Sonos instability with large system + ASUS AiMesh — wired APs vs mesh?

Avoid ASUS routers, too many issues with Sonos. There’s a current issue on some devices that requires beta firmware from ASUS to work correctly.

Get a router from a network company instead, such as Ubiquiti.

Use only one router, more than one usually causes issues even if you tweak them enough to work.

I use a single router (just a router, no internal wifi AP) and external Acccess Points. Following advise here and from Sonos I removed Ethernet from all my Sonos and only use the Wi-Fi connection. After troubleshooting a couple Wi-Fi issues and assigning static/reserved addresses to all Sonos the system is stable and working perfectly.

Several mesh systems are discussed here, some working well while others have issues. If going with a mesh it is worth a forum search and a bit of reading.

I’m anal with wiring and wire as many SONOS units and mesh points as is practical. I have no experience with current ASUS. I’ve had some bad ASUS experiences in the past.

With modern mesh systems it is possible to have glitch free SONOS operation. It is important to disable the mesh system’s ability to automatically change channels. Some people will disagree with with Stanley_4’s and my preference to use reserved IP addresses, but it is a quick one time router configuration that can prevent odd issues. In my case I need to know the IP address of a few (non SONOS) clients. If the router is automatically assigning addresses, perhaps after a power failure or reboot, my control of these devices will be compromised. In many cases I can assign IP addresses for this sort of device that are outside the DHCP range and totally under my control, but in other cases (such as SONOS) I cannot assign a fixed IP addresses in the device, only DCHP is supported. Even though the newer SONOS units are relatively docile, I feel that there is lower risk if I reserve IP addresses for SONOS.

It is usually a bad idea to wire a SONOS unit to a mesh point.

If you have a stack of players in a central location it would be best to wire them all to a switch and disable the WiFi on all but one SONOS unit. Be sure to enable STP on managed switches.

Actually, the SONOS units you’ve listed will form their own “SonosNet” mesh network and ignore WiFi if one or more units is wired to the network and its radio is enabled. Note that disabling WiFi on a SONOS unit actually turns OFF its radio and the unit will not join SonosNet or WiFi.  Here are some setup notes if you need them.

Have Asus WiFi 7 AiMesh in following configuration:

Asus ROG GT-BE98 - Main node

Asus RT-BE96U x 2 - Satellites *

Wired Backhaul

ISP provides 3GB incoming 

No switches or secondary extenders

Same SSID for All Bands

No Band Steering 

Airtime Fairness turned off

50 - 60 clients at any given time

31 Sonos units - none wired back to main Node or satellites

No issues (of course nothing is perfect in networking but no issues requiring Asus support nor Sonos tech support intervention. Also if a speaker drops off; which is not a repeating occurrence, a simple reboot resolves the issue).

The difference in my setup vs yours is that I employ Sonos Amps x 2 (instead of Connect: Amps), my other Sonos units are Arc Ultra’s, Beam2, Era 300’s, Era 100’s, Sub 3’s or 4’s, Sub Mini’s and no Ports.

 * These are routers that have been relegated to satellites via the Asus AiMesh configurator with no DHCP capability 

I had a similar issue and it was mostly related to network setup. Using a fully wired connection for all speakers usually caused more problems than it solved. Leaving one speaker wired and letting the rest connect over WiFi worked better. It also helped to avoid mixing mesh features with speaker networking. After simplifying the setup, the connection became more stable.

The situation is a bit more complex than that.

If you wire a speaker, the result is based on what speaker you wire and if Wi-Fi is enabled on it or not.

If there is a wired speaker different speakers react to that differently.

Wiring surrounds and Subs can be problematical on many networks.

Good reading in the support section on this rather complicated issue.

I'm staying with the Sonos recommendation to use wifi unless support advises differently. I have tried a lot of the other options and found them less serviceable here.

Whatever wifi configuration that allows you to isolate and use the 2.4 band for all sonos activities. Just saying...

That might be a fun test to run, try Sonos on 2.4 gHz only and again at 5 gHz only, with a house full of people and see if the water absorption issue at 2.4 is worse than the absorption/penetration issues at 5.

If it was an issue here I'd be more likely to put up a couple more Access Points wired back to my router.

Follow-up / Outcome

Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply and share their experiences — I really appreciate the thoughtful advice and different perspectives.

I wanted to circle back with an update on what I ultimately did and how it’s worked out so far.

I ended up moving to a Ubiquiti-based network and took a more traditional approach:

• Single router
• Managed switch
• All Sonos devices hard-wired to the switch

Since completing the change, I’ve had zero drops or odd behavior for the last five days, even with multiple zones grouped and active. Control has been solid, grouping/ungrouping is instant, and everything is behaving exactly the way you’d want it to.

I know there are multiple valid ways to run Sonos successfully — Wi-Fi-only, mixed, SonosNet, etc. — and I don’t doubt those approaches work well in many environments. In my case, the fully wired setup on a stable, enterprise-style network has been the most reliable solution.

Thanks again to everyone who chimed in and helped me think through the options. Hopefully this follow-up helps the next person working through a similar setup.