Hi @rbradford123 

Welcome to the Sonos Community! And, apologies for the delayed reply.

Your mention of Sky Q tells all, I’m afraid. Sky Q boxes will repeat a WiFi signal from a Sky router. When Sonos devices (or the controller running the app) connect to the Sky Q box instead of to the router, the device is often unable to communicate with the devices that are connected via the router. 

A simple fix for this used to be to disable 2.4GHz on the Sky Q box. As Sonos devices never used to connect to 5GHz, this worked a treat. The Roam (and other new models) will connect to 5GHz, however, so this fix no longer works for these devices. Another fix was to wire one Sonos product to ethernet, making them all use a private WiFi mesh created by the speakers. The Roam and Move will not utilise SonosNet, however, so this would not help you.

You can confirm that the Sky Q box is the problem by unplugging it from power and testing/setting up your Roam with Sky Q off. Please do confirm Sky Q as the source of the problem before trying anything below this line. If turning off your Sky Q box(es) doesn’t help matters, I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports.

I can think of 3 ways to resolve this.

The first way to prevent Sonos from connecting to your Sky Q box is to connect the Sky Q box to the router with an ethernet cable and disabling both 2.4 and 5 GHz transmissions on it. If you have multiple Sky Q boxes, you’d need to wire each (or certainly those near Sonos devices). I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system, and guide you through the processes. I recommend a phone call rather than a chat session.

If your router was not a Sky router, the Sky Q box would not repeat the signal, so I suppose there’s an option there too - change ISP or get a third-party router. If you have a tech-savvy friend or relative, I recommend enlisting their help should you go down this route of replacing the router.

Finally, and most recommended by yours truly - if you were to have a (ethernet-wired) WiFi access point with different WiFi credentials than your Sky WiFi, and Sonos only knew the credentials for this and not for Sky, your Sonos system would operate without ever connecting to Sky WiFi, thus avoiding the Sky Q broadcast. Depending on your home’s size/layout, a mesh WiFi system may be the best option here (which should be put into Bridge/AP mode - a simple step in the accompanying app).

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the great info. 

I think it may be better to return the unit as setting up what is required for it to function far exceeds the cost of the unit. Something I’m sure Sonos would not cover. For where it is to be situated I’m better moving a ‘one’ in and out of the garden of get a Bluetooth speaker for the outdoor cinema.

considering sky and sky q particularly are becoming more common I’d trust this information would be made available to people pre-purchase.

I’ll get one of my dark arts people to review the options and look at what spells they can cast.

oncc again thank for your excellent response.

Hi @rbradford123 

You’re very welcome - glad to be of help!

If you turn off your Sky Q box(es) you should find that your Roam will work without issue. With that said, no, we would not cover the costs of bypassing the fact that the Sky Q box repeats WiFi signals but restricts protocols We do not support WiFi extenders for this very reason, and document this fact clearly in our system requirements page. Sky don’t describe their device as a WiFi extender but it is one, none the less.

I agree that it’s an undesirable situation, and completely understand you wanting to return the product for a refund. To be clear, however, I would expect a Sonos One to behave exactly the same as a Roam, in this regard - the Sky Q broadcast of your WiFi would be an issue for both. Before returning the Roam, I strongly recommend you power-off the Sky Q and test the Roam, and test the Sonos One in the Garden. If issues persist despite the Sky Q being off (and any other extenders, if you have any), please get in touch with our technical support team, who have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your Sonos system and what it reports about the situation. If needed, they will be happy to remotely connect to your computer and adjust router settings for you.