Hi

One possible interference you have overlooked are “humans”. Multiple individuals in a room will interfere with WiFi signals. That is why Sonos in the first instance is not marketed for commercial operations where a lot of individuals are gathered together for extended periods of time especially in large areas.

Also, extending a WiFi signal is not as strong as the signal coming from the main router which is why you have better connectivity in the front space.

Question…are the speakers being used wired to a Sonos Amp?

An extender can have just as powerful a wireless signal, but a lot of them substitute a virtual MAC address for attached clients as seen from the rest of the network. Address resolution can readily fail, which is fatal for the intra-network comms on which Sonos depends. In large part this is why Sonos doesn’t support extenders.

You don’t say which Sonos and there is nothing in your profile so this is a bit generic.

You could wire one of the front and one of the back Sonos to Ethernet, if they support SonosNet. Then they could mesh with a closer unit.

You could add a Sonos Beam, wired to the router but centrally located, if your speakers support it.

If Sonosnet isn’t an option you could add an Access Point (Not an extender) in a central location.

You could wire all four to Ethernet, some Sonos need an adapter to allow that.

@Stanley_4 : my apologies for being vague- I’m clearly not a huge tech person.

We explained our layout to the audio company we bought them from and they said nothing about internet extenders and issues and all that jazz. We have 8 Sonos one’s joined together in a network of 4 rooms (so 2 speakers linked in each room)

We need to be able to run them off of multiple phones (as each teacher has their own playlists and we run 4-10 classes per day in each studio)

Thank you for your suggestions, I’ll look into them!

@AjTrek1: Ahhh yes, the human factor.  We don’t allow people to bring their cell phones in the studios but their bodies definately do.  We have been experiencing the issues with 2 or 40 people so though this may come up in the future and is good to remember, I think there must also be something else.

We don’t have any amps in the studio at all.  We are going to look into raising the internet speed to achieve (hopefully) a minimum 50mps on the extender, if not we are going to try a second internet (front studio/back studio idea). 

If these fail we will try more tech-based solutions

@ratty: Thank you! I ran an internet speed test after this comment and in fact the extender was losing speed. We’re going to see about playing around with the internet speed but ultimately will purchase additional hardware if needed

That’s another reason why extenders are often deprecated. When they repeat the signal on the same channel they halve the bandwidth.

Hi

@andasanas 

You have used the term “extenders” so I assume they could not be used as a full blown router. I have a mesh network consisting of three identical routers one of which is the main node connected to the ISP modem the other two are satellite nodes. 

In a mesh network there are two ways of getting the WiFi signal extended to the satellite nodes:

WiFi backhaul 

Ethernet backhaul

The former uses one of the WiFi bands to extend the signal to the satellites. Since it is WiFi there will be some signal degradation. Especially if the signal has to pass through walls. Also the band used is not recommended to have clients. Most Mesh networks employ tri-band routers typically 2.4Ghz x1 and 5Ghz x 2 or 2.4Ghz x 1, 5Ghz x1 and 6Ghz x 1

The latter uses Ethernet cable to link all nodes. The end result is that each node broadcasts the full extent capable in Mps for all available bands. Each band is usable with no degradation. I use an Ethernet Backhaul in my mesh network.

I mention this as it may save you the expense of acquiring more throughput from your ISP. Just a suggestion.

It is doubtful that increasing the speed available from the ISP will accomplish anything useful, unless by accident the Gateway is replaced and the replacement has more capable WiFi.

andasanas,

I think that you will have the best results by installing a WiFi mesh system with wired access points. Depending on the wall density you may need an access point for each area. Yes, wiring a few SONOS players to the network would help, but this would not improve the situation for the instructor’s phone/pad WiFi connections.

If you decide to go with a fully wireless mesh network (not recommended), place the first mesh point about midway between a good coverage area and a difficult area. Continue this approach for the next area … and so on.

@AjTrek1 @buzz :ok! ill research a wifi mesh system and how i would do that...you’re convincing me thats our best bet. thanks soo much!