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dcmouyard
Contributor I
July 26, 2021

How do I get Sonos to work without an internet connection?

I have some vacation property that has no internet or cell reception. I want to bring some Sonos speakers with me, but I can’t get them to work. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

  • I have a router that has the same WIFI information as my home network so any devices that can connect to my home network can also connect this one. Again, this WIFI has no internet.
  • I was able to get my Sonos speakers to work on my home network when the internet was disabled (with local files only, no streaming services obviously.)
  • I brought a Play 5 to the vacation property, and I confirmed that both my phone and the speaker were connected to the vacation network. The speaker was able to connect to the network either via WIFI or with an ethernet cable.
  • The Sonos app on my phone couldn’t find a Sonos network. Perhaps this was because my home network was tied to a different GPS location? The phone app required Location services to be on, so I couldn’t disable that.
  • I couldn’t create a new Sonos network without an internet connection.
  • I tried to bypass Sonos entirely and use the line-in input on the speaker, but that didn’t work either.

Is there any way to get Sonos speakers to work?

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14 replies

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dcmouyardAuthor
Contributor I
August 9, 2021

Its a pity you are unable to get a mobile signal at the vacation property, as quite a lot can be achieved whilst (temporarily) using a MiFi device or mobile hotspot. I have been using a D-Link dwr-2101 whilst travelling recently and that works well with Sonos on either a 4G/5G mobile internet connection.

 

Yeah, there’s no cellular reception at the vacation property either.

 

The one other thought is to maybe bring the (travel) router at the vacation property back to your Home and sort out the Sonos setup there first and then move all to the vacation property afterwards. You can even switch off the internet at home and test that everything works beforehand.

This is what I had done at the very beginning. Everything worked at home, even with the internet shut off and the home router shut off.

Ken_Griffiths
Ken_Griffiths
August 9, 2021

This is what I had done at the very beginning. Everything worked at home, even with the internet shut off and the home router shut off.

Obviously if everything worked at your Home with the internet shut off it should have worked at the vacation property for you too in exactly the same way - so not sure what might have gone wrong for you in this instance🤔? 

AndyE15
Contributor I
August 10, 2021

Is your “vacation” router issuing an ip address via DHCP if its not connected to the internet?

just a thought.

Andy

dcmouyardAuthor
Contributor I
August 16, 2021

Hey all, I finally figured out the problem: Someone had inadvertently updated Sonos and all speakers, except the Play 5 I took to the vacation property. Bringing the Play 5 back home and updating it to match the same version as the others fixed the issue. Everything works as expected at the vacation property now.

 

Thanks for all of your help!

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