Can't group my speakers anymore consistently unless I unpair all speakers
So I've been a fan of the sonos system since it came out. So much that I've purchased speakers for every room in my home. Most rooms having a stereo pair or 5.1 set up. Years ago I could hit everywhere and all speakers would come on a play flawlessly in the entire home or I could group two rooms or more that had stereo pairs or a 5,1 set up.. Upon the install of the new sonos s2 that all changed..starting with me having to eliminate the first gen speakers in order to use the app. But I noticed my ability to group rooms of my choice stop. When I contacted sonos. This person sonos rep told me I had to remove (ungroup) all my stereo pairs including the 5.1 set up in order to group rooms creating a bunch of mono speakers in my home.. UNACCEPTABLE!!! After spending thousands of dollars to have a whole home set up i have to make every speaker a single (mono) to group. What is the purpose of having a everywhere button if I can't do that. So disappointing. For at least 5yrs I had no problem. Now I have speakers chirping in and out, won't group with other rms etc..again what happened???
Kostello,
The information you have stated is not correct, you do not have to have standalone devices to be able to group them together. Devices can be ‘bonded’ or ‘paired’ within a group, so not sure who gave you that incorrect information, or if you have interpreted the advice incorrectly.
Anyhow looking forward, rather than back...
With larger Sonos systems, I would certainly (personally) recommend running them on a SonosNet STP setup, for ‘likely improved’ connection performance between devices and to help take any strain away from every other non-sonos devices on your local network. This means wiring one device like a Sonos Boost, or one of your more-modern standalone speakers direct to your main router, but keep that ‘bridging’ device a few feet away from the router.
Keeping things simple - In your routers configuration pages, set your 2.4ghz WiFi to either ‘fixed’ channel 1, 6 or 11 (these are non-overlapping channels). I also recommend using a channel width of 20MHz. So let’s set the channel to Channel 11 (as an example). Save the settings and reboot the router.
Next in the Sonos App goto "Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup” and reset/remove any stored WiFi credentials (if present) as these are not required when running all your speakers on SonosNet, but I suggest leaving this area alone (for now, at least) if you have a Sonos ‘Move’ speaker in your household.
Also in the Sonos App goto "Settings/System/Network” and change your SonosNet channel so that it is set at least 5 channels away from your chosen routers 2.4ghz channel - in the earlier example we set the 2.4ghz WiFi to channel 11, so in that case you would set the SonosNet channel to either ch. 1 or 6.
The next thing is to minimise WiFi interference and to assist with that, I suggest you see this YouTube video:
Wireless Interference and Sonos
...and also take a look at this Sonos support document:
So those are the basics for getting your Sonos system steady and if you encounter issues then try changing the channels on the router and SonosNet, but remember to keep them at least 5 channels apart.
If you have any other WiFi access points/repeaters/hubs/powerline adapters or managed switches on the network, then you may also need to configure those correctly, but that can perhaps be a discussion for a later time.
Thank you for this info. I knew the tech support was wrong in telling me to create stand alones... so I called back and was told to reconnect my sonos boost to router and see if that resolves my problem which I am doing as we speak. Will also follow your advice on wifi network adjustments if I still have connectivity issues.. will keep everyone posted.. thx again
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