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When and where to hardwire Sonos speakers?

  • 26 August 2023
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S
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Having dropouts.  Can’t put my finger on why.  Here are the facts:

 

I have the following Sonos equipment:

  • Sonos Boost - Hardwired into an ethernet switch in the garage, where my router is, at the front of the house.
  • Sonos SL - in the same garage as Boost and router - not wired. No ethernet available.
  • Sonos Arc, subwoofer and two Play:1 in my theater, basically the next room moving back towards the house. This is not wired, but could easily be wired as I have a backhaul to my router
  • Sonos Base, two Play:1 speakers in the family room.  This room is basically in the middle of my house.  None of theses speakers are wired to ethernet but could easily be. Again, I have a backhaul to the router
  • Off the family room is the Kitchen. I have one Sonos One SL. Not wired, No Ethernet available
  • Sonos One SL in the Master Bathroom at the very back of the house. Not wired, no ethernet available.
  • In the near future, there will be 3 Gen 2 Sonos Connects which will stream to three sets of outdoor speakers. These will be in the garage where the router is and have ethernet available if needed.

So, there is the Sonos equipment, all S2 and set up as so.  I had used nothing but Sonos for many years, but with the advent of the HomePod mini a few years ago, I replaced most of them with HomePod stereo pairs.  Terrible experience.  They’re totally unreliable.  So, I got my previous S2 Sonos devices, put them back into service, and picked up some new Sonos stuff and plan to use only Sonos for music/podcast streaming, and a few HomePod minis in strategic places for HomeKit purposes only.

So, right now I can’t put my finger on why I’m getting a fair amount of dropouts.  Sometimes I can go hour and hours without them, then another day, constant dropouts.

My Wifi is excellent.  I have a TP-Link Deco.  My Internet cable comes into the garage. I have the primary base there, and then two wired bases, one in the middle of the house (family room) and another more toward the back of the house in the master bedroom. I also have a wired base on my backyard patio.

The Wifi, seems to cover the whole house with no deadspots, is fast and I NEVER have problems with it.  I typically test under 20 ms for the pings and anywhere from 300mbps to 800mbps depending on the device.  Below shows my new MacBook Pro.  I pay for 1gig up and 20 gig down. This is constant.  Same no matter where I take it.

 

 

I have read up about where and when to wire, but can’t seem to find a consensus.  I guess I thought that the Boost should be wired, then it would create a privatewireless network for the remaining Sonos devices, piggybacking on existing wifi.  In the past, I thought that Sonos support had told me I shouldn’t have all the devices wired, but I admit, I am confused about how it should be configured.

Looking in About My Sonos, I do see all devices are connected and show WM:0, which I think means they are on a SonosNet. Yet, here we are, the Family Room Sonos products drop every 10-20 seconds. Very frustrating.

I’m fairly handy tweaking my Deco Router. For those devices that are stationary, I often tie them into the closest base so they only connect there, giving them strong signals in the Deco app.  I also often give devices a reserved IP address for clarity. I am willing to do this with Sonos devices if need be.

Well, long post I know. Trying to be thorough.  Any help appreciated.

 

 

 

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Best answer by Airgetlam 26 August 2023, 16:14

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9 replies

S
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One thing of note.  I got sick of the dropouts, so I regrouped the speakers, but originated the stream from the family room, the one that was dropping, then added to the other speakers.  This corrected the problem.  So, not sure what that’s about. I do not remember what the coordinating speaker was when it was dropping all to heck.

Thanks.

Airgetlam

All sorts of possibilities here. First, wire as many of the units as you want/can. It will certainly help reinforce the SonosNet network.

And yes, I’d absolutely recommend reserved IP addresses for all your Sonos devices. 

SonosNet is essentially just another Wi-Fi signal (hidden), and is subject to all the same potential issues with wifi interference that a normal signal is. Make sure that your normal Wi-Fi channel isn’t overlapping with your SonosNet one. One should be on 1, 6 or 11, and the other on one of those remaining two channels. Make sure your wifi signal is restricted to 20Mhz in width, a 40Mhz signal won’t help anything, and is fairly antagonistic.

It’s a human nature thing to think that our networks exist in a vacuum, but the simple fact is there are all sorts of outside influences to both wifi, and even wired LANs. My suspicion is there is either a duplicate IP address issue with your Family Room, or possibly a source of wifi interference , or even just a potential dead spot in the coverage. Hard to tell from anecdotal evidence, but I would recommend that you submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it.

There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

When you speak directly to the phone folks, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and network.

Bruce
buzz

I’m also anal about wiring. Wire as many units as is practical. Wiring SONOS to a mesh point is risky. SONOS should be wired through to the router.

WiFi coverage varies in three dimensions throughout the space. Sometimes moving a unit an inch or two works miracles or plunges into a sea of issues. In your case BOOST might be redundant.

Always reserve SONOS IP addresses. I reserve everything except transient devices.

When Grouping, start the Group with a wired unit. This unit becomes the Group “Coordinator”. All network traffic for the Group flows through this unit. For a “Bonded” pair, the left unit is its Coordinator.

I know that there are sorry and angry tales here, but the SONOS wireless is reasonably resilient. The SONOS units are constantly chattering and require better network support than simple web browsing out to the Internet. Too many users incorrectly assume that their network is “perfect” if they can browse successfully. My own situation is complex. I can see about 70 access points when I scan and there is a medical facility next door. In addition to the preferred channel 1, 6, or 11, there can be users on 3, 5, 8, and 10. That channel 5 access point is vexing because it uses 40MHz channel width. This person thinks that they are being smart, but they are reducing their own reliability and that of the neighbors. There is a blizzard of interference. I think SONOS does a good job in this difficult environment.

S
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Thanks for your responses!

@buzz Can we clarify when you say that wiring Sonos to a Mesh point is risky.

More on my situation.  I have a Cable Modem that connects to a TP-Link Deco unit.  It’s the same as the remaining two, but I guess becomes the primary because the cable modom is hooked up to it. Coming off the primary Deco Unit goes to an ethernet switch.  Coming off that switch is a wired run to a switchin the garage for a bunch of smart home stuff.  That is where I have the Boost.  However, that Boost is not exactly centrally located. I’ve thought of moving it more centrally, like to the Family room.

Also coming off that switch in the garage are the two wired runs to the two remaining Deco units, one in the family room and one in the master bedroom.  I believe these are called backhauled?

The Deco unit in the family room also has a switch where my Apple TV, TV, and a few other items are wired into.  I’ve been thinking about moving my Boost to be wired there, moving it from the very front of the house to a more central area. Does this seem like a good idea?

So, when you say wiring to a Mesh point is risky, I’m not sure exactly what that means. I guess I am wired to a switch that goes to the primary Mesh unit, but it’s all wired. Do I have any other options?

Otherwise, @Airgetlam and @buzz, I plan to review your suggestions and tweak things like fixed IP, etc.

Thanks!

 

S
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Oh, one other thing comes to mind. Once I assign a fixed IP to a wireless Sonos device, I can also specify that it connect always to the same Mesh unit.  I think this has helped some other units around the house get stronger signals to the Wifi.  I guess at some level that should happening already, but I feel like it helps to tie that down.

Agreed?

Thanks for your help.

Stanley_4
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If you are using SonosNet - any Sonos device wired - then the only thing using your WiFi would be your controllers so your WiFi coverage isn’t an issue unless you add unwired 100s or 300s that don’t do SonosNet.

If you wire to a switch connected to the main router you won’t have the issues you’d have wiring to one of the mesh units. Some seem fine, others not so much. If needed add another switch to the mesh end of your backhaul and connect the Sonos to it.

I have all my wired that were easy to wire. That pointed out that my Boost was not being used as every wireless Sonos found a better route to my router via one of the other wired Sonos. The boost went in the spares closet and isn’t missed since it was being ignored anyway.

 

S
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Yikes! Another issue.  You say the left speaker in a bonded group is always the left? So if I have an Arc, two surrounds and a subwoofer, the left surround is the leader?  Thanks.

Airgetlam

No, the Arc would be the lead device. In a normal stereo pair (not surrounds), the left is usually dominant.

 

Bruce
buzz

I have no hands-on experience with Deco. A risk with some mesh points is that they are sometimes pushed to another subnet. If you wire SONOS to that mesh point the SONOS unit will be on a different subnet. All SONOS units must be on the same subnet, along with the controllers. If the mesh is jerking things around, SONOS will be unhappy.

You should always reserve IP addresses for SONOS units.

If you can prevent Deco from moving things around, experiment with wiring SONOS units to mesh points. If the SONOS system suddenly becomes unstable, you have a handle on the cause.

 

 

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