I am planning to add Wifi 6 Mesh (probably Netgear Orbi) to my system, and am concerned about Sonos compatibility. Will Sonos work as-is, or will I need to hard wire a Sonos component to the router? If so, will a Sonos Bridge work? Any other mods or tricks I need to know? Thanks!
Issues while adding WiFi 6 Mesh
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I’d stay away from a BRIDGE, it is old tech, and has common issues with the power supply at this point, likely due to age. If you’re going to go wired, which I recommend, either wire a Sonos device directly to your router, or use a Sonos BOOST. The BOOST is the replacement for the BRIDGE, and has the benefit of running either S1 or S2, although not both at the same time.
Bruce - Great info. Thank you. Do you think I NEED to have a wired Sonos device on my WiFi 6 network for the Sonos system to function properly? If I can avoid the wired device, that would be MUCH easier, but I have read there are a bunch of problems getting Sonos to function correctly in WiFi6 unless there is a wired Sonos device. Thanks!
Not really my area of expertise, which is why I didn’t answer that specific question. I’ve not used a WiFi 6 router to have personal knowledge about it.
There are a few threads about WiFi 6 on the forum, I don’t particularly remember what the results were. But there’s no doubt in my mind that mesh networks, which many WiFi 6 devices tend to be, can cause issues for Sonos, due to the way they often split ‘zones’ on different subnets, which works fine for most internet devices. But Sonos devices do some amount of crosstalk, in order, I assume, to not only stay synced, but send data to each other when grouped. If they’re on different subnets, they can’t actually ‘see’ each other, and fail.
I’ve got around 20 devices. I use S2, and run them in wired mode by using a BOOST which is near my router, as none of the actual speakers are. In my previous home, I used a second BOOST to amplify the signal getting to my kitchen, which had been struggling with some of the surface absorption of a 2.4Ghz signal.
I also, in the past, had trouble with my router not properly keeping track of IP addresses when Sonos did their software updates, so I assigned reserved IP addresses to all my network devices, leaving open several floating IPs for guests. People commonly blame Sonos for that issue, but it’s actually a router problem, just exposed by Sonos.
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Try your WiFi setup and see if it works, fall back to using a wired Sonos and as a last resort grab a Boost.
I fought with my WiFi setup for a while and was never happy, grabbed a Boost and all my problems ended. Rearranged things and now have 2 Beams and an Arc wired and no longer need the Boost.
Things are rock solid as long as long as I pick a wired Sonos as the Group Coordinator when playing FLAC streams to multiple (5 rooms) rooms. Using my unwired Play 3 as the GC got me a few dropouts.
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