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martan
Contributor I
August 18, 2016
Question

Using Sonos outside my home, with Wifi tethering from my phone

I want to be ale to take my Sonos Play 1 somewhere and have instant good sound, in a hotel or a friend's home. Just plug the Sonos to the wall and use my phone to publish a Wifi network, which Sonos connects to and plays. I realize that service quality depends on how good my data feed is to my phone, but it should be good enough, otherwise it seems its just a software job to implement it..
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    18 replies

    reddot
    reddot
    August 18, 2016
    I haven't tried this. I'm not sure that your phone would be able to see the Sonos on its network, but give it a try and let us know.
    martanAuthor
    Contributor I
    August 18, 2016
    I tried to figure out if it could be done, but I could not. I think its a feature that would need to be developed in the SONOS App. If you can tell me how to do it I'd appreciate it. My phone is an Android, I can see SONOS net.
    The LHC
    August 18, 2016
    You can do this but there's two issues: 1) you'd have to configure Sonos to connect to your phone's hot-spot BEFORE you leave home and 2) whilst Sonos will connect to the phone's hot-spot the phone can't be used as a controller whilst it's in that mode, it isn't connected to the wireless network that it has created, so you'd need a second mobile device to use as a controller, also connected to the hot-spot.
    martanAuthor
    Contributor I
    August 18, 2016
    Cool! I will try it, but its not very practical.
    The LHC
    August 18, 2016
    Cool! I will try it, but its not very practical.

    Be that as it may, it's not Sonos fault. Your phone is not part of the hot-spot network, there isn't much Sonos can do about that.
    mattp57
    Contributor I
    August 19, 2016
    You can do this but there's two issues: 1) you'd have to configure Sonos to connect to your phone's hot-spot BEFORE you leave home and 2) whilst Sonos will connect to the phone's hot-spot the phone can't be used as a controller whilst it's in that mode, it isn't connected to the wireless network that it has created, so you'd need a second mobile device to use as a controller, also connected to the hot-spot.

    Hi
    How would you configure Sonos to connect the phone hot-spot? The controller expects SONOS to be connected to the WiFi router viq Ethernet to allow setup.
    martanAuthor
    Contributor I
    August 19, 2016
    As I understand the response, you need two mobile devices, with one device you publish a hotspot, with a second device you connect to the first device's hotspot and configure SONOS to run both the speakers and the controller app on the second device using the published hotspot. I don't understand why you need to set this up while on your home network, but I will take LHC's word for it.
    The LHC
    August 19, 2016
    As I understand the response, you need two mobile devices, with one device you publish a hotspot, with a second device you connect to the first device's hotspot and configure SONOS to run both the speakers and the controller app on the second device using the published hotspot. I don't understand why you need to set this up while on your home network, but I will take LHC's word for it.

    You need to be able to connect to your Sonos devices in order to change their wireless configuration to the phone's hot-spot. You can only do that while everything is connected to a pre-existing network, which is usually most people's home network.
    ratty
    ratty
    August 19, 2016
    You can set this tethering arrangement up in the absence of a home network, but the Sonos units would have to be factory reset first.
    mattp57
    Contributor I
    August 20, 2016
    As I understand the response, you need two mobile devices, with one device you publish a hotspot, with a second device you connect to the first device's hotspot and configure SONOS to run both the speakers and the controller app on the second device using the published hotspot. I don't understand why you need to set this up while on your home network, but I will take LHC's word for it.

    You need to be able to connect to your Sonos devices in order to change their wireless configuration to the phone's hot-spot. You can only do that while everything is connected to a pre-existing network, which is usually most people's home network.

    LHC,
    any hint how to do that? via the controller?
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