Wireless Home Networking - Index of

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Part IV: Using a Wireless Network
Figure 12-2:
The Sonos
Music
System is
advanced
stuff!
� Make sure the security matches your network security needs. All the
wireless bridges we’ve mentioned in this chapter support WPA/WPA2
security on the network, but other products on the market don’t.
Remember that security in a wireless network is a least-commondenominator
concept — if even one of your devices supports only WEP
and not WPA, your entire network will run using the (not-so-secure)
WEP security system.
Equipment with built-in Wi-Fi
Some manufacturers are building whole-home wireless entertainment systems
(typically focused on music-only applications) that let you set up a centralized,
remotely controlled multiroom audio system without wires or complicated
installations. Essentially, you can use Wi-Fi to get a whole-home audio
system like the really rich folks have in their mansions with $200,000 custominstalled
wiring systems. (Wireless) power to the people!
We focus on a leading-edge wireless media server product, the Sonos Music
System (www.sonos.com, about $900 for a two-room system), as shown in
Figure 12-2. This technogeek’s dream system consists of a controller (the
brains of the system), a “zone” player (the endpoints of the system where all
the speaker and system interfaces are housed, as well as a four-port switch
so that you can network other items in the vicinity — nice!), and matching
speakers you can use if you want everything to match.