My system includes Sonos speakers connected by ethernet as well as wifi. All too often, some of the wifi speakers furthest from my Orbi router and satellites, drop in and out. I’m considering adding a wifi extender, or worse case, another satellite, to improve stability. Your thoughts on what is best will be appreciated.
My network is an Orbi RBR50 router with three Orbi RBS50 satellites, all ethernet connected to the router. The house is two stories, 5,100 sq feet. Unfortunately, the internet cable comes into an upstairs closet in the southeast corner of the house, about as far as possible from where I want coverage. Satellite 1 is on the second floor about in the middle of the west wall of the house (in other words, the opposite end of the house from the router.) Satellite 2 is on the first floor in the northwest corner of the house. Ethernet connected to it is a Denon receiver with a Sonos Port running non Sonos in-wall home theater speakers. Satellite 3 is also downstairs in the middle of the east wall of the house. I have a Sonos Boost ethernet connected to the router and have set up a 2.4 Ghz Sonos network on the router. All speakers show as ethernet connected even though a Sonos Arc is the only one actually ethernet connected.
There are four pairs of Sonos One’s wifi connected in various downstairs rooms. Three pairs are approximately in the middle of the downstairs, situated between the two downstairs satellites. The main problem is with the kitchen pair in the southwest corner of the house. Once play begins, repeated stop/starts of music happens.
The kitchen pair is 32’ from Satellite 2, a straight shot, no walls in between. I used the Orbi app to assess wifi performance. Standing in front of Satellite 2, I get 84% signal strength -45dBm. This drops to 48% strength, -75dBm when standing in the kitchen by the speakers. I moved one of the two kitchen speakers 12’ closer to Satellite 2, still in the kitchen. Signal strength remained 48% -65dBm. Listening this morning seems to indicate more stability, at least there were no dropouts .
Not sure if there is an Orbi specific wifi extender I could put in the kitchen, or if a Netgear one would work with Orbi. I’ll ask that on the Netgear user forum. If there is, do you think that would improve performance in the kitchen? While so far, moving one of the two kitchen speakers 12’ closer to Satellite 2 seems to be working, and I’m am ok with the new position, my wife isn’t.
Best answer by Stanley_4
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