After a fair months with various issues, the main sources of which being:
Wireless DECT baby monitor, replaced with an non DECT one
DECT cordless home phones, never used so replaced with a basic phone just for line checks
Neighbours mesh hopping networks and sometimes choosing same channel as my Sonos. I spoke with my neighbour who set a permanent channel and it has improved his experience too with their streaming etc
I now have a fairly stable Sonosnet, I have also moved a couple of speakers around based on what I have learned over the last few months about causes of interference etc. Due to this movement I now have a Sonos Boost doing nothing. My network matrix is currently:
Everything seems to be working as we want, local files, online streaming etc
The two upstairs speakers that are red I have very limited options on where I can move them to and I cannot work out what is causing the interference, but they seem to be working as we like.
However I have some questions:
Would replacing the Lounge with the unused Boost give any benefit? Is the boost more powerful to handle the amount of devices connecting to it as root?
Does the boost give off any interference to a speaker right next to it? i.e if I replaced the Lounge with the boost, and then put the Lounge and Boost next to each other. Boost hardwired and Lounge on Sonosnet?
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The Boost would take any ‘burden’ off the Lounge speaker, but the Boost needs to be set at least one metre away from that speaker and other wireless devices including the router etc. The answer here is to try it, but as I’m sure many here will be thinking, if it works as it stands at the moment, then why bother?
I had a lot of frustration with my Sonos setup from having speakers too close to each other. Moving them as far apart as possible helped a great deal. The one that surprised me was a dining room and bathroom speaker, in different rooms but right next to each other’s back with a wall between them.
When looking at the red speakers do not just test devices with a radio, many non-radio devices will put out enough electrical noise to cause Sonos issues. I had a WD external HD that killed one channel of a stereo pair when it was in use, moving it from inches away to a couple feet solved that.
I had a lot of frustration with my Sonos setup from having speakers too close to each other. Moving them as far apart as possible helped a great deal. The one that surprised me was a dining room and bathroom speaker, in different rooms but right next to each other’s back with a wall between them.
When looking at the red speakers do not just test devices with a radio, many non-radio devices will put out enough electrical noise to cause Sonos issues. I had a WD external HD that killed one channel of a stereo pair when it was in use, moving it from inches away to a couple feet solved that.
Interesting, the one in the nursery currently has a calpol vapour plug in next to it which we use when our son has a cold. That is fairly close to the speaker and there is more interference when it’s on.
In his room there is also a baby monitor (RF so low intereference) and a wireless IP camera used as a baby monitor overnight.
The guest bedroom s fairly close to a smart TV which I suspect is a cause of the interference for that one
A few more tweaks…
I think my only real step now would be to put the boost where lounge is and find somewhere else for Lounge, so the boost is doing what I bought it for...
Signal strength to Guest Bedroom is scary low. I can imagine that humans walking around could cause issues.
I am unsure really why Guest Bedroom hasn’t connected via another speaker and become tertiary as it has in the past connected through the Bedroom one
Baby monitors are often a problem for any device using the WiFi channels, not sure what you mean by “(RF so low intereference)” as RF is exactly what causes interference.
A wireless camera can also eat up a lot of channel capacity, HD and a high frame-rate can pretty much fill a single 20 MHz channel.
Have you looked at your WiFi channels and put your Sonos on the one with the lowest usage and noise levels?
In terms of interference, the network matrix shown is very good. This is a static view and the situation might change over time. Signal strengths are a little low in some areas and a temporary concentration of “water bags” (humans) could cause trouble.
Baby monitors are often a problem for any device using the WiFi channels, not sure what you mean by “(RF so low intereference)” as RF is exactly what causes interference.
A wireless camera can also eat up a lot of channel capacity, HD and a high frame-rate can pretty much fill a single 20 MHz channel.
Have you looked at your WiFi channels and put your Sonos on the one with the lowest usage and noise levels?
Yes I realise now I wrote the wrong thing, our old baby monitor which filled the matrix with red when on was swapped out for an audio only one that causes a lot less interence. We have no issues with that one.
I have looked at my channels, as we have a zigbee hub and a hue hub are options are very limited on 2.4 but sonos is on one that nothing else is.
If you keep having issues wait for one to pop up and send Sonos a diagnostic, then contact them (phone is best) with the ID number and they can check internal data we users can’t see.
@wolvesphil,
Here’s a chart showing the Zigbee channels in relation to the three 2.4Ghz non-overlapping WiFi channels. I thought it might assist you.
I ‘think’ Philips Hue defaults to Zigbee channel 25, which coincides with WiFi Channel 11, but I’ve used WiFi channel 11 with Sonos and Hue on Zigbee 25, without encountering any issues, but the Hue App allows the Zigbee channel to be changed, if necessary.
And note that making everything “looking good” on this isn’t as important as just ensuring that you have no issues in your system when listening to it. There’s always going to be random cases of transient interference that might affect the display, without being strong enough to affect the actual streaming of music. Don’t worry about shooting for “all green”, as long as your music can play, it’s fine.
@wolvesphil,
Here’s a chart showing the Zigbee channels in relation to the three 2.4Ghz non-overlapping WiFi channels. I thought it might assist you.
I ‘think’ Philips Hue defaults to Zigbee channel 25, which coincides with WiFi Channel 11, but I’ve used WiFi channel 11 with Sonos and Hue on Zigbee 25, without encountering any issues, but the Hue App allows the Zigbee channel to be changed, if necessary.
I have been using this as my marker for getting things working well, I currently have
