Question

Having more than 32 Sonos Players under one SSID

  • 2 October 2019
  • 8 replies
  • 650 views

Im planning to install 35 Sonos Players (3x 5.1, a couple of stereo pair).

1) If I hardwired(CAT-6) all of them to a network switch (Totolink SW24 24 port + Totolink SW16 16port) which is then connected to my router, will I be able to go up to 35 Sonos Players?

2)The Condo Unit is 3 floors, with a router on Floor 1 and Floor 2 (Serves floor 2 and 3).
If all the speakers are hardwired as in (1), will I be able to control Floor 3 from Floor 1?
Now the two routers have different SSID, but if I change them to the same SSID will that help?

3) Is a Sonos Boost required for the mentioned setup?

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8 replies

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32 is the max and that’s if your network is up-to the task.

if you really do need that many speakers or even more in the future then you might want to look elsewhere.
I understand the limit is 32 devices, rather than 32 players and 3 x 5.1’s plus a couple of stereo pairs total 16 devices. So you can have two lots of those (I believe). If you were then to add a Boost you would be over the limit.

Theres nothing however to stop you having separate Sonos Households on the same WiFi perhaps with dedicated controllers for each.

I just wouldn’t then go onto try to play to ‘everywhere’ at once, as you are likely to quickly exceed the bandwidth limit of your local network.

Faced with your situation I would personally setup a different Sonos Household on each of the different floors of the building, maybe even try putting them on different wireless access points or much better still different network LAN’s/Subnets entirely and run them as though they were just separate buildings, although I cannot vouch for the potential of wireless interference issues in some instances, perhaps?
Badge +20
At least with them all hard wired there is a good chance it will work and have the option of disabling wifi on the Sonos speakers.
Im planning to install 35 Sonos Players (3x 5.1, a couple of stereo pair).
That only adds up to 16 units.
3 x 4 (main/sub/2*surrounds) + 2 x 2 (stereo pairs)
Theres nothing however to stop you having separate Sonos Households on the same WiFi perhaps with dedicated controllers for each
See https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990/two-sonos-setups-with-one-ssid-in-apartment-6830500?postid=16364518

Im planning to install 35 Sonos Players (3x 5.1, a couple of stereo pair).That only adds up to 16 units.
3 x 4 (main/sub/2*surrounds) + 2 x 2 (stereo pairs)



Right, not to doubt @Aruld1308's math, but it would be rather difficult to break the 32 device limit in a condo. Assuming you 3 5.1 setups (12 devices) you would then have 10 stereo pairs available before you crack the limit. 13 rooms.

Regardless, if you really are up there, I would like at ways to reduce the number of devices. You could knock 3 speakers off just by replacing one of your 5.1 setups with a port + 3rd party HT setup. You could possibly replace a pair of Play:1/Sonos One/ Sonos One SL with a single play:5 or Sonos Move. Replace a pair with a Sonos Amp + passive speakers (possibly in ceiling?)


Im planning to install 35 Sonos Players (3x 5.1, a couple of stereo pair).That only adds up to 16 units.
3 x 4 (main/sub/2*surrounds) + 2 x 2 (stereo pairs)
Right, not to doubt @Aruld1308's math, but it would be rather difficult to break the 32 device limit in a condo. Assuming you 3 5.1 setups (12 devices) you would then have 10 stereo pairs available before you crack the limit. 13 rooms.

Regardless, if you really are up there, I would like at ways to reduce the number of devices. You could knock 3 speakers off just by replacing one of your 5.1 setups with a port + 3rd party HT setup. You could possibly replace a pair of Play:1/Sonos One/ Sonos One SL with a single play:5 or Sonos Move. Replace a pair with a Sonos Amp + passive speakers (possibly in ceiling?)

Most of these suggested alternatives have no impact on the number of zones (rooms) and so I would have thought any benefit would be negligible..

Theres nothing however to stop you having separate Sonos Households on the same WiFi perhaps with dedicated controllers for eachSee https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990/two-sonos-setups-with-one-ssid-in-apartment-6830500?postid=16364518

Thanks very much for that helpful information @ratty I didn’t know about that matter with the controllers. I think separate subnets make much more sense in this situation in any event.

I would think that when users go down the route of 'multiple' Sonos Households (over WiFi) in quite close proximity that some users could also possibly start to run into WiFi interference and bandwidth issues too in some cases.