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Contributor I
December 26, 2022
Answered

syncing playbar with gen3 sub

So I’ve had the playbar for a few years now and for Christmas my wife bought me the subwoofer gen3 and the Sonos one gen 2 but I can’t sync the playbar with the other 2 what do I need to do to get them all to sync together 

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Ken_Griffiths
December 26, 2022

Buzz I tried disconnecting all of the other except playbar the app can’t find the playbar but still finds the sub amd ONE 

It seems to me that you have likely already split your Sonos system into two Sonos Households and so have two options, you can either…

  • Upgrade the Playbar from S1 to the S2 App (using the S1 App) and then factory reset the Sub/One and add that to the original existing Sonos HH.

or…

  • Factory reset the Playbar and just add that to your new S2 Household that already includes the Sub/One and it should upgrade to S2 when adding it to that Household.

The second option is probably the easiest to do (but it’s entirely up to you). You can then bond the Sub to the Playbar. 

You need two Sonos Ones to bond those to your Playbar as it’s not possible to ‘bond’ just the one surround, but you could ‘group’ the Sonos One with the Playbar, but whilst that’s fine for music audio, you may notice a delay/echo when playing TV audio ‘grouped’ due to audio buffering across grouped rooms. Personally speaking, I would add another Sonos One and ‘bond’ them both to the Playbar, as that will eliminate the audio buffering delay issue.

21 replies

buzz
Grand Maestro
December 26, 2022

Power OFF all of the units except PLAYBAR and upgrade it to S2. After the upgrade to S2, uninstall the S1 (gray) App from all of your phone/pad/computer(s). All of your SONOS Playlists and music service registrations will be retained.

Are you now able to see all of the units at the same time on the S2 controller? If not, tell us what you see.

Contributor I
December 26, 2022

MR T is that the only way to upgrade the playbar is by connecting it to an Ethernet cable no way to connect it with wifi 

Contributor I
December 26, 2022

Buzz I tried disconnecting all of the other except playbar the app can’t find the playbar but still finds the sub amd ONE 

Mr. T
December 26, 2022

MR T is that the only way to upgrade the playbar is by connecting it to an Ethernet cable no way to connect it with wifi 

That would be the easiest way if the Playbar appears in the S2 app when wired.

The Playbar could be running such an old version of firmware that you will need Sonos Support’s help to upgrade it.

However, as @buzz suggests, if you download the S1 app, then create new system, does the Playbar show in the S1 app when wireless? If so, then follow the steps to upgrade the Playbar to S2.

edit: this month I’ve registered some old Bridges using the S1 app. The S1 app could not locate the device when it was wireless. Had to wire to the router to update firmware and register the device against my Sonos account.

Ken_Griffiths
December 26, 2022

Buzz I tried disconnecting all of the other except playbar the app can’t find the playbar but still finds the sub amd ONE 

It seems to me that you have likely already split your Sonos system into two Sonos Households and so have two options, you can either…

  • Upgrade the Playbar from S1 to the S2 App (using the S1 App) and then factory reset the Sub/One and add that to the original existing Sonos HH.

or…

  • Factory reset the Playbar and just add that to your new S2 Household that already includes the Sub/One and it should upgrade to S2 when adding it to that Household.

The second option is probably the easiest to do (but it’s entirely up to you). You can then bond the Sub to the Playbar. 

You need two Sonos Ones to bond those to your Playbar as it’s not possible to ‘bond’ just the one surround, but you could ‘group’ the Sonos One with the Playbar, but whilst that’s fine for music audio, you may notice a delay/echo when playing TV audio ‘grouped’ due to audio buffering across grouped rooms. Personally speaking, I would add another Sonos One and ‘bond’ them both to the Playbar, as that will eliminate the audio buffering delay issue.

buzz
Grand Maestro
December 26, 2022

Have you Factory Reset anything? I hope not. We may get to that, but not yet.

If you were running PLAYBAR on S1 (gray) you should be able to get PLAYBAR running again on S1. If you need to reinstall the S1 controller for PLAYBAR, keep the other units powered down and take care not to install a new system as you reinstall the controller App, you want to join an existing system. 
 

Edit: Ken and I are almost suggesting the same plan. I’m going a little slower in an attempt to preserve SONOS Playlists and music service registrations from the original PLAYBAR setup.

Mr. T
December 26, 2022

The OP has stated they weren’t using any app until yesterday.

The Playbar has likely never been registered against their Sonos account.

Contributor I
December 26, 2022

Ya I connected it to the Ethernet and it says incompatible in the app guess I’ll have to contact Sonos  support next week 

buzz
Grand Maestro
December 26, 2022

 @danandbravin,

If you have not been using a SONOS controller and have only been using PLAYBAR to play TV audio, there is nothing to preserve and Ken’s second option above is the quickest path.

Contributor I
December 26, 2022

Not really interested in saving music on the app as I just downloaded the apps yesterday