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Answered

(Network Matrix) Is everything connecting to Bridge?

J

I have a long house and am trying to get great signal all the speakers. I have a WiFi router and a satellite router on each end of the house, so I thought a great solution would be to connect a Sonos device on each side of the house to ethernet. One hardwired device is a connect, the other is a bridge. From looking at the network matrix, it appears like every single speaker is now trying to connect to Bridge, even though for some of these speakers, the Connect named “Living Room” is closer and actually has a superior wired connection because its going to the main router and not the satellite. I thought that Sonos would connect to whatever is closest and strongest?  Network Matrix attached. 

 

I believe that the two dining room speakers and the two kitchen speakers should be connecting to “Living Room” and the rest should be connecting to Bridge. Do I need to buy another Bridge to put on the other end of the house?

 

 

Best answer by ratty

Wiring multiple units is okay, and may help to strengthen overall wireless coverage. However you should not wire to different WiFi mesh nodes. 

The mesh backhaul could suffer from variable latency, which may upset Sonos group performance.

More significantly some WiFi meshes use a form of the Spanning Tree Protocol (to avoid loops) which can conflict with SonosNet’s own flavour of STP, resulting in a suboptimal/incorrect topology of connections. This could explain why the Connect has apparently blocked its wired port and is communicating with the Bridge wirelessly.

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    5 replies

    BMF
    Forum|alt.badge.img+13
    • BMF
    • Prodigy III
    • 339 replies
    • March 11, 2021

    Hi, 

     

    by plugging in the speakers to the physical network you are creating a dedicated “SonosNet” wireless network so the speakers will be connecting to that rather the main house WiFi.

     

    I would try configuring the Sonos speakers to connect via the WiFi only and not have any of them plugged directly in via Ethernet cable. This should get them to talk via your mesh WiFi and not via the dedicated SonosNet network…. With the exception of surrounds, sub etc which will continue to use a dedicated network, but this should not be an issue.

     

    try using WiFI only, that may fix your issue and should reduce wireless interference.

    BMF
    Forum|alt.badge.img+13
    • BMF
    • Prodigy III
    • 339 replies
    • March 11, 2021

    This article should help with the steps and help you to decide if it may be a possible solution for you…

     

    https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3235?language=en_US

    ratty
    • ratty
    • 31402 replies
    • March 11, 2021

    @John Kramer 

    What exactly is the “satellite router”? How is it connected back to the main router?

    Where is the Bridge wired in? 

    The wired Connect doesn’t appear to be wired. In /support/review open the link for its room and then “Ethernet Ports”. One of the ports should have a 1 in the Link column. Does it? 

    (Don’t go putting the system into WiFi mode for now.)

    J
    • John Kramer
    • Author
    • Contributor II
    • 1 reply
    • March 12, 2021

    @ratty  Thanks for your help, the “satellite router” is the second router of a mesh network, it uses a dedicated 5ghz wifi channel for the backhaul to the main router and seems work very well, the computers connecting to it are getting 300-400mbps at the far side of the house. 

     

    The bridge is wired in at the location of the satellite router on the far side of the house from the main router (where the connect is wired in). Both of them do show a 1 in the ethernet link column.  

     

    Is it generally preferably to wire in as many speakers as you can manage? Thanks! 

    ratty
    • ratty
    • 31402 replies
    • Answer
    • March 12, 2021

    Wiring multiple units is okay, and may help to strengthen overall wireless coverage. However you should not wire to different WiFi mesh nodes. 

    The mesh backhaul could suffer from variable latency, which may upset Sonos group performance.

    More significantly some WiFi meshes use a form of the Spanning Tree Protocol (to avoid loops) which can conflict with SonosNet’s own flavour of STP, resulting in a suboptimal/incorrect topology of connections. This could explain why the Connect has apparently blocked its wired port and is communicating with the Bridge wirelessly.

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