Ability to control two separate Sonos systems in one house/one wifi

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 17, 2018
5 replies
3254 views

I currently have two separate Sonos systems under one roof/one WIFI. The first system is the original system (whole house) that I installed throughout my home, that consists of the following:
- Sonos CR-200 controller (original)
- Zone Player ZP90 (Connected to the router)
- 8 Play 5's
- 2 Play 3's
- 2 play 1's

The second system, installed more recently for my home theater is a Sonos Playbar, 2 Play 1's and Sonos Sub.

Both systems can be seen on my Ethernet system/WiFi when I run an IP scanner on my network.

When I launch the Sonos app on my iPhone 8+, (most of the time) the app displays/connects to the home theater system and sometimes the app connects to the whole-house system.

Is there any way for the Sonos App (IOS) to allow choose/select either system? Right now, I can control the Home Theater system via the Sonos App and can only control the Whole-House system via the CR-200 controller.

Thanks,
John

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Best answer by John B

First question.... why keep them separate? I'm sure you have a good reason but it may affect the answer.

But while I am here... if you want to keep them as separate systems.there is no way to be given a choice each time you open the app. But if you want to have one controller always find the same system, reset the controller. Then it should, if it finds two systems, ask for a button press on a speaker to identify the system. Thereafter it should always attach to that system.

J

John BAnswer

First question.... why keep them separate? I'm sure you have a good reason but it may affect the answer.

But while I am here... if you want to keep them as separate systems.there is no way to be given a choice each time you open the app. But if you want to have one controller always find the same system, reset the controller. Then it should, if it finds two systems, ask for a button press on a speaker to identify the system. Thereafter it should always attach to that system.

J

JohnEAuthor

Contributor I

John B., thanks so much for your reply. Yes, I wanted to keep them separate, so when we watch TV/Movie, we don't have to consider which speakers to choose for the TV. Conversely, when wanting to play music throughout the house, we don't have to reconfigure/select which speakers to use.
Also, when I set up the Playbar, and Play 1's for the TV, Sonos never indicated that I had a choice to add it to the existing whole-house system.
Sounds like I need to try and reconfigure the whole-house system to accept/add the Playbar, TV Play 1's and Sub and see if I can configure the 4 components to be select as a single entity and the rest of the whole-house as a separate entity. No sure right now if that can be done.
Once again, thanks for your reply.

J

John B

To get it onto one system you would have to factory reset the units that make up the separate home theatre system. (Incidentally I am baffled if your four home theatre components are not already acting as a single entity). You would lose any playlists etc, but as you use this for TV maybe that would not matter. So steps would be:
1. Remove surrounds and Sub in the Playbar room settings.
2. Factory reset all four components (see Sonos Support website)
3. Connect app to main system, then 'Add a player or Sub' for each of the four units
4. In the Playbar room settings, add the Sub and surround speakers

Hope that helps

jgatie

No need for separate systems. The Sonos app distinguishes between separate rooms very easily. It is quite easy to play on only one room via the app. You can also easily and quickly group and ungroup rooms if you wish.

J

JohnEAuthor

Contributor I

Thank you both for your replies. I'm going to attempt to do the factory reset and see if I can get everything to be recognized under one system. Then set up the rooms to work for TV/Movies and everything else. Thank you.

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