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Should I connect Sonos One speakers via Ethernet when working as surrounds?

  • 18 February 2023
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I’m planning to use my 2 Sonos One speakers as a surround pair along with Sonos Beam. (Maybe in future I’m going to invest into Sonos Sub Mini)

I can connect all 3 of them via Ethernet cable. Should I connect all of them to the same wired network or is it better to just connect one speaker in the Sonos net and let them establish a wireless network instead?

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Best answer by GuitarSuperstar 18 February 2023, 21:32

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6 replies

Userlevel 3
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I did an experiment today with:

  • Sonos One
  • Sonos One
  • Sonos One + Sonos One SL
  • Sonos Beam
  • Sonos Port

that were all connected to the same switch via Ethernet cat 5e cable. They all set themselves up to 10/100 Ethernet.

After they reappeared in the app I tried various configurations and music sources and I must say, it’s the best setup ever.

  • Joining and unjoining speakers happens almost instantly. 
  • Radio starts playing within 5 seconds on all speakers.
  • Google Assistant responds similarly as previously but the Spotify playback starts immediately.
  • Sync is comparable to wifi but switching and group management happens instantly.

What I will say is that I will try to connect all my Sonos speakers over Ethernet eventually.

Userlevel 7
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It would be interesting to wire a full 5.1 Sonos setup to Ethernet, Arc/Beam, Sub and surrounds then disable all the radios (shown as WiFi on the Sonos option) and see just what happens.

I don’t have a surround setup where I can easily get to all the speakers to try this or I would.

Not really. The surrounds are designed to work via the Wi-Fi signal from the ‘front’ system. It can be done, but I’d think to no ‘extra’ benefit.

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Would there be any benefit to connecting surrounds to ethernet at all? Or would it actually cause issues to the Sonos net?

Userlevel 7
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And keep “wifi” on on the Beam……

Userlevel 7

When connected as surrounds, the Ones are designed to communicate wirelessly with the Beam’s 5GHz radio. So just connect the Beam with an ethernet cable and keep the Ones wireless.