I have a new toy! It was some weeks back when Ming first told me that he had a great idea for what to buy me for my birthday. He described it as a wireless sound system that could be controlled by an iPhone or iPod touch and play the music of any computers in a Wi-Fi area.
It can also apparently play hundreds of radio stations all over the world which stream via the internet.
I didn’t think much of it. When he asked me if I would like it I just went “err…”. He looked disappointed and asked “What? You don’t like music ar?”
I thought a little deeper about it. I mean yeah I just moved into this new place and I don’t really have a sound system in the bedroom yet so I guess that would be nice… but do I need such a fancy one? I mean heck, I would’ve just settled for a speaker dock for my iPhone on my nightstand. Then I went home and started doing some research about this wireless sound system he told me was called “Sonos”. I watched some videos about it and read about what it could do and I was IMPRESSED.
Let me tell you what it can do.
I now have two of these speakers that apparently have like a woofer and all built in. One in my bedroom (along with my 1,000 year old boxy TV).
and one in my living room downstairs.
They are both connected by this hub called the “Zone Bridge”. I only have two but if you have more you can simply hook them all up to the same wireless network.
So from the Sonos iPhone App I can install on my phone, I see this in the menu.
I can browse all sorts of different radio stations from all over the world. Like here I’m looking at the radio stations in San Francisco.
I can choose the radio stations based on genre. Say if I like classical music, there are many many radio stations out there that have nothing but classical music. Say I like RnB then I can pick the RnB stations or if I like the Oldies I can pick a station that specializes in Oldies.
There are even news stations, comedy stations etc etc. Heck there even is a station dedicated to Beatles songs and play nothing but that. That’s one of Hello Kitty’s favourite. Then I can control them such that both the speakers in my Living Room and Bedroom play the same music or different music.
In this case, the speaker in the Living Room is playing “Song to Whoever” by Beautiful South and the speaker in my bedroom is playing “21 Guns” by Green Day. It also pulls off any songs from any computers that are hooked on to my Wi-Fi network and can play from that computer instantly.
The sound from the speaker too is great. A little speaker like that can go really really loud. I don’t know if the sound quality is better than a Bose or something but…. I like the flexibility it gives me to listen to whatever music I want, wherever I am at home. Best part is that I don’t need another controller just to control this. I can just do it from my phone.
All the internet radio stations too are great. It’s like you keep discovering new great songs when you listen to them.
Thank you for the great Birthday Present Ming!
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space