use wifi range extender with sonos?

8 replies
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We often have trouble with wifi connectivity in our kitchen, and we purchased a range extender (amped AC1200) to improve performance. So far, it seems to help quite a bit when surfing the web in the kitchen.

We have also experienced occasional problems with playing through the sonos system in the kitchen, and nearly always when trying to listen to sonos on the back porch, just outside the kitchen. Can we also use this device to communicate between the sonos bridge and a speaker? (I am assuming this is not possible, because the device creates a second network, which the sonos speaker would not recognize.) If not, is there another solution for improving connectivity between the bridge and a speaker?

Thank you.

EDIT: Having read a related thread that came up after posting this, I see that the appropriate sonos product for this problem is a BOOST. I would still like to use the amped range extender with our sonos system if this is possible. Thank you for any advice you can provide.

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ratty

If you have a wired Sonos component (the BRIDGE) then the system's operating on its own dedicated wireless mesh, and your WiFi extender won't help with the connection to the player. You'd need to deploy another Sonos component to extend the SonosNet mesh. A BRIDGE or BOOST could do this. Alternatively a BOOST, wired in place of the existing BRIDGE, may reach the outdoor player without further assistance. BOOST has much better wireless performance than BRIDGE.

Although Sonos can operate without a wired component (WiFi mode, aka 'Standard Setup') and in theory use your extender, this is not a supported configuration. It may work, but YMMV.

S

spj1Author

Contributor I

Thank you ratty, very informative.

N

npaisnel

Avid Contributor I

Did you ever get your Sonos to connect to your WiFi extended range booster ?

I have had mine working for a long time, by the simple method of giving the Extender WiFi network name and password to the same as the main network.

In fact I have 3 network extenders, all with the same network name, and when I had only one Sonos speaker, I'd carry it with me around the house from net to net and it alwsys swapped nets fine. One of my extended networks is over 800 meters away in the farm meadow, lonkec to home by a secure 'Deliberant Wireless Bridge'

But now, after buying 2 Play 1's and allowing Sonos to update nothing bloody works. The bloody update has also disabled access to Sonos from my farm workshop Windows XP computers. grrrr bloody updates.

N

npaisnel

Avid Contributor I

Did you ever get your Sonos to connect to your WiFi extended range booster ?

I have had mine working for a long time, by the simple method of giving the Extender WiFi network name and password to the same as the main network. When I say WiFi extender, I actually mean a wired second AccessPoint, with the same SSID on same IP address range as main net, they are set as DHCP forwarders,

In fact I have 3 wired network AP's , all with the same network name, and when I had only one Sonos speaker, I'd carry it with me around the house from net to net and it alwsys swapped nets fine. One of my extended networks is over 800 meters away in the farm meadow, lonkec to home by a secure 'Deliberant Wireless Bridge'

But now, after buying 2 Play 1's and allowing Sonos to update nothing bloody works. The bloody update has also disabled access to Sonos from my farm workshop Windows XP computers. grrrr bloody updates.

S

spj1Author

Contributor I

No, we could not get Sonos working with our Wi-Fi range extender. But we ended up getting a new ISP recently (for unrelated reasons), and the wireless router we obtained from them has a much stronger signal. As a result, Sonos now works well throughout our house most of the time, but it still has trouble if I set up a speaker on the back porch.

J

Jeffrey Myers

Contributor I

I know i'm late to the party here. But wanted to put in my experience for future readers of this thread looking for answers. As you may already know, each Sonos speaker acts as a range extender. In other words, you could have a speaker placed 1000 feet from your wifi router and as long as you had speakers placed close enough to each other to repeat the signal, it would connect to the last speaker. Keep in mind that your Sonos system creates and operates on it's own dedicated network once it is set up. My experience is that even though I have strong and continuous streaming music via my Sonos network on my patio, I sometime need to move within my home Wifi network range to change songs etc via the app. We tried to solve this problem by using a series of different wifi range extenders and wifi repeaters on our home wifi network, none of which we liked the results.

When using a wifi range extender like the "NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender" set up near the back of my house, this seemed to help me get a signal outdoors but had a huge downside. This range extender sets up another wifi network. If my original network is called "HOME" it creates one called "HOME_EXT". Using an Iphone to connect to my wifi network, the iphone will connect to the first network it detects and will not switch back unless the originally connected network signal is lost. In other words if I am outside and it drops my HOME network and picks up my HOME_EXT network, it will keep that network connection even if I am standing next to my router with full HOME signal and only a slight HOME_EXT signal. I would have to take notice of which network it's connected to and actually go into my settings to switch the network. This became very annoying since you can't actually see the network you are connected to on your home screen but have to go into your settings. After doing this a dozen times in one evening, that range extender was unplugged and put in the drawer.

Another option I tried was a repeater that actually kept the same network. I don't have the model with me now. I am on a Fiber network that my TV and internet connect through the same COAX cable. I take this device and wire it to any coax connection as long as it is connected back to the original coax network in the house. Say, any cable that is also connected to a junction that includes the cable box or the router. What is does is it actually repeats and extends the same HOME network and it never actually switches networks so you have the same strong signal anywhere I go......... The only BIG problem with this is it confuses the Sonos speakers since there are two different access points now. Speakers would drop out and come back on, speakers would disappear on the Sonos app and later reappear etc etc. Really goofy stuff. I realized later that Sonos can only use one access point. When you have two identical access points like did, Sonos sees both and connects to each one randomly and it messes with the system.

So, as far as extending your Sonos system, use a boost or put in another speaker- I have 12 speakers on my system and they are placed evenly enough that I do not have any drop-out issues. I am however still searching for a wifi extender that doesn't mess with the Sonos sytem.

Jeff

melvimbe

In my opinion, range extenders cause more issues then there are worth, and are really misnamed to begin with. They are not extending the range of your existing network, they are just creating a 2nd network. Although they are not cheap the base and satellite systems, like Netgear Orbi, are much easier to deal with You have the range you want without having different networks to connect to and drop off, etc. You won't have to worry about whether your sonos is on the right network, or if your phone is connected to the same network as sonos, not to mention all the other IoT in the house. Add more satellites as needed to extend the range of your singular network.

Danny

S

spj1Author

Contributor I

Thanks Jeff and Melvimbe, I agree with both of you and we no longer use the range extender.

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