integrated WiFi functionality yet, to maintain high availability audio streaming, Sonos units will only talk to each and hardwired connections. So, for true wireless freedom, many potential S5 owners will need to pick up a Zone Bridge ($99) to take the whole thing airborne. Given current networking reliability and my own experiences streaming video wirelessly (high def, no less), I’m not sure this is necessary. So while Sonos will indeed control the horizontal and vertical to ensure the music never stops, I wonder if this additional hardware requirement does more harm than good in providing another barrier to entry.