Question

House with Multiple Wifi Names - How to Add Players

  • 23 September 2015
  • 9 replies
  • 1403 views

Hey there, our house has mutliple Wifi names throughout: KitchenWifi, PoolWifi, LoungeWifi, BedroomWifi - the reason being is we found having them all the same name (eg. EntireHouseWifi) resulting in devices keeping a latch on routers that could be far away (weaker) rather than the stronger signals nearby. Having the wifi networks different names meant if you were on your laptop in the kitchen, you could purposefully choose "KitchenWifi" and be 100% sure you were on that particular router.

My question then, is how do I connect different players to particular networks - from what I can see, you can only choose ONE, and your speakers will all try to latch to that name? Or am I wrong?

Second part to the question is, if I connect my Play3 by the pool to the ethernet network via cable, does that take governance of the signal/path or will the speaker still attempt to join the Wifi mesh?

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9 replies

You can only use one WiFi network at any one time, your best answer is to wire a player to the network Sonos will then create it's own wireless network and use that. I hope all your own WiFi networks are using the same channel otherwise you're going to struggle finding a clear channel for Sonos to use.
Cool, thanks or the quick response, I will wire the Player in.
Userlevel 6
Badge +3
Hi mannfriday,

Welcome to the Sonos community,

I am very interested to follow this thread as I can think of many issues with your set up as it seems to be not very Sonos friendly. I am an avid Sonos user but not never as IT tech savy as some on here like The LHC. You only have the one Sonos Speaker? When you plug it in to a router I believe it will only be able to be controlled on the same wifi as that router and in your case that is fine as that is were you are listening to the speaker. If you are going to move the speaker around the house it may take a few minutes (up to 10) for the speaker to settle in to the new router. What I am not sure of is how it would work if you get the Sonos bug like the rest of us and try and expand your Sonos system to the whole house?
Hi CapnLes - slight correction, I do have more than one Sonos, I have:
Office (Play 1)
Kitchen (Play 3)
Patio (Play 3)
Pool (Play 3)
Lounge (Play 5)

The only devices plugged into the network via ethernet are the Pool - Play 3 (as of this morning) and the Lounge(Play 5). The rest are all on what I assume must be the Sonos Mesh?
Userlevel 2
Badge +7
Hello mannfriday,

I have a similar set-up with 3 different WiFi zones at home, and a couple of my Sonos units connected to different routers/access points in different zones.
It all works just fine - it doesn't matter which zone your Sonos is attached to (as it isn't controlled by that zone - it is an independent network) so you phone can be connected to any of the WiFi zones to control any of the Sonos units.
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
Just adding to the answers here. It's important that all of your SSIDs are all still linked to the same main router providing IP addresses. Sonos controllers cannot connect to players across multiple subnets. If KitchenWifi assigns out addresses such as 192.168.1.xxx but PoolWifi gives out 192.168.3.xxx you'll have trouble. So long as they're all on the same main subnet and network, you should be fine no matter the SSID they're connected to, or which Ethernet port one is wired to.

Let us know if you have any further trouble, and I'll be moving this thread over to Advanced Setups for sorting purposes.
Thanks Ryan - understood - and yes, all on the same subnet, all behaving well. Also, although I know it's not recommended, the Sonos Play 1 is surviving in the sauna so far. It is at ground level, under the first bench, under a plastic lid to prevent water hitting it. Sauna running at 85 degrees C...will see if it melts.
mannfriday.

Per the PLAY:1 user manual, the maximum operating temperature is 40°C.
hi MannFriday, is your Sonos play 1 still working fine in the sauna near ground level?
I am looking for a similar solution too. Thanks in advance. regards, Peter