Working with Linksys Velop

I was glad to find this thread. Knowing others had the same problem I encountered moving my Sonos system to Wi-Fi via my Velop network made it OK to stop troubleshooting and go back to optimizing the wired solution I had for years.

The adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is a very good one. In the case of my Sonos it was "a little broke", periodic dropouts and stops, so I tried moving Sonos to my Velop Wi-Fi network. Almost immediately I could tell this was worse. Even though the Velop has been incredible since I installed it, 4 nodes, everything online, 2.4GHz & 5Ghz devices getting what they want, everything playing well together, Sonos did not. This was too bad, but I really like both the Sonos and Velop products so I did not look to place blame.

I set about troubleshooting to get it working in Wi-Fi mode hoping to eliminate the occasional dropouts and stops. I had Velop re-scan the Wi-Fi channels and optimize itself after the Sonos devices were moved to Wi-Fi, since that had freed up the 2.4GHz channel they formerly used for their proprietary mesh network. I then restarted all Sonos devices and the app. My Sonos devices already had dedicated IP addresses. After all of that my matrix still looked far worse than using Sonos mesh in a wired config. I began re-checking the matrix and seeing things I never had before red, orange and changes between each refresh of the matrix information.

Reading others experiences here led me to realize it wasn't just me and that something about how Velop manages the mesh, tunes channels and adjusts signal strengths among nodes/channels is not conducive to the operation of the Sonos devices. Most interesting was that near each of my Sonos devices that struggled with signal strength according to the matrix, there was another 2.4GHz only device receiving a great signal and having no problems.

I am back to wired and thinking through the other options to eliminate the occasional drops and stops with Sono, secure in the knowledge that switching over to Wi-Fi is not my answer. Thanks to those here for saving me further troubleshooting time, I appreciate it.

As followup to trying to fix my original problem, periodic dropouts in the music, I ran a WiFi scan to find all WiFi networks seen within the house (both my networks and nearby neighbors). This also gave me the channels those networks were broadcasting on.

Channel 11 is in use already by our security gateway (a router). That left 1 or 6 for Sonos. I found nothing on 6 and our next door neighbor on 1. Even though the signal on channel 1 from the neighbor was very weak, I chose 6 for Sonos. I then had Velop re-scan for channels and accepted its recommendations. Velop used a few channels that overlap 6, specifically 7 and 4. But the Sonos matrix is all green. I believe that is because Velop scans and sees 6 in use, so it puts nothing on 6. It will use channels that have some overlap with 6. It places those overlapping channels on nodes that are physically distant from Sonos devices using 6. The combination of the distance and the fact that an overlapping channel doesn't create the same level of interference that a second device using the same channel (6) would results in a level of interference that does not negatively impact the Sonos matrix. All of this left me with a solid Sonos matrix, excellent WiFi in the house and even to outside the house covering cameras and other devices.

Unfortunately it still left me with my initial problem, periodic dropout in the music being played by Sonos. After a variable period of time, all of the speakers throughout the house that are powered by the receiver connected to a Sonos Connect would have dropouts in the music. As a tribute to how robust the Sonosnet now is, the pair of Sonos:1 speakers that are not wired played through these interruptions without dropouts.

I began to notice that during the dropouts, on the front panel of the receiver, I would see the speaker icons blink off and back on. I thought the amp was getting overtaxed and the overload protection was stopping the music. Finally I realized that if it was a short or overload, the receiver would go into standby mode. It would not return power to the speakers until the cause of the overload was addressed and the power button pressed to take it out of standby mode. That wasn't what I was seeing / hearing.

It turned out that the coaxial output on the Connect or the coaxial input on the receiver had become damaged. the fact that the problem always cropped up after music was played for some period of time pointed to a thermal problem. Replacing the coaxial connection from the Connect to the receiver with a Toslink optical cable eliminated the dropouts and has provided trouble free music throughout the house since. Determining which end of the coaxial connection is at fault is another project for another day. Unless the optical connection fails at some point it is not that important to determine.

I hope this is helpful to someone else looking to solidify a WiFi mesh network, Sonosnet or diagnose an odd dropout condition.

I just bought the Velop AC6600, and has been mentioned, it only worked in bridge mode with the SONOS. I then installed an unmanaged Linksys switch downstream of the main Velop unit, and the SONOS Ethernet cable from my PlayBar to the switch.

It has been two weeks, and I have not had a single issue, and was able to disable the bridge mode on the Velop.

I hope this helps!

I never ran my Velop mesh in bridge mode. I didn't detail my configuration but will provide that now.

I connected each of my 3 wired Velop nodes to the nearest managed switch, 1 each at the west, middle and east side of the house. Those three switches see each other across a gigabit trunk which passes all VLANs. That provides wired back haul for the 3 Velops connected to the 3 switches. I have a 4th node that uses the wireless for its back haul.

The port for each wired Velop is a member of VLAN1 (untagged) and VLAN3 & 4 (tagged). This allows the wireless guest network to function across the network, regardless of which Velop the guest joins from.

I have 2 wired Sonos devices. A connect on the west switch and a boost on the middle switch. Their ports are VLAN1 only.

In this configuration I have had no trouble with Velop / Sonos conflicting with one another.

That might help others with similar needs for inter-switch connectivity & VLAN-ing.

Sorry, I should probably have been more detailed as far as my setup:

Modem==>Ethernet==>Velop (Main)==>Ethernet==>Linksys Switch==>Ethernet==>Sonos PlayBar

All other Velop units/SONOS components are wireless.