Large commercial space, multiple SONOS Connect, Ethernet only?

15 replies
2424 views

Hi there,

I run a recreational facility (20,000 ft) with two large gyms as well as a number of smaller rooms. We have a five Unifi access points throughout the building providing both guest and private wireless networks. In addition, to the Unifi access points, there are a four access points for an ISP provided public wireless network.

All of our instructors use Android tablets to take attendance and play music for their classes. I am looking to setup a number of Sonos Connect in order to make it easier for the instructors to play music in different areas without having to plug in an Aux cable and leave their tablets next to the speaker systems.

If I hard wire ALL of the Sonos connect will they turn off their built in wireless and use my wired network to communicate? I don't want to add any more WiFi devices if possible since we already have some issues with congestion due to the large number of access points and users (at peak times we have hundreds of users in the facility, many accessing the WiFi)

Thanks,

Kevin

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

M

motobrando

Lyricist I

I have Wifi congestion too. Sonos will tell you what I'm about to say is unsupported, but it has worked beautifully for me and has completely solved my issues with audio drops and grouping issues.

If you plug your sonos into Ethernet they will use Ethernet and also create sonosnet mesh. Sonos speakers will talk to each other over ethernet when possible. If there are speakers that you aren't able to hard wire they will connect to Sonosnet unless you go into the speakers hidden webserver and turn off wifi.

its located at http://:1400/wifictrl

If you turn off Sonosnet on every speaker that is hard wired any remaining wifi speakers will connect to the network you setup in the sonos app and not attempt to create a sonosnet.

M

motobrando

Lyricist I

This is what you're looking for: https://bsteiner.info/articles/disabling-sonos-wifi

G

Gary-C

Avid Contributor I

You can't "push" music to the Sonos system, you may have to factor in a NAS drive to store all the music on to be pulled by Sonos. I bought a 3TB WD My Cloud for £85 so not a deal breaker..

?

Don't get that. You can play music directly from an iPad or an android phone directly from an app to the speaker of your choice without any NAS and without using the Sonos controller?

Airgetlam

Your phone, in that case, is acting as an NAS, i.e. an external IP address that the data is being pulled from.

Bruce

K

Kmo12345Author

Contributor II

Hi all,

Just wanted to update you on this project. We have the Sonos system up and running and for the most part it has been working very well. For anyone else looking to do this, here is how we've set this up.

We are using Rolls DB24 Stereo Direct Interface to convert the unbalanced line level output from the Sonos Connect to balanced XLR which can run long distances to large powered speakers mounted high up on the wall (On-Stage brackets anchored to concrete).

In our smaller studios we ended up going with a single Play3 wall mounted with a Vebos 15 degree mount. The volume is adequate for a ballet class but I think we'd need to have two of them or a Play5 for a more high energy class.

We are still planning on running electrical and Ethernet to the ceiling above the wall mounted Play3 as right now we need to use an extension cord for power. We have noticed some signal dropping on the Play3 which is still on WiFi and is furthest from the access points. I suspect this issue will disappear when it is hardwired.

Most of our lesson plans have assigned music which is stored on a Windows file server. With the exception of one morning when it all disappeared until I removed and re-added, we have not had any issues accessing it. Occasionally the app is unresponsive but the Play3 has a physical Play/Pause button which is accessible so the instructors can pause using that. In the large gym areas we have mounted the Sonos Connect up high so the physical buttons are not accessible. Using another tablet or putting your finger across the TRS plug on the aux cable does the trick.

We discovered the second method accidentally when people who were wondering how the sound was playing went and grabbed the Aux cable. The conductance of their fingers is enough to cause the Sonos to auto-switch to the Aux input (of their finger) which is a rather short lived audio source. I still like this feature though since during open gym times the users can play their own music but we can easily override them if needed.

We are still thinking about trying to implement a site-wide PA using the system but it might be more trouble than it's worth. The access points we have are also available with an attached PA system (Unifi AP AC EDU) but in either case we won't have complete coverage (some areas with no Sonos and others with no APs)

Thanks again for all your help.

Sign up

Login to the community