Mesh Wifi

Do you want an answer, or are you here to bash the product?  Make up your mind, because we don't waste time with posters just doing a driveby.

I love the performance. Frustrated beyond belief as I have to run an extension cord for my Sonos 1 to connect to the right node only for it disappear. Tired of talking to people just to get the same results. I apologize for sounding bitter as I sit on my patio listening to music through headphones. Yes, a solution would be most welcome. Thank you. And again, Sonos performance is amazing, just can’t get it to work consistently.

If you’re having issues with your current WiFi mesh setup, then maybe set the mesh hubs to bridge mode and let your original router handle DHCP/NAT instead, but ensure you switch off all the WiFi adapters on the main router and see if that perhaps works better for you, with (hopefully) better SSDP discovery too by the controller App.

You could perhaps choose to wire some, or all, your mesh hubs back to the router aswell, if you prefer, but don’t wire your Sonos devices to those hubs. 

For good measure, also reserve the speakers and the controllers in the Routers DHCP reservation table.

That type of bridged mesh setup works really well with my own Sonos setup. So maybe give that a try and see how it goes for your setup.

Sonos works best with mesh routers if you create Sonosnet by wiring a Sonos device to the main mesh hub via Ethernet.  If you don't have a Sonos device near the hub, you can use a Sonos Boost.  This usually eliminates problems with the mesh router disconnecting your controller when it switches connections between nodes.

Which WiFi mesh are you using? How is it wired?

Thank you for the replies. I am going to try out your suggestions and see what happens. I have an eero mesh system where one is directly connected to the router on the main floor with one satellite in the basement and one on the second floor. The Sonos Arc is in the basement and the Sonos One is in the kitchen on the main floor.

Consistent with what others have suggested, if you look in About My System in the app you should see WM=1 next to all your speakers.  If you temporarily move the One (if necessary) and connect it by Ethernet to the main mesh hub, and wait a couple of minutes, you should find that everything says WM=0, indicating that your system is now using SonosNet.  If not, just power cycle your speakers.  See how that behaves.  As others have said, wiring one Sonos device so as to trigger SonosNet normally resolves issues with mesh WiFi.

As a footnote, SonosNet is a mesh network, and always has been, long before domestic mesh WiFi networks became available.

Edit: keep the wired Sonos device at least 1 metre from the hub and router, if possible.

Why can 3rd party mesh systems be so disruptive for SONOS?  In some respects they are being too clever by switching channels on the fly. This channel switch might be triggered by blasts of interference. For most applications the user is simply fetching from/to a Cloud server. If the WiFi channel is changed it might result in a few garbled transmissions while the client devices reconfigure, but no one will notice if a web page is occasionally delayed for a fraction of a second. SONOS units, on the other hand, must communicate with each other extensively. If the SONOS system must struggle for a second or two while it recovers from the network disruption, there may be audible consequences.

The SONOS mesh is designed specifically to minimize audio disruptions. If you do speed tests you’ll notice that the SONOS mesh is slower than the generic mesh systems. This is because SonosNet is optimized for reliable audio transmission and this does not require super bandwidth.