I hope I made the right decision.

Go to a hospital and everyone is sick. Fact is, for the vast majority of users, Sonos is seamless. There are always a couple dozen or so who have problems that are more indicative of network problems than Sonos problems. These are easily rectified. There are millions of units out there, and a couple dozen users having trouble should not worry when there are many millions that are running fine.

I want this to be an easy seemless experience, but I’m more than a bit worried now. My technology disabled wife is going to be using this system. She has trouble with a microwave.
You will occasionally have to step in to manage the glitches that can surface in any wireless home audio set up.

At the outset, it is worth assigning reserved IP addresses to every Sonos unit on your WiFi router/base station. Including all devices such as phones that will host Sonos controllers. It is also worth wiring one Sonos unit to the router, and buying a Boost to use thus, if no other Sonos unit can be conveniently wired. With these couple of steps, you can expect up time to be more than 99% if you have a stable home Wifi. So it has proved to be in my 5 zone set up since 2011.

To make things even easier for your wife, see if you can have a unit with a line in jack for the places where she will use it most and wire an Amazon Dot to it. Then set the line in for that unit to autoplay. That simplifies things even further, if she isn't conversant with app use.

I'd just add that the support from Sonos online and on the phone is very good.

And this Community is also part of that support network. You'll get lots of people that want to moan, some people that have a problem that don't articulate it well but, in general, most people are very helpful.

Perhaps, it's worth taking a positive from this. So many people care a great deal about Sonos and use this forum to communicate. I bet you've not been on a forum about your television or microwave or mobile phone? :D:D

I second Kumar's recommendation for reserving IP addresses for Sonos devices in your router. This is especially important if you find yourself needing to reboot your router for other reasons, as some routers don't save the DHCP addresses that they hand out, causing conflicts later on. Reserved addresses are saved, and other devices are prevented from getting those addresses as a result.

Having a wired Sonos device isn't required, but I've found that Sonos' own wireless network can be more robust than regular WiFi, since each Sonos device can connect to the others around it. But if you've got great WiFi coverage around your house, there's nothing wrong with using that.

If you need to call Sonos for support, expect long hold times. Good support takes time, and Sonos support is great. Plus, there's a great group of folks here, both employees and customers, always willing to help when possible!

Everyone here is right. The glitches for the most part are issues with some peoples wireless network and IP address conflicts etc. from reboots.

Kumar's recommendation to setup reserved IP Addresses for your Sonos units as soon as you have them all up and running will prevent you from having most any of these problems.

Fact is a lot of people don't understand networks and first thing they blame is their Sonos unit when it is really network issues they need to correct. As also mentioned above, this forum is a great source for those with issue as well as Sonos support. And yea - all those people with systems working perfect for years don't come post here.

Great replies everyone! Let us know if you have any trouble, jjayf. We pride ourselves here at Sonos on making a great product and having great people behind it. Don't be too worried about seeing posts here of people having trouble, this is a support forum on top of being a great user community.

Check out the music, culture and industry board to share some music and chat. Feel free to get involved. There's a lot of good information here on the board and good people helping out.