Hardware Reference
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will happily fill a large room with sound. iHome's $300 iW1 and $200 iW2 AirPlay speakers are af-
fordable and compact enough to slot in any space in your home or office. Bowers and Wilkins also of-
fers smaller but still high-fidelity AirPlay speakers in the form of its A5 ($750) and A7 ($985) speak-
ers. These speakers don't come cheap, but if you're after the best quality from an AirPlay speaker,
you'll be hard pressed to find a better option.
If you can't find a place for an AirPlay speaker in your bathroom, you might want to invest in the
iShower , a waterproof Bluetooth speaker that allows you to control music playback while you wash.
It's also handy by the pool or on the beach.
You then need to buy an HDTV for each room you want to send video to, again assuming money
is no object. Each HDTV needs its own Apple TV to act as an AirPlay receiver. (Scratch the second
trust fund for your least favorite kid!) Now you need to control this monster network of AirPlay kit,
so it's time to invest in iOS devices and computers. You'll probably want a MacBook or PC equivalent
so you can stream audio to any of the speakers dotted about your abode and mirror your screen to
any of the HDTVs connected to an Apple TV. The same goes for the iMac or desktop PC in your office.
When you're casually strolling through your palatial atrium or visiting the north wing where
grandma does her pilates, you'll want to be able to control your whole system, so an iPhone, iPod
Touch, or iPad running Apple's Remote app (which, as much as you may hate the idea of low cost, is
free) is the next solution. While you're at it, why not get a similar device for each member of the fam-
ily?
Finally, you may find that in the outer reaches of your campus-like home, the Wi-Fi signal for
your iOS devices isn't available. Why? Because a standard wireless router or AirPort base station can
only transmit up to around 300 feet, and that's on a good day. To maintain a constant Wi-Fi signal
throughout your home, you'll need to extend the existing network with additional base stations or
any of the numerous Wi-Fi range extenders on the market such as those from Netgear and Cisco Sys-
tems.
And then you're done. You have a complete AirPlay setup across your home. Just don't tell your
accountant.
The more realistic AirPlay setup
Now back to the real world. Chances are you have a less grandiose vision for your AirPlay net-
work: the ability to listen to music in different rooms and stream videos and other media to your TV
from your iOS devices or computer. Not only is this plan inexpensive, but it's the one AirPlay was de-
signed for.
Start by thinking about which rooms you would like to stream music to and then set up and posi-
tion your speakers accordingly. Remember, if you have an AirPort Express base station, it can double
as a wireless speaker in your network by attaching a standard speaker to it via an audio cable. If you
have more than one AirPort Express knocking around, you have the added bonus of using one to
provide the wireless network (and act as a speaker) and the other to extend that network elsewhere in
your home while also acting as a speaker.
With your speakers in place, decide where you will primarily use your Apple TV. Do you want to
stream video to your TV in the bedroom or access movies on your computer through your living room
TV? Of course, at the Apple TV's $99 cost it's realistic to buy two Apple TVs to cover both TVs, but I'll
leave that decision up to you.
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