Question

Mixed Sonos net wireless with multiple Wifi access points.

  • 11 August 2017
  • 4 replies
  • 673 views

Userlevel 2
Badge +6
Making some networking changes in the house, and looking for opinions.

At the moment I have one consumer router/AP/switch, and I have Sonos players on Sonos net. Some of the players are wired and some get their wireless from a Sonos Boost. Of course the Sonos net and the wifi are on different channels.

The wifi coverage in the house is terrible, half the house is very weak. The Sonos is working fine.

I’m planning on getting Ubiquity router, switches, and a couple of access points.

The question is should I keep the Sonos on Sonos net, and use two wifi access points? Or should I run the Sonos on wifi, ditch the Bridge, and use two or three AP?

Fwiw, my main player is a Play-5 II, three feet from the Bridge. I have a Connect on wired Ethernet, which is usually turned off. I have a Play-5 downstairs that I use from time to time. To get good Sonos wireless to the downstairs I turn on the Connect so it can relay the signal.

Opinions?

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4 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +22
I found issues with my Sonos units being too close to each other as well as too close to my AP or RF noisy equipment. I pulled up the Network Matrix web page and fiddled distances to start with. Then looked at other gear that was causing WiFi issues and powered it down or moved it.

Get your Sonos units 4 or 5 feet apart and see if things look better than at 3 feet as my first suggestion. Check for noisy gear as step two, my WD LiveDrive (Ethernet only, no WiFi radio) was killing the WiFi for a Play:3 sitting a couple feet from it.

I"m using a pfSense firewall but I have an Ubiquity router as a backup and Sonos has shown no problems working with that when needed.

My WiFi is off an Ubiquity Unifi AP AC Lite managed by a CloudKey, I haven't tried running Sonos off of it instead of my Bridge but I did find that I needed some distance between the AP, my Bridge and one of my Connects for all to be happy.
Userlevel 2
Badge +6
Stanley_4: good tip about moving things around. I'll keep that in mine. I probably should have said that while the bridge and the play-5 are three feet apart, they are separated by the floor (one is in the basement, one is upstairs).

Btw: what's the advantage of the cloudKey over installing the software on a PC? It does sound more convenient...
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
Software on the PC requires the PC to be on all the time to be fully functional and updates are a bit frustrating. I tried that and got tired of the pc's power use versus not having the tools available.

I tried their tablet app and it is handy for a quick setup but other than that it is pretty weak as a stand-alone but very nice when paired with a controller.

The CloudKey moves everything to a deck of cards sized device with full functionality. Updates and backups are super simple as is pushing updated to your APs. The key doesn't like flakey power though so I keep mine plugged into a UPS, the tiny draw makes no difference to the run time there. For around $70 it is a great deal in power / heat / time / aggravation saved.
CloudKey means you've got a dedicated headless machine constantly running the controller software which makes it easy to access at anytime from anywhere. But my only warning is ive had LOTS of problems using sonos with Ubiquiti equipment: network storms, strange connectivity issues, players randomly disappearing, etc. i feel like this has a lot to do with my using of strictly ubnt gear, but maybe its just normal bugs with sonos.