Is Sonos Move a $400 paperweight?

No. My Move has worked flawlessly from day 1.

Have you tried configuring the Move on both AP's?

Mine works fine too and always has. Sonos makes greater demands on a network setup than most devices because it involves multiple devices.

The answer here lies in the configuration of your network and the two APs, and/or the network settings in Sonos. The Move does use the same software as other Sonos products.  I am afraid most of your post is misguided, as would be your revenge YouTube video.

Note. One difference in the Move 's connection is that it can connect to the 5GHz band. Whether that is relevant I cannot tell, because your post contains no useful information. 

For the folks that said it works flawlessly for them, I have no doubt it does for you - I’m happy for you. The fact that some of them do work isn’t really relevant, the point is that it doesn’t work for others.

Regarding @JohnB’s “Sonos makes greater demands on a network setup than most devices” he misses the original point - that I have run my multiple Sonos devices for years on Wifi perfectly fine. No SonosNet. Every other Sonos device works perfectly, Move fails perfectly. It has nothing to do with demands on the network. My Play1 uses Wifi, my Move uses Wifi. My Play1 works perfectly on my network, my Move fails perfectly on the same network. Ergo, the Move’s firmware is broken.

Regarding @JohnB’s “I am afraid most of your post is misguided, as would be your revenge YouTube video”, unboxing videos are standard fare on the Internet because they serve a valuable purpose - educating consumers on products and what to expect. If a company fears consumers viewing an unboxing video of their product then they should probably re-think what they are selling the consumer. Sonos customers such as myself that have significant investments in Sonos should be aware of the potential incompatibility of the $400 Move, I’m afraid your assertion otherwise is misguided.

As for some of the network detail questions above here are some details:

• Cable DOCSYS modem connected to an ASUS AP (#1), with that connected via a wired connection to a (2nd) ASUS AP. (The #2 AP is simply a wired bridge, no DHCP, etc).
• The Sonos devices only see the wireless network from the 2nd AP, which is both 2.4 and 5 Ghz on the same SSID (using something they call Smart Connect).
• All Sonos devices are wireless, i.e. no SonosNet.

To @106rallye I have not tried configuring the Move on both APs - thank you for that idea. I thought having different devices on different APs would be even more problematic instead of less but I’m willing to give it a try. What I did do - successfully, is create a private 2.4 Ghz network off AP #1 and on that network the Move works fine. But before everyone jumps on that saying I’m done: 1) that AP does not cover my entire home Phence the second one - a common setup], and 2) that band-aid is not the point - the point is the Move fails where my much older Sonos products work.

Again - the main point is that I can take my Play1 that is on a portable stand using Wifi, unplug it, move it around anywhere in the house, plug it back in and it works perfectly. If it had a battery instead of a power cord I’d have a Move that works. The Sonos Move, which is designed to do exactly that, fails perfectly. Ergo the firmware functionality of the Move is deficient and would never have passed any regression testing which Sonos apparently doesn’t perform.

Hi @ybl84f1, sorry to hear of the trouble you’ve been having!

Do you mind sharing the specific model number of the ASUS APs? We’re aware of some ASUS models which require a Factory Reset to function properly with Sonos, particularly after a firmware update on the ASUS side of things.

As to why this is only affecting the Move - I would hazard a guess that the issue is related to the 5GHz wireless connection; splitting the SSID so that Sonos only connects to the 2.4GHz may help, however performing the Factory Reset on the ASUS hardware may be necessary, if the models you are using match.

Hi @Xander P , the 1st AP (hanging off the Motorola D3.1 cable modem) is an ASUS RT-AC86U, the second AP bridged via ethernet is an ASUS AC3200 which is the only AP my Sonos devices are aware of.

Note that this is not some complex or esoteric network configuration - this is a very typical setup using popular APs to provide coverage throughout a home.

Also - please don’t tell me my network needs to be re-configured to work with Move - if that’s the case then Sonos has failed in designing the Move. All of my older Sonos devices have worked perfectly fine the last 4 years in this network configuration. Consider this for a moment: if I strapped a lithium battery and an inverter to my Play1 with duct tape I would have a portable Sonos speaker that would work anywhere in my home or in my yard, but a brand new $400 Sonos speaker designed to be portable doesn’t work? Does that make any sense whatsoever? If that's the case then Sonos should have simply gutted the AC power supply in the Play1, velcro’d on a battery and would then have had a better, more compatible product than the Move. Sonos is moving backwards.

This is either a shortcoming in the firmware that 1) was missed in testing the product and 2) could be fixed and updated but Sonos has decided not to, or it is a shortcoming of the wifi silicon that Sonos has chosen in their design. Either way its very disappointing to see Sonos fail their customers.

The above statement is a contradiction to your thread title, which clearly implies that the product doesn’t work for anyone...it’s just a paperweight..   It seems you were just exaggerating to get attention, since you know that your thread title is inaccurate. 

A lot of incorrect assumptions here that have already been pointed out to you.  Even then, I’m not sure why you would conclude it’s a firmware problem with every Move rather than specific to your device and network situation.  Your assumptions don’t even narrow the problem down to broken firmware rather than faulty hardware or some other issue.

Education is only valuable if it’s accurate.  Your experience is not what consumers can typically expect and thus can be misleading.   It’s an experience, for sure, but trying to claim it’s more than that alone, or shared by a relatively small set of consumers, isn’t exactly honest.

And John doesn’t work for Sonos, so assuming his opinions match that of Sonos doesn’t make any sense either.

Understood, thanks for that @ybl84f1. While it's not a particularly complicated network, there are still a lot of settings & features on ASUS devices which, if not correctly configured, will cause problems with Sonos.

While the Play:1s in your system might not experience the same issues, Move is different in that it can connect via 5GHz, which may expose some slight issues with the network configuration that could otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Regarding the ASUS RT-AC86U, I'd recommend checking that the multicast settings are configured as below;

Another recommendation from ASUS themselves is to perform a Factory Reset on the router after updating the firmware, especially if there are any issues with device connectivity, and this has been shown to resolve similar issues with Sonos on ASUS networks. (It may also be worth performing a reset on the bridged AP also)

Thanks @Xander P, I’ll give that a try when I get a moment. As you are probably aware on the RT-AC86U those settings you list are not set to those values by default.

And again, the Move should not experience any of these issues just because it has a 5 Ghz wifi chip, that’s not a valid answer. That same chip also supports 2.4 Ghz. That means it can do everything the Play1 can do and more - it is a proper superset -  which means that even in the worst case scenario when the Move can’t connect properly (because of 5 Ghz issues) it could always fall back to using only the 2.4 Ghz and then connect perfectly anywhere the Play1 can connect. The Move should not fail to work anywhere a Play1 works properly! This is an easy solution that Sonos could implement in the firmware and app instead of having the product fail and with Sonos incurring all the costs (returned products, brand image, etc) associated with it not working.

Also - instead of the app definitively indicating it’s connected or that it has an issue, it presents this nebulous “kinda works, kinda doesn’t” Schrödinger's cat state by showing it connected sometimes, then completely disappearing other times. There’s no reason the Sonos app can’t diagnose this instead of leaving the user hanging.

Lastly - the Sonos phone support didn’t delve into any of the settings you listed above, or for that matter any settings.

@melvimbe - somehow you equate “it doesn’t work for others” with “the product doesn’t work for anyone”...it’s unclear how you find equivalence between those two statements, you seem to want to make more of what is actually written than what’s there.

Regarding whether its a firmware problem, you may not understand wifi silicon but read the prior post; in no situation should a 2.4/5 Ghz wifi chip fail where a 2.4 Ghz chip works. The wifi silicon in the Move is a superset of the Play1; the firmware in the speaker could disable the 5 Ghz and fallback to 2.4 Ghz, essentially making it indistinguishable from (a working) Play1 on the network. Although its a slower speed it 1) is an option and 2) is better then having a Sonos paperweight.

As far as “Your experience is not what consumers can typically expect and thus can be misleading” I’m not sure how my real-life experience can be misleading - it’s actually what happened. Period. As far as your judgement as to whether consumers can expect this or not it’s pretty simple - IT JUST HAPPENED! Your judgement of "typical” may be biased because what you don’t see in this forum is all the people that had this issue and just gave up and never came here. You may want to look up “Survivorship Bias” in statistics.

Yes education is only valuable if it’s accurate!

I didn’t equate the two statements at all. That was actually my point. Your thread title implies ‘doesn’t work for anyone’  and yet you acknowledge in the body that it actually does work (which is obvious) for others.

I didn’t conclude anything about the source of the issue at all.  My point was that the assumptions you made don’t eliminate any other alternative but a firmware issue.  I get your point that you think the radio should default to 2.4 if there are issues with 5.0, which does not conclude that’s the source of your specific issue is that firmware isn’t switching from 5.0 to 2.4 properly.  

I don’t know how you are equating ‘typical’ experience with your own personal experience.  That is my point.  If your point about my ability to conclude what is or isn’t typical experience, since I am not familiar with everyone’s experience, has merit...then it applies to you as well. 

Have you tried turning off SmartConnect, which actually is anything but smart? It could plausibly sabotage a device capable of connecting to both bands. I am not saying I am confident this is the answer, just that it is worth a shot.

Worth turning off QoS too.

(This may have been mentioned already,  but I can't be bothered to check.)

As to the discussion on logic between @melvimbe  and @ybl84f1 , @melvimbe  is clearly correct.

"When did Sonos stop making products that work?" clearly implies that no Move unit would work. Disproving this therefore only requires one counter example.  In fact we have several.

@Xander P - thanks for the suggestions, those settings unfortunately had no effect. Note on the latest RT-AC86U firmware:

Under Advanced Settings/LAN/IPTV tab:

Enable Multicast Routing (IGMP Proxy) - there is no mention of “IGMP Proxy”
Efficient Multicast Forwarding (IGMP Snooping.) - this doesn’t exist.

FYI the other setting under Advanced Settings/Wireless/Professional tab (“Enable IGMP Snooping”) does indeed exist.

Just to reiterate, the error experienced is in this configuration is:

• All other Sonos products (all on wifi) work perfectly,
• the Sonos Move status is “* Offline” when powered down,
• and when powered up it completely disappears from the device list. “Find Missing Players” yields nothing.

As soon as the Move powers up and (I presume) gets on the network it disappears from the list of devices.

I will try the hard reset as the last resort unless Sonos have any other suggestions. After that I’m afraid it’s going back to the Sonos warehouse for refurbishing, and perhaps a video of how to strap a lithium battery to a Play1 is in order for all the folks who can’t get a Move to work!

Disable SmartConnect and QoS. May work, may not.

@John B “"When did Sonos stop making products that work?” - whatever you may assume it implies is irrelevant, the fact of the matter is 100% of the Sonos products I’ve purchased in the last year have failed. So from my perspective the question is perfectly valid.

I will try the two settings you describe although it likely won’t be until next week.

OK let's stop arguing. I hope those settings do cure your problem. Although you say that a device with a 5GHz card as well as 2.4 should do everything a device with just 2.4 can do, it does depend on how the router handles the connection, and whether it allows the device to communicate with other devices that are on a different band. You have to consider the interoperability of the whole system, not just a single device.

That is why I think there is a chance - only a chance - that changing those settings will help.

Please post back whichever way it goes.

Hi @ybl84f1 

When your Move is on, but the app doesn’t show it as connected, does it work? As in, can you ask it to play something via voice command, from within the Spotify app or via AirPlay?

If you can get the Move to play while the Sonos app says it’s offline, then the issue is with your network not allowing your Move and your app to communicate with each other. Try connecting your phone/tablet to another AP/frequency.

If you have a computer with an ethernet connection, does the Sonos Move show on that while it doesn’t show on your phone? If so, this would be indicative of wireless isolation or a guest network in use.

Hi @Corry P , I’ve been offline for several days so have not tried @John B  ‘s suggestion or yours.

I do not have/use Spotify or AirPlay but that is something I suppose I could try. But - before going down that additional rabbit hole, realize how backwards it is to have to use 3rd party apps to debug a Sonos issue. Again I’ll reiterate the most important point - I have 5 different Sonos products, some many, many years old, that work perfectly on this network and with the Sonos app, and then a brand new Move breaks it. Even if you go down the “its a 5 ghz problem” the Move is perfectly capably of falling back to 2.4 Ghz and acting like a Play1. There is absolutely no reason a Move should fail where a Play1 works perfectly, period.

It will probably be a day or two before I can try your and John’s tests - I will report back as soon as I do. Appreciate the help.

@Corry P , @Xander P , @John B ,

Wanted to let you know I’m still working on this...I really don’t want to post any results because my experience has been all over the map...everything from it working perfectly to the Move (yet again) just disappearing, and then to everything _but_ the Move disappearing. I had devices all working but after a while, although they all showed normal when I hit play (on any of them, not just Move) it said it could not connect to the device. So my results are really inconclusive.

It kinda feels like perhaps after changing a router setting I might need to reset both routers and force all the devices to reattach - I’d be interested in BKMs such as whether that is true and whether I should reduce my Sonos network to just the Move and say one other device for simplicity. It feels like I need to reduce this to a single variable at a time with a complete cold boot of both APs. (Of course I’m limited as to when I can do this kind of testing since it brings the entire house down).

Anyways a quick recap although the results are all over the map. Turning off SmartConnect was a mess - all devices (including Move) connected except for my sound bar and sub (which are the most reliable devices on my Sonos network). Turning SmartConnect back on resulted in all devices reconnecting, except the Move which went back to disappearing when powered on. (But again I did not reboot either APs).

@Xander P after applying those settings you suggested (except for the Efficient Multicast Forwarding (IGMP Snooping which doesn’t exist) and undoing all other changes it seemed to work...for quite a while...until I woke up in the morning and again all the Sonos devices except Move were working, and again Move would show offline when powered off and disappear when powered on. And then all by itself, later today, without changing anything I lost all connectivity to every Sonos device for the entire day; I did the “find missing devices” process - nothing, completely gone until this evening when I rebooted the AC86U.

So trying to simplify my debugging of the Move firmware this where I am right now:

1. No changes to the AC3200 (repeater) AP.
2. Reset AC86U (main router hanging off cable modem) to default settings.
3. DID NOT ENABLE: IPTV tab/Enable Multicast Routing (IGMP Proxy)
4. DID Advanced Settings/Wireless/Professional tab: Enable IGMP Snooping

As of right now, Wed evening it’s been up for 30 minutes and everything works perfectly. I’m going to let this sit tonight and see what happens in the morning.

I am astonished my 5+ year old Play1 outperforms a brand new $400 Move!

It’s certainly hard to make sense of those results!  Rebooting may indeed be needed, but I am still interested in SmartConnect.  Is it a coincidence that:

(i) SmartConnect is all about managing connections across two bands

(ii) The Move disappears when SmartConnect is turned on

(iii) The Move is the only device in your system that can connect to either band?

I tend to think it isn’t a coincidence, but I may be mistaken.  I still don’t buy your argument that because the Move has everything the Play:1 has and more, it should inevitably do at least as well as a Play:1.  The Move gives your router more options, and therefore more chances for it to get it wrong.  I am pretty sure the Move is connecting fine to your network.  The real question is: why can your Sonos controller not see it?

When you turned off SmartConnect “all devices (including Move) connected except for my sound bar and sub (which are the most reliable devices on my Sonos network)”.  At that point I would have tried just rebooting the Playbar and Sub to see if they appeared.

Further questions, if you don’t mind:

1. Do your router and APs all use the same SSID?
2. If you go into the Sonos app Settings, System, Network, Manage Networks, what does it show (maybe post a screenshot?)

If you would like another experiment to do, you could connect just one of your Sonos devices to your router by Ethernet (just move a Play:1 temporarily if there is no device in reach. Don’t wire the Sub).  Power all your Sonos off and on again.  If Move is not visible, disable SmartConnect again.

To explain my thinking behind the experiment i suggested (which I really think you should try!)…

By wiring a Sonos speaker to your router, you will push all Sonos data (except that for Move) onto SonosNet.  For everything except the Move, you will take anything related to your WiFi out of the equation.

Why ‘except the Move’?  Because the Move cannot connect to SonosNet, it must connect to your WiFi.  We have evidence that the Move will connect (and be visible in the app) if SmartConnect is disabled.

So it is possible that these steps will give you a stable setup.  At the very least, it takes some variables out of the equation and will give us useful information.

@John B ,

Thanks for the suggestions, your experiment did work. First, to address your questions:

Do your router and APs all use the same SSID?

No - just to clarify the network setup and create some standard nomenclature:

• The high level config is 1) Cable modem, wired directly to 2) ASUS RT86U (in basement, with it’s own wireless SSID (let’s call this SSID “TeganWifi”), wired directly to 3) ASUS RT-AC3200 (upstairs, with it’s own wireless SSID (let’s call this SSID “ASUS”).
• Each band (2.4 and 5 GHz) on each respective router has the same SSID, in other words I have not assigned different SSIDs to both the 2.4 and 5 GHz on the RT86U, nor the AC3200.
• Both routers have factory default settings (with the exception of debugging the Move issue).
• No Sonos devices are wired, all are wireless.
• The Sonos network configuration is only aware of SSID “ASUS”; I have never connected them to SSID “TeganWifi” (with the exception of debugging the Move issue). After any particular test I remove SSID “TeganWifi” from the Sonos network list such that it is only aware of SSID “TWO”.

If you go into the Sonos app Settings, System, Network, Manage Networks, what does it show (maybe post a screenshot?)

Just for the record, one known working configuration (with default router settings, i.e. SmartConnect enabled) was if I used SSID “TeganWifi” off the “primary AP/router” for all devices and connect to that with the Sonos app it works fine. A known working condition pre-Move was everything (less the Move) working on “ASUS” with all default router settings.

So I’ll leave this current configuration you provided up for now as I have had previous issues with the Sonos network behaving differently over the course of a day during the other tests. For the record the current configuration is:

• One Play1 wired to the AC3200.
• The (only) wireless network configured in the app is ASUS
• SmartConnect on both APs is disabled. (Not sure if I needed to disable it on the RT86U but I did anyways).
• Advanced Settings/Wireless/Professional tab: Enable IGMP Snooping on the RT86U (left over from @Xander P ‘s suggestion).

I still don’t buy your argument that because the Move has everything the Play:1 has and more, it should inevitably do at least as well as a Play:1

Keep in mind:

1. If the Move simply disabled it’s 5 GHz band (automatically because the Sonos app detected problems, as a diagnostic tool, manual intervention, etc.) and used the 2.4 GHz band it, Sonos could make it indistinguishable from a Play1. I am familiar enough with Broadcom, Qualcom and Intel wifi silicon to know that a 2.4/5GHz wifi chip is a proper superset of a 2.4 GHz chip. That’s a very simple baseline and fallback position.
2. I registered this brand new Move using my original ASUS network. Although it was convoluted and somewhat trial and error because the Move has issues, at some point the Move and the Sonos App communicated enough on the original network either directly and/or over the wifi network with the original router settings to register the device before breaking. This says the App and the the Move are capable of coordinating and providing move diagnostics during setup (or other times) instead of the user getting random results.
3. With respect to crossing APs and crossing frequency bands, my current devices on this very network have done this for years. My 5GHz Windows laptop, on AP #1, DISCOVERS AND CONNECTS TO my 2.4 GHz wireless printer on AP #2 all the time. If two devices from two different companies, one of them even dependent on Microsoft Windows can discover and connect on this network setup (with SmartConnect enabled) then I find it astonishing and disappointing that Sonos -- presumably Wifi experts -- fails in this very situation, hence the title of this thread.
4. In no case should a 5-year old Play1 with batteries and an invertor duct-taped to it making it portable outperform a $400 Move….period!

If this config is still stable into tomorrow I will try unwinding these changes one at a time, one day at a time starting with:

• Moving the wired Play1 back to wireless.
• Enabling SmartConnect on the RT86U
• Disabling the “IGMP Snooping”

If all that works then I suppose the conclusion is that the Sonos Move is incompatible with ASUS’ SmartConnect feature, my first and only  wifi device that I have with this issue (which includes an array of devices like connected garage door openers, pool cleaning robot, wireless printers, etc.) unless @Xander P or @Corry P from Sonos have other suggestions.

Thanks for your help and expertise.

Hi @ybl84f1 .  I am pleased my suggestion has given you a working solution, subject to your reasonable desire to leave it a while before being confident it is stable.

I honestly see no point in our continuing to argue over what should and should not work, so I shall pass on responding to your arguments regarding that, if you will excuse me.

Personally I can’t see much point in unwinding much of what you have changed.  By all means put the Play:1 back to wireless, but i have always operated in SonosNet mode and think there are advantages to doing so for anyone with more than a small Sonos system and a simple, access-point-free network.  (Admittedly this is ironic here, as the Move cannot connect to SonosNet.)  But that is your call - see what happens.  I suspect it will work when Play:1 goes back to wireless, but If it doesn’t, and you don’t need a speaker near the router, then a Sonos Boost would be the answer.  

Good luck.

Hi @ybl84f1 

Have you reset your Asus router yet? This is not something we think you need to do to get Sonos working, this is something Asus recommend to get anything working reliably. If your router has automatically updated its firmware, or if you have done it manually, it should be factory reset afterwards.