Question

IP Addresses

  • 15 February 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 7787 views

I'm trying to chase a problem that is caused by either my Sonos system or my mesh WiFi system. To help me do this I need to understand how Sonos uses IP addresses. I suspect that Sonos changes the way it uses IP addresses depending upon the configuration and upon changes to configurations. I would like to understand what happens to IP addresses with the following configurations:
Standard Setup - does each speaker have a unique IP address
Boost Setup - do all speakers have the same IP address
Surround Sound Group - do all speakers in a surround sound group have the same IP address
Stereo Parings - do both speakers in a stereo group have the same IP address
Group - when speakers are grouped together do they maintain their unique IP addresses
Also, what happens to IP addresses when speakers are moved into and out of Groups, into and out of Stereo Parings, into and out of Surround Sound Groups, from Standard Setup to Boost Setup and from Boost Setup to Standard Setup.
I have seached documentation and the Community and have not found any answers to these questions. If anyone can provide insite on IP addressing I would appreciate it.

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3 replies

Userlevel 7
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All speakers maintain their IP address assigned by router. It’s a good idea to reserve ip addresses for them in your router so they are always the same and leases don’t expire
Each unit gets a unique IP address from the DHCP server on the network, just like your laptop. Many glitchy issues can be resolved by setting up DHCP reservations for each Sonos device. SonosNet or Boost mode is a layer 2 bridge, not a separate layer 3 network.

Looking at the network matrix may be helpful: ${sonos_ip}:1400/support/review

One possibility is that your problem is due to STP issues.

Sonos does use a spanning tree protocol implementation, and almost certainly so does your wifi mesh system. One possible solution is to make sure your speakers are in boost mode (not wifi mode), see:
https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3046/~/choosing-between-a-standard-and-boost-setup
https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3319/~/switching-your-system-between-a-standard-and-boost-setup
and hardwire via ethernet cable only one Sonos unit to one of your wifi devices. This will create one 2.4GHz network for all the Sonos devices to communicate with each other with, and they'll bridge traffic to your other network as needed. (try and set the sonosnet network to a different 2.4GHz channel than your wifi mesh 2.4GHz network.)

If you have lots of wireless interference this may not work very well. If that's the case you may need how to tune the Sonos STP implementation to work with your wifi mesh STP implementation with different costs. You may need to engage support from Sonos and your wifi mesh device vendor.
Thanks for your quick response Chris. My two Play:1's have the same IP address and I'm working to fix that. I'm not sure how it happened. I did test them as part of a surround sound group and as a stereo paring. Now I want them to be separate. My PlayBase is setup in Boost mode and at one time my PlayBase also had the same IP address, but I've managed to get it a separate address. And yes, once I get a speaker on a unique IP address I am reserving the IP address. I don't want to reserve the same address for two speakers. Thanks again.