Avid Contributor I

Era 300 network failures, SonosNet comparisons. Why are we taking a step back… and paying more.

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As a loyal Sonos consumer, beta tester and unofficial sales rep over the last 15 years, I have maintained that SonosNet had been, until now, one of the top reasons I recommend the brand. In a world full of poor ISP routers, mesh networks, and increased messy wifi poloution, having a dedicated music network has proven time and time gain to be an incredible, reliable and unique consumer rewarding technology.

With the introduction of the Eras I got excited to rotate in some new upgrades. First in the door was a couple Era 300s.
First step was to start some side by side comparisons. Play ones in the bathrooms first. In bathroom #1 the first era wouldn’t stay available in the app, so on to era 300 #2 in bathroom #1, same issue. It was strange as the One has worked no problem in there for years. I took the usual trouble shooting step and nothing helped. On the bathroom #2 which also has had and One in it for years without issues. Same problem Era 300s won’t stay available in app and then go into error fix status. Ok let’s try the studio with an old Play 3, same issue. Garage with an old play 3, same issue. Dining room Fives? Nope, still can’t keep the Era 300s connected to the app long enough to get through a song and the warning about using a mesh network. This is when I jumped online to see if others had issues and I discovered they no longer support Sonosnet.

A quick call to tech support revealed an even more upsetting scenarios. The tech support didn’t care and blamed me.

In our case we have a very substantial home/business network running. It works perfect for how we need it to. We use Sonos in the home and the studio attached to our house and it worked perfectly, until now. The Era 300 won’t work on that network because it’s using mesh technology and they won’t work on Sonos’s own patented network. Why on earth would they remove the option to use the dedicated SonosNet. I essentially have two paper weights now. Or I have disassemble our expensive network and go back to hoping and praying a single router will cover the house and business?

I’d expect that in a world of increased competition in the market, Sonos would be perfecting and focusing on their standout benefits. This is like a huge step back for loyal and new consumers. I am over 30 days in, haven’t be able to complete a single side by side test and I’m stuck with two useless speakers and a growing disappointment in a brand that I used to love.

On a side note I also use Bluesound and NAD wireless products and the fact that they use wifi is my number 1 issue with them. I’ve had to run hardwired solution to them. So if I want to spend time dealing unreliable music networking I might as well use the stuff that sounds better. At least I can use power line adapters. The Era 300 don’t even have Ethernet ports anymore to us this work around. 😡🤬

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buzz

Grand Maestro

It might be a cost saver in terms of development time. In 2005 when the first products were released, WiFi was cruder than now and could not support the diversity available now. Back then no other companies could support the system size and scope that seemed trivial for SONOS — those that did try ran into SONOS patents. Current WiFi technology is much more agile and this creates issues for the original SonosNet implementations that are not channel agile. Some mesh networks will split clients between subnets and may jump between channels. While this might not be a problem for web browsing, it is an issue for SONOS because the units are very chatty with each other. It’s not such a big deal if a web page or email is delayed a few milliseconds while the WiFi clients renegotiate, but this is not acceptable for audio. Anyway, here we are.

With the older SonosNet models you can go to http://[IP address of a player]:1400/support/review. At the bottom, open Network Matrix. Red cells are drawing your attention to potential issues. Note that this is a static view. Refresh the page for current data. Unfortunately, the utility of this view is waning because the newer players don’t populate this view. And, there is no documentation.

Ken_Griffiths

I saw this right before I left to go get an era 300. They say it wont work on a mesh system, even though all the other Sonos speakers are running on it?

According to their tech support Sonos does not recommend the use of mesh routers as it will cause delays in the syncing of multiple rooms.

That’s odd because in the second footnote in this ‘System Requirements’ support document it says this…

"If you need to extend your home WiFi to use Sonos in a wireless setup, we recommend using a WiFi mesh router to do so"

See this link:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/sonos-system-requirements

I have far more than 17 Sonos products on my Home system and not seeing an issue when running them on a mesh WiFi setup - in my case though I have the 6 hubs bridged in AP mode to my ISP router…

3 hubs hang off a wired backbone and the 3 remaining wireless hubs are paired to the wired hubs - see diagrams attached …and this works just fine for 25+ Sonos and everything else on the network, including lights, blinds, heating, plugs, cameras etc.

It will still most likely be an issue with your local network… many users these days use a WiFi mesh for their home network and have success with what is a supported Sonos setup, as stated in the linked document above.

Justin_21Author

Avid Contributor I

I saw this right before I left to go get an era 300. They say it wont work on a mesh system, even though all the other Sonos speakers are running on it?

According to their tech support Sonos does not recommend the use of mesh routers as it will cause delays in the syncing of multiple rooms.

That’s odd because in the second footnote in this ‘System Requirements’ support document it says this…

"If you need to extend your home WiFi to use Sonos in a wireless setup, we recommend using a WiFi mesh router to do so"

See this link:

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/sonos-system-requirements

I have far more than 17 Sonos products on my Home system and not seeing an issue when running them on a mesh WiFi setup - in my case though I have the 6 hubs bridged in AP mode to my ISP router…

3 hubs hang off a wired backbone and the 3 remaining wireless hubs are paired to the wired hubs - see diagrams attached …and this works just fine for 25+ Sonos and everything else on the network, including lights, blinds, heating, plugs, cameras etc.

It will still most likely be an issue with your local network… many users these days use a WiFi mesh for their home network and have success with what is a supported Sonos setup, as stated in the linked document above.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have jumped through many troubleshooting hoops for over a month before getting to the point of making this post. Then article you linked to also states what I’ve already said. Range extenders are not supported. Sonos support treats extenders and APs as one and the same. Again I’m happy to see yours is working. It gives me hope. But I would reiterate my point, this huge waste of time and need to reconfigure networks or even replace network hardware could and would be prevented if they would make this unit support Sonosnet. For reference here is the notice I get when the 300 is connected and I try to group it. It will not play in groups if it on an AP or extender.

Make it a great day.

Justin_21Author

Avid Contributor I

It might be a cost saver in terms of development time. In 2005 when the first products were released, WiFi was cruder than now and could not support the diversity available now. Back then no other companies could support the system size and scope that seemed trivial for SONOS — those that did try ran into SONOS patents. Current WiFi technology is much more agile and this creates issues for the original SonosNet implementations that are not channel agile. Some mesh networks will split clients between subnets and may jump between channels. While this might not be a problem for web browsing, it is an issue for SONOS because the units are very chatty with each other. It’s not such a big deal if a web page or email is delayed a few milliseconds while the WiFi clients renegotiate, but this is not acceptable for audio. Anyway, here we are.

With the older SonosNet models you can go to http://[IP address of a player]:1400/support/review. At the bottom, open Network Matrix. Red cells are drawing your attention to potential issues. Note that this is a static view. Refresh the page for current data. Unfortunately, the utility of this view is waning because the newer players don’t populate this view. And, there is no documentation.

All that being said. The issue comes back to this. It can not play with others unless I change hardware. Im now running it bundled to the router which is only 15 feet away and the cutting out would make your ears bleed.

Make it a great day.

Ken_Griffiths

Yes indeed @Justin_21, WiFi extenders have always been on the Sonos incompatible WiFi networks list within their published system requirements. Little doubt that’s perhaps why your system was put onto SonosNet in the first place.

I don’t use extenders and have a WiFi mesh system here.

Have you tried wiring the Era’s directly back to your Asus router (you’ll need a Sonos network adapter to do that)? You could perhaps even look at blacklisting the Era MAC addresses, so that they do not use your WiFi extenders and connect just to your Asus router only.

ratty

Extenders are nasty. They typically mangle the MAC addresses of client devices. A true mesh system doesn’t.

If the ASUS devices can’t participate in AiMesh (which IME works fine with larger Sonos systems) then

corral Sonos units onto any true (wired) APs, as suggested by @Ken_Griffiths, or
get separate, dedicated AP(s) for Sonos, either with fully wired backhaul or wired to wireless SonosNet nodes, or
hardwire the Eras using the Ethernet dongles

SonosNet is very slow, orders of magnitude slower than modern WiFi. This needn’t matter for audio to a few players. Larger Sonos systems could well benefit from a WiFi mesh.

C

craigski

Local Superstar

Another take: maintaining a SonosNet on Sonos devices will consume energy, even if the Sonos devices are not being used. If you do the maths, you maybe surprised how much electricity you will potentially save using modern Sonos devices that don’t use SonosNet over their expected lifetime, that may justify some expenditure on upgrading home network?

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