Does Sonos playbar support 802.11ac 2.4 GHz?
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According to the FAQ posted by Sonos:
Wireless-N and Wireless-AC routers should work with Sonos as long as they are still broadcasting over B and G WiFi. Most Wireless-N and AC routers should do this unless manually configured not to.
To me, that suggests that they don't.
Wireless-N and Wireless-AC routers should work with Sonos as long as they are still broadcasting over B and G WiFi. Most Wireless-N and AC routers should do this unless manually configured not to.
To me, that suggests that they don't.
A contradiction in terms. 802.11ac is only at 5GHz.
AC has full backward compatibility to a, b, n, etc, as well as ADDS 5ghz, in order to deal with interference by other devices in the 2.4ghz range, such as cordless phones. Unlike the previous standards which did not always play nice with each other. Range is diminished in the 5ghz band, however.
No Sonos does NOT support 802.11n nor 802.11ac. If you're router is running on either of these protocols, SONOS will NOT work. My Linksys EA7300 N router let me configure it to run on B/G only ... and when I made that change, then SONOS did indeed work. But, I my wireless through-put fell from 40Mbps down to sub-10Mbps. It was painfully slow - not worth it. I changed my router back up to 802.11N, the SONOS Connect:AMP stopped working (as expected), I tried to connect a SONOS Boost directly to my router ... but am having no luck with that. Looks like it's time for me to return the system.
There's something wrong with your router. I just rechecked a small Sonos system -- for this test a single PLAY:1 in WiFi/Standard mode -- which was streaming local Ogg Vorbis files. At the same time a phone on 2.4GHz 802.11n was happy to pull 40+ Mbps. Have you tried toggling the Airtime Fairness setting?
A wired BOOST added to the system should just work, switching the system into SonosNet mode. If it doesn't, simply call Sonos Support. Giving up and returning the units is not the answer.
A wired BOOST added to the system should just work, switching the system into SonosNet mode. If it doesn't, simply call Sonos Support. Giving up and returning the units is not the answer.
Thanks for the help ratty. My router (Linksys EA7300) is relatively new. I got it about 6 months ago and have been using it with no problems - including streaming from Amazon Echo during this time. I'll try to look into the Airtime Fairness setting ... and appreciate any other advice you can give.
An update: The Boost is now working, so now it appears that that my Connect:AMP is working in SonosNet mode ... but not in 802.11N nor 802.11AC WiFi mode. Note to the Sonos Prod Mgmt team: it would be VERY HELPFUL if the Sonos app or devices could indicate whether they are playing over SonosNet or WiFi. To test my assumption that it was playing over SonosNet and not 802.11 N/AC WiFi, I unplugged the Boost and my Connect:AMP stopped playing a few seconds later. So, to answer the OP: no, you can not stream to the Sonos Connect:AMPs over 802.11N or AC, at least if you're using a Linksys EA 7300 router. BTW, I'm still having issues with my Boost - it is now saying that I need to upgrade the software but gives me errors and won't let me upgrade the system. Will spend the next half of the day trying to run this one down.
Go to Settings/About My Sonos System. A device which shows WM:1 is on WiFi. If it shows WM:0 it's on SonosNet or wired.
Your BOOST will almost certainly need updating if it's new. That should just work. If for some reason it struggles, wire the CONNECT:AMP as well temporarily.
Once the update is done, go to Advanced Settings/Wireless Setup and remove/reset the WiFi details. This will stop the system from attempting to use WiFi.
There's obviously still something funny about your router. If it's on N only then WiFi mode is not possible for Sonos devices. A mixed (b/g/n) setting should have worked fine.
Your BOOST will almost certainly need updating if it's new. That should just work. If for some reason it struggles, wire the CONNECT:AMP as well temporarily.
Once the update is done, go to Advanced Settings/Wireless Setup and remove/reset the WiFi details. This will stop the system from attempting to use WiFi.
There's obviously still something funny about your router. If it's on N only then WiFi mode is not possible for Sonos devices. A mixed (b/g/n) setting should have worked fine.
Thanks again ratty. I'm still in all sorts of setup hell with my BOOST and CONNECT:AMP on different versions of software and as a result, I can't upgrade the BOOST. But that's a separate topic for which I'll create a seperate thread. But, at least we got the definitive answer for to the OP. Definitely, 100% confidence: Sonos does NOT support 802.11AC. Here's a message from Sonos tech support (who have also been trying to help me out with my issue to no success): "Sonos only works with B/G network modes. Details here: https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/127"
Well of course Sonos doesn't support AC in its literal sense. AC operates at 5GHz.
To Chock: Your problem sounds very familiar to me and I wasn't able to resolve it with any info I saw on Sonos support page or in the community groups. I did however solve the issue I was having. I'll outline the problem I had and the solution I applied, in hopes of getting your music back.
Hadn't used my Sonos for quite some time, and wished to do so. Having moved it briefly to another network last use, I had to re-establish connection to my home network. Not thinking, I used my 5ghz network and the Sonos software used it just fine to establish that I needed to upgrade, but the upgrade failed due to the factory of 5. Switching to 2.4 have no joy, and could not establish connection to the device.
The solution lay in the failed update.
First step was to be connected to the 2.4 on device you have the controller/Sonos app installed. Then using whatever flavor application manager your OS uses, find Sonos app, storage info, and "clear data".
Then refire the Sonos app, should then detect and successfully update the device over 2.4 and connectivity issue will vanish.
Hadn't used my Sonos for quite some time, and wished to do so. Having moved it briefly to another network last use, I had to re-establish connection to my home network. Not thinking, I used my 5ghz network and the Sonos software used it just fine to establish that I needed to upgrade, but the upgrade failed due to the factory of 5. Switching to 2.4 have no joy, and could not establish connection to the device.
The solution lay in the failed update.
First step was to be connected to the 2.4 on device you have the controller/Sonos app installed. Then using whatever flavor application manager your OS uses, find Sonos app, storage info, and "clear data".
Then refire the Sonos app, should then detect and successfully update the device over 2.4 and connectivity issue will vanish.
There may be some confusion here. Sonos units can not connect to a 5GHz WiFi in 'Station'/'Standard' mode. And a Sonos system in 'SonosNet'/'BOOST' mode is wired to the network, so it doesn't matter whether the controlling device is on 2.4GHz or 5GHz.
If a system is in 'Station'/'Standard' mode it's connected to a 2.4GHz WiFi. There are instances where a controlling device on 5GHz is then unable to discover the players. This is because a router is not correctly forwarding the discovery multicasts between its two wireless segments. Behaviour is router-specific.
Ratty: No, but the controller app does a firmware version check when launched and can access the web to do so regardless of which band it's connected to. If a new version is detected though, and the device running the controller is connected to 5ghz band, the update fails because the Sonos itself doesn't speak 5, and connection fails even if you switch to 2.4. The version check/failed update seems to corrupt the version database somehow as the check and notification is not repeated simply by switching to the proper band. Clearing the data allows the update to occur successfully and normal connection to resume.
Sonos , was it really that hard to include the ac chipset in the sonos one? Seems sloppy , to me.
Why would you need 5Ghz? Do you know it has far less penetration through walls than 2.4? This would be disastrous for many sonos users due to the distance limitations of 5Ghz.
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