A big advantage of the phone controller introduction was that it was “free”. Also, you usually had the phone nearby. Carrying two devices was a bore.

With respect to four network jacks, consumer mesh networks were not available and network switches were more expensive. The four ports were also handy when used as a switch, possibly for the computer, NAS, printer, or other perferal. Now it’s assumed that everything is wireless. This was not the case in early 200x. The SONOS mesh with four ports was very handy. 10/100 was the usual consumer rate early in 200x.

Yes, the cost of the CR100 was a the main deterrent for me when I originally looked into Sonos.  I was not happy with my 75ft RCA cable between my upstairs PC and downstairs stereo system.   I could accept for $400 for the ZP80, but not another $400 for the CR100 (I believe those where the prices).  The iphone controller opened the door for me.

As far as hypothetical CR300, the biggest factor for me would be cost.  $50 seems like the upper limit, but $30 is more ideal.  The second biggest factor is that whatever features it has must feel like it’s a better option than using voice control or pulling out my phone.  That essentially means that it has hard buttons and minimal feature set.  It would effectively be little more than a remote control, which is pretty close to some third party options that are already available.

• Ability to bond/link to a specific room.  I don’t mine buying multiple of these if it means that I don’t have to think about switching rooms before taking an action
• No screen.  That would add a lot of expense and drain the battery.
• Hard buttons for basic playback control.  Volume, prev/next, etc.
• Hard buttons for a few favorites
• Hard buttons for a few saved groups
• A hard button to have SVC (if speakers are equipped) to state what’s currently playing.
• A hard button for other common features, like speech enhancement, that I don’t use much myself, but others may toggle on\offf on a regular basis.
• If linked to an HT room, then have control options on the TV screen (when HDMI input is set) and your typical navigation buttons (left/right/up/down/etc) to allow users to select what to play, simiar to a remote for a video streaming box.
• communicate via BLE to save on battery
• Use AA or AAA batteries rather than having a lithium battery and charging base
• Configurable in the app.  That said, I would hope the remote could be done so only one way communication (remote to speaker) is needed.

A new Sonos dedicated instant on controller would for me be a no-brainier purchase, the CR100 was fantastic at the time but it was painful with the scroll wheel finding things. The CR200 was much better but the screens failed quite regularly but at least you could easily replace the battery.

A screen would be nice on an enhanced model, e-ink would work well without much drain as it’s the Wi-Fi that’s going to kill the battery more. Low power like Zigbee (sold with a hub) could be the way?

AA rechargeable batteries but the circuits designed to use 1.2V and not 1.5V

The spouse had no interest in Sonos until she picked up a CR-100 and realized she could use it. Bought more CR-100 than all other Sonos devices.

She was happy enough we went back and added two Play 5 Gen 1s to our two ZP80s. Then a couple Play 3s in the dining room, then a couple Play 1s.

Give her another CR-100 clone, no enhancements needed, and she’d be back to using Sonos.

I still have a couple of each of those Sonos controllers showing in my Sonos account online, but all four went into recycling a long time ago - one CR200 and both CR100s still worked fine at the time they were obsoleted.

I always thought the CR100 in its charging base was a bit too big. I much preferred the CR200, but it was inevitable that phones and tablets were going to takeover - I recall the upset too when Sonos decided to focus on Android and iPhone and dropped the idea of supporting other mobile operating systems, like Microsoft and that caused a bit of a backlash in the community too, back around 2015/16 IIRC.

Controversially (perhaps), I like the new Sonos App layout and how it works, but of course, accept it (still) has a number of issues that need ironing out. I can though see potential in the new App, if the engineers are able to get it up-to speed in all areas.

The old S2 Apps, particularly the PC/Mac desktop controllers have seemed outdated to me for a long time - not that I use a PC very much these days to manage/control our Home audio setup. It’s now iPhone and iPad here nowadays (mostly iPad as the old ‘peepers’ prefer the slightly larger display).

The CR-200 was pretty neat to look at but was about impossible for us to use. Both touch issues and tiny print problems. Mine rarely got used for other than a “now playing” display.

I hadn’t even thought of using an e-ink display, ​@Belly M! I could see that being pretty useful as a “now playing” feature. But having an old-school controller similar to the Ikea controller but with more buttons, like ​@melvimbe mentioned, could also be pretty useful. Especially for my parents, who rarely, if ever, touch the app, as they like having the physical interaction with a device.

This rfid/Pi/Sonos hack was popular of few years back, I especially like the repurposing of the obsolete bridge case:

https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/hdz9ef/i_ripped_out_the_insides_of_an_old_useless_sonos/

Oh, I had completely forgotten about that one, ​@craigski. Thank you!

I remember seeing a few companies offer something similar, but DIY-ing it could be a fun little project to make my parents use their system more.