How to set up Sonos on a Tenda Mesh system (with or without a Boost)

Have you tried wiring only the Boost to the router and leaving all other Sonos devices not wired? Be sure that you also keep WiFi enabled on ALL devices.

If this doesn’t work, try wiring the Boost to the primary node and leaving all other Sonos devices not wired. Again, keep WiFi enabled on all devices.

No, I haven’t tried that but will give it a go tomorrow, after beer therapy!

I’ll let you know about success or otherwise. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I’m not sure why GS suggested wiring the Boost to the main router. By default the Tenda primary will also contain a router, so the Sonos system would be inaccessible from the Tenda WiFi. Follow his second option and wire the Boost to the Tenda primary.

As for the current arrangement, it’s really asking for trouble to wire Sonos units to multiple wireless WiFi mesh nodes. With the Sonos radios disabled, the mesh backhaul has to carry all the traffic between Sonos players in groups/pairs, and the latency can spike resulting in dropouts. And if the Sonos radios remain enabled there’s a good chance that SonosNet’s STP could fight with any (R)STP implementation in the WiFi mesh, or whatever loop avoidance technique it uses.

You should only wire Sonos to the mesh primary node (unless of course the mesh secondaries are themselves wired). 

You could use multiple BOOST’s. Wireless BOOST’s should be placed about midway between a good coverage area and a poor coverage area. SONOS will form its own private, designed for purpose mesh.

Thanks for the suggestions guys - I have connected up as suggested, with the Boost hard wired to the primary node of the Tenda Mesh and the speakers all relying on SonosNet , and although the system network looks better (from the network matrix) I am still getting “network connection speed insufficient to maintain playback buffer” as well as “the song is not encoded correctly” (although it will play the same song a few minutes later).

There is nothing which seems to provide reliable playback on my Sonos network.

Don’t know where to go next.

Post a screenshot of the network matrix. 

Have you tried different SonosNet channels? What channels/widths does your WiFi use at 2.4GHz?

What source are you playing? Do you get the same errors with all sources?

Here’s the matrix. I am playing FLAC files from network attached hard drive.

I have avoided channel 6 as the Tenda Mesh is locked to this channel, and have avoided channel 11 as I have home security cameras which are fixed on that channel. So I think I have to stick with channel 1. BTW I have also tuned off wireless on the router to avoid conflicts, as the connection between router and mesh primary node in ethernet.

No obvious interference, though this is just a snapshot. The signal to Dining Room is weak, especially the left unit which is typically the Group Coordinator of the pair.

When things fall apart which room(s) are playing? And if it’s a group which is the first room in the list, to which the others were added? As it stands, a group which started with Dining Room could easily struggle.

Thank you again for your help.

My ambition(!) was to play to all units simultaneously, but have scaled back and am trying to use group(s) with fewer speakers, to try to keep the traffic level down.

Certainly a group with Dining Room and Sitting Room was dropping out earlier today, so that might be the issue.

The units do seem to be quite widely spaced out. 3 nodes -- Kitchen, Hallway and Dining Room (R) -- are opting to connect to other wireless nodes, rather than to the Boost directly. Kitchen can’t detect the Boost at all. Multiple wireless hops will cost SonosNet bandwidth.

As for grouping, the units will try and stream directly peer-to-peer, though you don’t see these adhoc connections in the matrix. Low signal strengths clearly won’t help. It’s generally best to start a group from a wired node, or if none a wired then from a wireless node with a good signal strength.

It’s difficult to make definitive recommendations without understanding the geometry of the house, but a second Boost, placed somewhere central might help. On the other hand it could be completely ignored. In some circumstances there can be a way to force its participation, but given the presence in your case of other STP-active components in the network (everything Sonos is “tertiary”) such a move could open a can of worms. 

As an experiment you could temporarily substitute the Kitchen player for the Boost as the wired component, then position the Boost, wireless, somewhere in the middle of the house. See what happens to the matrix. If that looks like a promising approach, buy a second Boost and play around. You could always return it to Sonos within the standard period.