... I'm fairly confident that the Sonos products simply do not connect to a 5Ghz wifi as you are suggesting. It is my understanding that they use 5Ghz only among themselves when bonded as part of a 5.1 surround sound system, but that is, in part, because the 5Ghz network, while faster, does not provide as strong a coverage throughout a house (through walls, etc.) and a 5.1 setup is presumed to be in the same physical location and thus will be effective and enable faster communication allowing the 5.1 system to operate in sync with video....



Perhaps some of the more technical people can weigh in here and help figure out what is occurring.



Ideally you'd have a modem that allows the two wifi networks to operate such that devices connected to the 5Ghz channel can still speak with / see the 2.4Ghz connections as part of the same sub-group. (Mine does... as did my previous modem....) perhaps it is a setting on your modem to enable?



Network experts? Anyone?

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My controller would only work on 2.4 when I only had Play:1's set up over wifi.

However I now access my system using my 5.0ghz channel after connecting a Play:5 to my router via Ethernet & activating Sonosnet.

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Unless your 2 x Play 5s are bonded to a Playbar as surrounds they will NOT be connecting to the 5 GHz network - That is the ONLY case of the use of 5 GHz network for Sonos (connecting speakers as surrounds to Playbar).



You can only connect the Sonos system in 2 ways:-



1) Boost mode - where at least 1 Sonos unit is wired directly to your router and that Sonos unit then produces a network (SonosNet) to which the other Sonos units connect in a mesh



2) Wireless - NO Sonos unit is wired to the router and Sonos is then connected to your Wi-Fi network - You will be talked through this through the app and, obviously, during this process you will pick the network to connect to (it will ONLY display 2.4 GHz ones) and you then supply the credentials. These will be held on the SONOS units so anybody can come and connect to your network and control Sonos



1&2) No if you never enter your Wi-Fi credentials then Sonos can never connect to the network wirelessly because it doesn't have the password. BUT, if you do go for option 2 then Sonos will use a combination of SonosNet and Wi-Fi choosing the best connection route.



So you need to check the following:-



- Ensure your laptop is connecting to the 2.4 GHz network

- Make sure you are set as a private network (https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/823/~/configuring-windows-firewall-to-work-with-sonos)

- Then you may need to check your Firewall settings



Is your laptop a supported OS?

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My controller now uses 5.0ghz to control my network with a play:5 connected.

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My controller now uses 5.0ghz to control my network with a play:5 connected.



I was thinking about this when I wrote my reply as my iOS devices can, apparently, also connect to the 5 GHz network.



If Sonos is in Wi-Fi only mode then I am confident that connecting a controller to a 5 GHz network would NOT work. However, I assume that if the system is working in boost mode so a Sonos unit is WIRED to the router then a controller linked to the 5 GHz network WOULD work.



Perhaps one of the network experts could/would confirm?

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Yes I am using iOS

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I could not use 5.0ghz when my system was wireless.

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.... Ah . I am, and have essentially always been, using a boost... so my routers have been connecting 2.4 and 5 to the wired boost.... not across the two networks... :8

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If Sonos is in Wi-Fi only mode then I am confident that connecting a controller to a 5 GHz network would NOT work.

It all depends on the router. Some forward multicast between wireless segments. Some don't.

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If Sonos is in Wi-Fi only mode then I am confident that connecting a controller to a 5 GHz network would NOT work.

It all depends on the router. Some forward multicast between wireless segments. Some don't.



Thankyou ratty

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This has become more than a little frustrating and thank you all for the responses, in summary it is not conclusive what is going on. The problem initially arose when I couldn't Airplay connect to an Airport Express in the back of Left Sonos P5. After running back to bare bones to simply try and play music to Sonos it turned out the Sony Vaio laptop couldn't be connected. BUT mobiles and tablets (iOS and Android) will happily and robustly connect through their app controllers.



I am running Windows 10

Latest Sonos Controller for PC V7 Build 34735161

Two Play 5s (same room) Left and Right

Modem is Technicolour dual band 2.4G and 5G (SSE / Southern Electric is provider)



Funnilly enough when I was with BT about 4months ago I think it was all working fine, not sure if it was a recent thing as I haven't really been using the Sonos that much but I just wanted to play youtube direct to Sonos through the Airport Express again so that gave rise to the issue of laptop doesn't connect to Sonos.



For confirmation (IN MY SITUATION) I can connect and play to Sonos via mobiles and tablets at either 2.4G or 5G. It seems the Play 5s revert to 5G so I have turned that off whilst this remains unresolved. All very strange. I thought I'd figured it out as "Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Centre\Media streaming options" was not Allowing Plays5s but seems a redherring now......



Anyone want to buy two Play5s...::-))?

SO the problem in summary is only that the Sonos Controller for PC cannot control/connect with Sonos although during set up it gives a False positive (tick) as though all will be fine. I don't believe it is any anti virus or security preventing the laptopn/ sonos connecting. but who knows now...(I have had 3 Sonos guys try and give up, saying there must be something up with the router or antivirus).....its now a very interesting situation!!



Thanks for reading anyway, happy 2017!

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Update: I now actually have the Airplay working, issue was that I have to launch the Sonos app on the Apple tablet or phone first and then enable line in and press play!.....if I then go to you tube it will be heard in the speaker. Had I not enabled the app first as I wasn't Sonos would not accept the stream...all good.



Now the only issue is why the laptop cannot connect to Sonos.

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the Play 5s revert to 5G

No. They only ever use 5GHz when bonded to a PLAYBAR as surrounds.



Given that your non-computer controllers on 5GHz can connect to Sonos it appears that the router is exonerated. It sounds like you have a local problem with the laptop. Note that on Win10 the network connection needs to be 'Private'.

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Finally it is resolved, there was something called net-intelligence which must have been stopping communication. Complete uninstall of that has allowed comms to flow. Very frustrating as all restrictions were removed but must have been something deep in architecture.....



Still the players are definitely on 5G and working fine with either 2G (laptops/older tablets) or 5G (mobile) controllers

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Hold on. With 00:0E:58 MAC addresses those look like older units. Are they in fact PLAY:5 Gen1? If so they don't even have a 5GHz radio.

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Lol....yes Gen 1......maybe he router page is just random displaying what it wants?

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Lol....yes Gen 1......maybe he router page is just random displaying what it wants?

It looks like it. And, once again, no Sonos unit -- even if it has a 5GHz radio -- will connect to a router over 5GHz.

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I can guarantee those readings are incorrect. I had four 2.4 Ghz band wireless video cameras that sprayed the spectrum and rendered Sonos useless when the cameras were on. I did everything I could to force Sonos to the 5 Ghz side of the router and I couldn't because of the reason ratty stated. I got rid of the cameras.

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Try to connect the laptop to wired network and see if you can connect.

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