Sonos CC100 Charging Cradle for Sonos CR100 Controller

I love the Sonos system and gave it 5 stars, but the stand seems a tad overpriced at $50. It is solid / well built though.

Works like a champ. Very practical and complementary to the Sonos Controller. But I can't rate it 5 stars because it is way too expensive for being essentially a battery recharger for the controller.

Because this cradle does not include the power supply, it is even more expensive than it first appears. This is an attractive piece of plastic without power. You'll need to buy the power supply to keep your controller charged while it rests in the cradle.

Here is the power supply:

Sonos AC100 Charging Adapter for Sonos CR100 Controller

Unfortunately, there aren't any aftermarket alternatives, so the price gouging continues.

Sean P. Logue, 2008

If you have the Sonos system, you need this. Way easier than plugging the controller in every time.

All this does is hold the Sonos controller you already have and feed it electricity from the Sonos charger you already have. It's "worth" the price for the convenience, because not having one is inconvenient (more on that below), but there's no way that this convenience should have a $50 price tag. It's a classic case of charging your customers what they're willing to pay, not what something cost to produce, which is good business but just smacks of greediness when the rest of the Sonos system is so high class.

I thought I'd just get by without the charging cradle, but:
- the socket on the controller where you have to plug in the charging wire is hidden behind a little flap of rubber which is finicky about opening; it's more work to charge the Sonos controller, without the cradle, than any other rechargeable thingy I have (iPod, cell phone, etc). So, the cradle is more necessary for the Sonos than these other devices, in my opinion.
- if you leave the controller unplugged from the charger for too long (not sure exactly how long, more than a few hours, less than a day) then it goes into a low-power standby mode to save the battery, and it takes a long time to wake up from standby.

So the upshot is if you have the cradle, the controller behaves beautifully -- set it in the cradle when you're not using it, and it's always charged and instantly ready for use. If you don't have the cradle, you're stuck carefully prying the rubber port cover out of the way and plugging in the charger, and if you're ever too lazy to do this, you'll have to wait for the controller to wake up the next time you use it. The cradle saves me 30 seconds multiple times a day, so it's worth it, but I'm still annoyed I had to expend this much money and analysis over something so simple.