Need a Boost for many Sonos Speakers?

The Boost puts Sonos gear on their own network, taking them off your home WiFi and allowing you to do a lot more things with the home WiFi like use multiple channels and some advanced options.

No real need for a Boost for most folks today as you can wire any Sonos unit and get all the goodies of Boost mode.

In your situation I'd wire as many Sonos devices as possible with Ethernet and assign static/reserved IP addresses in the router's DHCP settings. No Boost unless there was an issue connecting to a Sonos device due to distance or noise.

Gotcha - yeah I don’t have any connection issues - it just seems like the overall system is struggling when all rooms are used at once.

Sometimes it takes 2 minutes for a room to be removed from the group, sometimes playback will cut out, sometimes volume changes won’t take.

Hardwiring really isn’t an option. Do you think assigning static IPs would help?

I’m not really sure if this is expected behavior because of the number of devices or if I have an issue.

I have to assume there are others with more products then me in use?

Thanks!
Joe

You say you have no connection issues but then mention Sonos problems that are usually connection related... :-)

The Boost would get your Sonos off your Ubiquity system, probably a good thing. There are other topics here discussing the things you need to do or not do to get a non-Sonos mesh setup working with Sonos, I read a couple and decided I was not going that direction.

The static IPs are known to help recovery from power failures and updates, suspected to improve other random glitches too but no user has spent the time needed to track down exactly what is happening. I put quite a few hours into looking and all I learned is the issues are not related to duplicates or new assignments by the DHCP server. I realized I was pouring hours down a rat hole and quit trying to understand the issue (since packet sniffing was the next time-consuming and un-fun step) and just followed the advice of the old timers here and set the addresses.

An aside, since Sonos gear has started using IPv6 addressing I have seen no operational changes and since Sonos isn't using DHCP6 to provision addresses there is no easy way to assign reserved/static addresses for v6. Hasn't appeared to be an issue so maybe the address bug is IPv4 specific.

System performance is related to the number of devices, but only as part of the issue, the rest is the loading and configuration of your non-Sonos mesh network. You might get it to work well with Sonos but the restrictions that solution imposes may not be to your liking. I'd have heartburn with the "must have all mesh APs on the same channel, SSID and passphrase" just to begin with. A Boost or wiring one or more Sonos components eliminates any of the restrictions on your mesh setup.

Some folks are near the maximum component count, I think you are at 18, and do see issues when sharing WiFi that are reduced by going to Boost mode and using the Sonos mesh. You'd have to dig out their stories here but it makes for interesting reading, I learned a lot about Sonos from that.

In your situation I'd go with a centrally located Boost and static IP addresses, a few minutes work and under $100 for the Boost. Once you have done that isolating any remaining issues gets a lot easier too, after getting a look at your system in Boost mode there may be other things that can be done to help solve the remaining issues if any.

If you hesitate to spend the money on a Boost just temporarily relocate a speaker to where you'd put the boost, hook it ti Ethernet and see if it helps. If it does then put it back and get the Boost, most newer Sonos speakers work almost as well as a Boost when acting as the LAN to SonosNet bridge.

Just make sure your Ethernet connection is on the same LAN as your WiFi or Ethernet connected controllers as Sonos doesn't work across LANs by default.

You say you have no connection issues but then mention Sonos problems that are usually connection related... :-)

The Boost would get your Sonos off your Ubiquity system, probably a good thing. There are other topics here discussing the things you need to do or not do to get a non-Sonos mesh setup working with Sonos, I read a couple and decided I was not going that direction.

The static IPs are known to help recovery from power failures and updates, suspected to improve other random glitches too but no user has spent the time needed to track down exactly what is happening. I put quite a few hours into looking and all I learned is the issues are not related to duplicates or new assignments by the DHCP server. I realized I was pouring hours down a rat hole and quit trying to understand the issue (since packet sniffing was the next time-consuming and un-fun step) and just followed the advice of the old timers here and set the addresses.

An aside, since Sonos gear has started using IPv6 addressing I have seen no operational changes and since Sonos isn't using DHCP6 to provision addresses there is no easy way to assign reserved/static addresses for v6. Hasn't appeared to be an issue so maybe the address bug is IPv4 specific.

System performance is related to the number of devices, but only as part of the issue, the rest is the loading and configuration of your non-Sonos mesh network. You might get it to work well with Sonos but the restrictions that solution imposes may not be to your liking. I'd have heartburn with the "must have all mesh APs on the same channel, SSID and passphrase" just to begin with. A Boost or wiring one or more Sonos components eliminates any of the restrictions on your mesh setup.

Some folks are near the maximum component count, I think you are at 18, and do see issues when sharing WiFi that are reduced by going to Boost mode and using the Sonos mesh. You'd have to dig out their stories here but it makes for interesting reading, I learned a lot about Sonos from that.

In your situation I'd go with a centrally located Boost and static IP addresses, a few minutes work and under $100 for the Boost. Once you have done that isolating any remaining issues gets a lot easier too, after getting a look at your system in Boost mode there may be other things that can be done to help solve the remaining issues if any.

If you hesitate to spend the money on a Boost just temporarily relocate a speaker to where you'd put the boost, hook it ti Ethernet and see if it helps. If it does then put it back and get the Boost, most newer Sonos speakers work almost as well as a Boost when acting as the LAN to SonosNet bridge.

Just make sure your Ethernet connection is on the same LAN as your WiFi or Ethernet connected controllers as Sonos doesn't work across LANs by default.

This is an AMAZING reply. Thanks so much for the thoughts and explanation.

I too would not be able to handle having all APs on the same channel.

I'm going boost and static IPs - seems like the "most bang for the buck" :)

THANK YOU AGAIN!

Joe