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Hello,

I am trying to understand if something is possible before buying the equipment. I am trying to set my parents house up with Sonos across the house and an outbuilding.

 

House is working great, obviously very easy and pleased how it’s all working.


Now for the outbuilding I was thinking of running an Ethernet from the house Virgin router to an access point (AP) in the garden building. Something like an Archer C6 AC1200, for context this is about 35m away.  Reading online this should ‘extend’ my wifi to the garden building. I had previously considered a PowerLine Adapter, but I suspect this will have issues because the outbuilding is on its own Consumer Unit...
 

I am assuming that if the AP has the same ssid and password, setting up a new Sonos or two would be simple enough, and I’ll be able to see and control them all together?

 

(Bit of an amateur when it comes to home networks)

Sonos do not support wireless access points in “network extender” mode, and you are likely to find that as soon as you try to add any device that’s on an extender, you will get an error message on your controller that tells you that you can’t. That’s certainly what happened when I tried it!

However, if you can run a wired Ethernet connection to the building, you should be able to set up a separate AP there (with different SSID from your main wireless network), connect your outbuilding devices to that and it should work OK.

Okay, thanks. But then the Sonos devices on the separate SSID are within their own Sonos ecosystem and not connected to the rest of the house?

They can integrate fully with the rest of the system provided the network is configured correctly.

I simply added the second SSID to the permitted networks in the System setting (in the app). With a 35m distance away, you should not (in theory at least) have problems with the remote device connecting on the “wrong” SSID - the signal level should be a lot stronger and they should select it correctly.

Thanks again, Antifon.
 

To keep it simple; if all of the house units are connected to a WiFI SSID called VM12345,  then the outbuilding would be connected to OB67890… but you’re saying you can somehow add the OB67890 SSID to the app so both sets of devices show up?

 

I can’t seem to find a setting to let me do that?

Perhaps your version of the app doesn’t let you. On mine (under Android) I just go to System, Network, Manage Networks, Update Networks and it asks me if I want to add a trusted network.

Yes, perhaps. I have iOS and all I can do is remove the current one or change the wireless channel.

could also be because my home setup is on SonosNet… will try my parents tomorrow.

My network is on Sonosnet too, and I still get the option to add additional trusted networks.

Go it, found the setting.

 

it does a scan, finds my devices, then I click one and it begins to ask me to connect to ‘temporary wifi’, I did that then it asks for password to wifi again? 

If I click change network, will it be lost from my current system? Or can I have more than one?

I’m sorry - it’s been weeks since I did it so I can’t recall the exact procedure, but as I recall, I had no problem adding more than one network. All of the devices on both networks became visible within the app.

I should add that the reason I had to do this is because, although I use Sonosnet, I bought a Sonos Move which cannot use Sonosnet - crazy but true. So I had to set up another AP at the other end of my house.

@samuelward Some Sonos devices are set up using low energy bluetooth thart help you contact a speaker that has no connection to your wif network, but let's you put in the right credentials. Maybe that is what you triggered?

If you have a Sonos with a pair of Ethernet jacks...end the ethernet wire run from the home at one jack and use the other jack to wire to an access point to extend wifi into the outbuilding.

If I remember correctly that would limit the speed of the connection to 10/100 Mbit? 1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet ports | Sonos Community

This does not have to be a big problem of course….

I get 40 Mbps internet access consistently via this scheme and that is enough for my most demanding use case: HD video streams. 

 

Thanks @Kumar, I did think that this might work but then you’ll only have SonosNet down the cabin. Meaning you cannot then control the app from outside the house wifi zone.

 

I tried a power line today, as I suspected this did not work so back to the shop it goes…

 

I will have to run a 50m Ethernet to the cabin, now just a matter of working out the best access point configuration/ hardware

The second wifi from the second ethernet jack to the access point will create the wifi presence needed for the Sonos app to work to control the extended Sonos net based units in the outbuilding. Mine has the same ssid and password as the router established one, for convenience and easy automatic switching of the phone from one to the other.

Hi @samuelward 

The Archer C6 would be fine - you’d just need to put it into Bridge/AP mode. For ease of use, configure the WiFi credentials to be the same as your VM router. You will need to run an ethernet cable over to it though.

Powerline isn’t supported.

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