A:AnswerIt depends but in general yes it’s better than the sound bar by itself and yes it can be used as rears although it’s so much better than that. I’d rather have two of them for forward facing music all by themselves
A:AnswerAs long as you have the “hotspot” option with your provider you can connect very local devices through it. Works great as a temporary solution.
A:AnswerIt's an enclosed speaker. I suppose you could custom-build something to mount it in the ceiling, but it does require power and at least for initial setup, you'll need a Cat-5 or better Ethernet cable. If you do custom-build something, make sure you can easily remove it to set it up again if you're WiFi ever changes.
A:AnswerYou can group several Sonos speakers from individual locations to play individually or as a group. What you choose is determined by your selection(s) through the Sonos App
A:Answernot really, no. at least, not yet. there are some hacks on the internet that involve writing code, etc., but I don't have the confidence to try that.
HOWEVER, sonos said last fall that they were going to come out with an update (over the air) to enable Alexa functionality. it was supposed to be available early this year (2017), but it hasn't been released yet. Sonos did demo the feature recently and it worked, but they said they still weren't happy with it, so they are still working to polish it up to their standards. my guess is in the next couple/few months, they'll release the update. i'm happy to wait, knowing that it won't require me to upgrade any hardware, and will only be a matter of a software update.
hope that answers your question.
