Feature request: Sonos Move to join SonosNet

I’m afraid this is the wrong diagnosis. Your playback problems are caused by a flaky network, in particularly dodgy WiFi extenders (which Sonos doesn’t support), and the controller is warning of such a situation. It’s nothing to do with Move not supporting SonosNet. With a solid WiFi connection Move can group with other players without problem.

Indeed, and it’s the (quasi) static nature of the SonosNet mesh topology which means that a portable device such as Move has to be excluded. If it was a participating node, the mesh topology would have to recalculate after every time the Move is, well, moved. This could easily result in instabilities in the rest of the system.

Thank you for your kind feedback, ratty. I appreciate it.

But firstly, IMHO it shouldn’t be up to the user to troubleshoot the products. You pay a premium price to get premium solutions - no matter how “flaky” your network is. If Sonos only supports certain equipment, why isn’t this told upfront? I know that Sonos cannot guarantee 100% trouble-free playback and aren’t responsible of how people put up their networks, but they should at least be able to get their own products to “play nicely” together with each other, no matter what - especially when they have their own mesh system in place.

Secondly, my (“non-Sonos”) mesh system is not “flaky”. I use high-end Nighthawk Wifi5 & 6 systems, optimised channel-wise for where I live. No other device on it is having problems. And neither does the Move, except in some instances where I actually move it around. And especially using Airplay. I know, you will say that this is Apple’s technology, and not Sonos’ headache, but if I start using Sonos’ then I get this arbitrary warning regarding mesh systems and no guarantees. That I find odd. And that was why I was inquiring about the Move being able to utilise SonosNet. Why bother warning me every time I try using the Sonos app if the system intelligently could switch to SonosNet and back again, for better connectivity? Especially when that system in my case is rock solid?

Let the technology work for you instead of vice versa. Don’t get me wrong - Sonos is a great and very user-friendly system, and that was why this issue got me slightly baffled.

Cheers,

Massimo

I’m sure you don’t really mean that. Sonos is heavily dependent on local network performance, for obvious reasons. If the underlying network isn’t sound then Sonos can suffer. To blame Sonos for this -- as a ‘premium product’ -- is like blaming a Ferrari for not doing particularly well when driven across a ploughed field.

The system requirements are set out at https://support.sonos.com/s/article/126. WiFi meshes are a bit of a difficult one. Sonos might see satellite nodes as ‘extenders’, and complain, or it might see them as multiple access points (linked by wireless backhaul) and be relatively content.

The question of whether to be able to connect Move to the SonosNet mesh was, I’m sure, discussed at length during the design phase. For the reasons I’ve already outlined it would have been disruptive to make Move a full SonosNet repeater node, i.e. part of the mesh topology. Ironically the option for Android devices to treat SonosNet nodes as WiFi access points was removed some while back, otherwise that might have offered a chance to operate Move in a similar fashion.

If you’d like an ‘official’ response, I suggest you submit a diagnostic after one of the warning messages appears when you attempt to group. Note the confirmation number and post it here.

As I said: “I know that Sonos cannot guarantee 100% trouble-free playback and aren’t responsible of how people put up their networks, but they should at least be able to get their own products to “play nicely” together with each other, no matter what - especially when they have their own mesh system in place.”

In short: Why not switch to SonosNet Mesh when “other” mesh is “flaky” according to Sonos..? I can move freely between mesh points with other devices, why not with a Move? Anyway, I will take up your advice and try submitting a ticket and see what happens. Thank you for your opinion in this matter.

Cheers,

Masimo