Boost to replace bridge. Is it necessary?

The only thing I’ve seen/heard in recent times, within this community, is that the Sonos Bridge is today considered by many, as rather ancient technology and it’s old power supplies tend to lose their 'steady' voltage output, which is needed for stable performance.

It’s probably a case that your Sonos Household has been identified as one that still uses the old Bridge, hence the discount offer email.

The improvements to Sonos software and hardware in more recent years, plus the advancement in router Wifi technology, likely means your Sonos system is probably going to be better off, either by running your Sonos devices on your routers WiFi signal ...or by cabling an existing speaker, or the much newer Sonos Boost, to your main router instead.

The decision of what you do about the email, of course, is upto you. I personally chose to swap my old Bridge a while back for the newer Sonos Boost.

The cheaper way, is to switch the system over to the routers WiFi and this document explains how to go about doing that, but personally I still like the idea of cabling one of the newer Sonos devices to the local network.

Hope this link helps:

Switching Sonos Connection Modes

I'd do the Boost or wire another Sonos device and unplug the Bridge from power. I'm not a fan of using Sonos over your home WiFi as Sonos has some WiFi settings requirements you may not care for.

Sounds like the OP’s question has been answered so maybe I can ask a related question here...

Is there an advantage to the Boost vs hooking up an existing speaker via Ethernet?

Not really, no.

It kind of depends on the speaker....if you have one of the early ones sold as ZPs, it might be better to do the BOOST, but that's not a guaranty. You'd likely be fine with wiring just a speaker.

That being said, it's extremely convenient for people like me, who don't have a speaker anywhere near my router. I'd much prefer to connect a BOOST there, as it's got a small footprint, and I've no need for sound in that area.

But I'd certainly be tempted, if things were different for me, to just plug an ethernet cable into one of the speakers.

Hi stealle

Note: I took longer to type my comment than @Airgetlam and therefore could not see his comments until after I posted.

The Boost has Omni-directional antennas and better hardware than the old Bridge. That said if we were comparing the Boost to wring a Play 3, Play 1 or Play 5 Gen 1 and possible the still active Playbar I’d say the Boost is a much better choice to establish the Sonos Net.

The newer Sonos One, Sonos One SL, Beam and Play 5 Gen 2 are a different story as their antennas are stronger for the purpose of establishing the SonosNet. However, the Boost does have Omni-directional antennas and creating the SonosNet is specifically what it is designed for. So that said as an analogy a pickup truck is better at carrying heavy loads than an SUV.

I hope this helps! Cheers!