Netgear ORBI RBR/RBS 850 and Sonos conflict / solution(?)
I’m posting here because I’ve seen a variety of Sonos/Orbi conflicts and issues being posted. I had one of my own that was driving me nuts and, NO THANKS to Netgear tech support, I solved it. Here’s hoping my maddening experience helps someone else not lose days off their lives. I’m in a 2300 square foot, single level home.
My Sonos setup: Sonos Arc home theater setup (sub with a pair of Ones as rears) in front living room. In back office (about 75 feet away) another pair of Ones that are stereo paired. I have a Boost in the living room wired into main router and a second Boost in the rear office wired into Orbi Satellite 2.
Orbi Setup - I have the AX6000 (RBR850 Router and two RBS850 Satellites). Router is setup in the living room with the Sonos home theater. Satellite 1 is 30 feet away, just off the kitchen and Satellite 2 is in the back office.
The issue: Orbi AX6000 does its topography arrangements automatically. I learned (the hard way) that it cannot be manually adjusted. When they were daisy chained (Router>Sat1>Sat2) I got great coverage throughout the house, speeds topping 400MBPS. (I have Spectrum cable internet with 400 speed tier.) BUT, when the Orbi switched the topography to the “Star” formation (meaning Sat 1 and Sat 2 are connecting individually to the router in a triangle) I got super slow speeds on Sat 2 (in the single digits).
I spoke to both Sonos and Netgear tech support about this. I was wiring both the Boost AND my office Ones to Sat 2, which Sonos tech support should work. Additionally, I had my main DirecTV box (not the Genies) and my iMac wired into Sat 2.
After much troubleshooting and various configurations I discovered the problem. By wiring the Sonos Ones into Sat 2 along with the Boost (and having a Boost wired into the main router in the living room) the Orbi was getting confused. It was registering Sat 2 as being hard-wired into the main Orbi router, and was thus bypassing the Daisy Chain configuration. Once I made the Sonos Ones in the rear office wireless again, and just had the Boost wired into Sat 2, the Daisy Chain configuration returned, and so did my speeds. Everything has been working great since that adjustment.
Has anyone else run into this kind of situation? I’m really hoping I’ve diagnosed and solved the issue. As I said, Netgear was truly the worst. I received incorrect info from tech support on more than one occasion, plus they hung up on me three times and didn’t call back.
Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk!
-Ian