My Sonos works terribly in my home. There’s got to be a way. Long story long.
I’m not a techie.
I barely function in 2018.
The facts:
I have a large stone house built in 1885 with 3 floors and horse hair plaster walls. Every floor has lots of rooms - no open concepts anywhere.
I have received a total of 3x Sonos Play1 speakers as gifts over the last 3 years.
My Sonos is so frustrating and I’d rather not even use it. I have major trouble connecting and controlling the music outside of 1 specific room - kitchen - where there is 1 of the 3 speakers and a router extender.
My internet provider has serviced my house several times to make internet signal available and strong everywhere.
2 WiFi signals on the same network;
a 5.0MGHz and a 2.4 MGHz
The setup:
1st floor
Living Room - 1x Play1 speaker; primary modem/ router
Dining Room - nada
Kitchen - 1x Play1 speaker; router extender
2nd Floor
3 Bedrooms - 1x WiFi extender
Bathroom - nada
3rd Floor
2 Bedrooms - 1x WiFi extender
Bathroom
Recreation room with pool table - 1x Play1 speaker
The issues:
Outside of the kitchen, the sonos app on my phone can NEVER connect to the network and sonos app, essentially locking me out (Sonos can’t find the network) until I get back to the kitchen. My phone does stay connected to the best signal of the 2.4/5.0 not matter where I am in the house but the app never does.
If I put music on while I am in the kitchen, it does continue to play from the music folder I started from regardless of whether the app is finding the network or not. It’s just that no one can control it. When the music/app/speakers are working the music sounds great and can control any of the 3 speakers.
Lastly, the music libraries I have on my phone, and in my iTunes, are never available in the sonos app (in those instances it does connect) and it leaves me with a very small fraction (less than 10a%) of the music I actually have in the folder.
In summary:
The entire reason my family gifted me the Sonos speakers was because the house is so old and wiring for music speakers would have been messy and costly.
When I started with just 1 speaker (living room) it wasn’t as apparent there was a big problem since I only had to figure out how to connect with 1 speaker. I dealt with the music library challenge assuming I’d figure it out.
Once I added a second speaker in the kitchen it was clear there were issues connecting on one side of the house v the other. So from there I had the ISP provider come and get me a router extender in the kitchen. It worked 50% of the time. The music library was still a problem.
When I got my final speaker I decided I need med the music in the 3rd floor pool room. Knowing I had been having connectivity issues on 1 floor I assumed this would be a challenge. So I had the ISP provider back and they installed several extenders including one on the 3rd floor. Again the phone connects to the network no problem.
The music library situation had actually gotten worse. It appears it is able to see and play less songs that when I first got the speakers.
I am at my wits end and will likely just stop using the sonos system which is very disappointing because the sound when it does connect is fantastic.
Please help my last effort.
Thank you all!
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Hi Leachdog. Am I right in interpreting the sonos side of your setup as being that the three speakers are communicating via a sonosnet mesh, with the first one wired into the router? And what are you using by way of a controller? An android phone or tablet can talk direct to a sonosnet mesh if you tweak the settings - so if you have weak wifi on the upper floors, but the sonos mesh is holding, that's a possible solution. I must admit I've never been a fan of wifi extenders, especially if they are chained like that up the floors (I have 4 floors, also in stone 1870s building). Both the sonos mesh, and now a wifi mesh have been much better for me.
Hi, leachdog1. Some great advice and insights from Alistair123.
In describing your setup, you've done a far better job than others... Even those that claim to be rather adept with technology. Thank you for being so thorough. I can understand the issue of having thick stone walls, I've seen it time and again. However, I daresay that if your WiFi network is severely stifled by the nature of your home, we're in for a rough ride. Forgive me if this sounds cynical but as Sonos relies on WiFi, any environment lacking in that regard is not going to be the most accommodating... You've seen this first hand.
From your description of the problem, it sounds as though your WiFi extenders are of the variety that receive a signal through the mains electricity. Even under the best possible circumstances, these are only ever as good as the wiring that they are connected via. Going by the behaviour that you are encountering, your system would appear to be segregated; split amongst the various WiFi adapters available. Effectively, each is behaving as its own WiFi network. Thus, in connecting to one versus another, the attached devices you can subsequently see/connect to would differ.
I do not wish to push you from pillar to post but given the circumstances, it might be best to get in touch with us via telephone. This way, an engineer can talk you through the possibilities.
Prior to (or instead of) this, here's a couple of tips:
- If you have someone that is au fait with computers and WiFi configuration, it might be worth having them "Rename your WiFi extenders to share the same SSID and password as the main WiFi".
- If you haven't already, you may also wish to consider a Sonosnet configuration. You did mention that you have a speaker near the router but I wasn't sure if it was cabled via Ethernet or not.
- Lastly, the most expensive but future-proof way, would be to consider installing Ethernet cabling throughout your home... Daunting as it seems, this would be the absolute best way forward. Not only for Sonos, but for future-proofing your home.
Please let us know how this turns out for you. Any further questions, we'd be delighted to help. All the best.
In describing your setup, you've done a far better job than others... Even those that claim to be rather adept with technology. Thank you for being so thorough. I can understand the issue of having thick stone walls, I've seen it time and again. However, I daresay that if your WiFi network is severely stifled by the nature of your home, we're in for a rough ride. Forgive me if this sounds cynical but as Sonos relies on WiFi, any environment lacking in that regard is not going to be the most accommodating... You've seen this first hand.
From your description of the problem, it sounds as though your WiFi extenders are of the variety that receive a signal through the mains electricity. Even under the best possible circumstances, these are only ever as good as the wiring that they are connected via. Going by the behaviour that you are encountering, your system would appear to be segregated; split amongst the various WiFi adapters available. Effectively, each is behaving as its own WiFi network. Thus, in connecting to one versus another, the attached devices you can subsequently see/connect to would differ.
I do not wish to push you from pillar to post but given the circumstances, it might be best to get in touch with us via telephone. This way, an engineer can talk you through the possibilities.
Prior to (or instead of) this, here's a couple of tips:
- If you have someone that is au fait with computers and WiFi configuration, it might be worth having them "Rename your WiFi extenders to share the same SSID and password as the main WiFi".
- If you haven't already, you may also wish to consider a Sonosnet configuration. You did mention that you have a speaker near the router but I wasn't sure if it was cabled via Ethernet or not.
- Lastly, the most expensive but future-proof way, would be to consider installing Ethernet cabling throughout your home... Daunting as it seems, this would be the absolute best way forward. Not only for Sonos, but for future-proofing your home.
Please let us know how this turns out for you. Any further questions, we'd be delighted to help. All the best.
FWIW, I would endorse what Edward says. Big house + thick walls + extenders needs careful handling if Sonos is to have a chance of being reliable. And you absolutely have to use Sonos' dedicated mesh, SonosNet (IMO). Do call in to Sonos Support, get some hands on assistance, and you may be able to enjoy Sonos without problems, like the vast majority of Sonos users.
If it helps, I have a large house with thick walls and have my whole house accessible by using powerline adapters (I use TP Link) which have wifi range extenders built in. This is different to a wifi access point because the network travels along the house wiring between the wifi extender nodes and then broadcasts the same wifi network as that which comes out of the wifi router. So you don't need the extenders within wifi reach of the router, put them anywhere and just plug them in to a mains power socket. You connect one poweline adapter (not a wifi one) to your router and plug it into the mains power and then pair up other powerline adapters with wifi anywhere in your house simply by pressing two buttons. A two node setup costs about £40 from Amazon (search TL-WPA4220KIT) then add more nodes as needed to fill your house! Sometimes the mobile app gets confused if I have it active while I move through the house but it recovers quite easily.
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