My father in law has a play 3 in his dining room, playbar in the the lounge and we bought him a play 1 for his garage.
Up till now he has run home wifi with a sonos BOOST in a room closest to his garage to help the play 1 work.
However recently he wanted more wifi signal in his garage and workshop so he bought a uniFi wifi switch which by the sounds of it creates a network extension into his garage. Now the Play 1 works for a while and is spotted on the app. But then starts to drop out and then eventually sonos app can't find the play 1 at all.
To add to the mystery he plugged in a play 3 in the garage and it worked faultlessly and has yet to drop out or disappear.
Neither one of us are network orientated. So any help on why the play1 is misbehaving would be great. His words are below of the issue:
"Ref sonos House WiFi is supplied by Vodafone. Cable from Vodaphone router to UniFi switch. So house is Vodafone. Garage via switch comes up in the garage ( network ) extension via Vodafone source but comes up on the network as garage. So play one was ok on and off but started breaking up to a point where it could not be found on the garage network but worked on the Vodafone network indoors. Tried play 3 in garage and to date has been perfect, so to be sure was playing indoors on Vodafone but currently works in garage fine. Tried looking at network settings but maybe I am doing it wrong. Is it that the play 3 has better electronics than the play one ?"
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A “Unifi WIFI Switch”? There is no such thing. Are you referring to an InWall access point? They have Ethernet ports.
Post a picture of the device you bought.
FYI, if it is actually a witch, you really do not want to use it for Sonos. Because they are managed, STP configuration is needed to make Sonos work properly.
Sound like he’s bought an “in-wall” AP, possibly the U6.
Unifi hardware is not exactly plug and play, he needs to configure it using the Unifi console, this runs either in the cloud, a computer or on Unifi Gateway devices. Ideally he dumps the Vodafone Router and gets something like a UX7 or Dream Router which the AP connects to.
However to be totally honest, without a reasonable IT networking savvy you would be best buying a mesh systems like Deco or Eero.
I'd agree with the configuration difficulties, part from Sonos internals being old and the many, many options Ubiquity gear offers.
I use their Access Points but decided their offerings of switches and routers were beyond my skill level, networking needs and pocketbook.
Today I'd have to do a lot of research to see if I'd make the same AP choice today if I was shopping for a new setup.
Thank you all.
As suspected after reading lots of people with wifi extender issues and multiple speakers I had a feeling this should have been potentially avoided!
Any idea why the play3 would behave over the play 1 however?
Many thanks all. (As for unifi , I have zero clue. Just what he has told me lol)
And can I ask. Can we plug straight into the mesh router as it were and get rid of his Vodafone one? Cheers
Play 3 vs 1, no idea but its probably not a Wi-Fi issue as such, lack of config of the Unifi hardware, multiple SSID’s, client isolation etc etc etc.
With a mesh you plug the first one into an Ethernet port on the Router, then once working you disable Wi-Fi on the Router. If you have FTTP or similar into the house then you can dispense with the Vodafone router, you do need to get the login credentials and any specific settings.
Not sure what your issue is but looking at working with Sonos.
Wi-Fi extenders are bad, mesh systems and additional Access Points is usually good.
A single network is essential, only one active router and Wi-Fi connection.
Usually, if you have an ISP required router you would put it in bridge/invisible mode and plug the new mesh system into one of the Ethernet ports on it. That should be the only connection to the old ISP router. If using an AP instead of a mesh system you would plug it into one of the ISP router's Ethernet ports.
This is what he has used ....
Ok, so not an access point but just a PoE managed switch, He needs to adopt it into the Unifi console and configure it.
Strange choice of purchase to use with the Vodafone Router, £20 from Argos wound have bought a GbE switch which is plug and play. Did he buy anything else?
Broadband buyer can offer a Unifi cloud console hosting, sometimes included in the purchase price. Ask them / him how the switch is being configured / managed.
Thanks everyone. He is unsure of any of this. Im thinking im going to urge him to invest in a mesh system that plugs into his Vodafone router... what was the recommendation again ?
A key question before removing the POE (power over Ethernet) switch, is anything using the Ethernet provided power?
Personally I went with a far cheaper ($25) and easier (just plug it in) to use dumb switch and a POE injectors for the few devices I have that use it.
Some Ubiquity gear can be configured from the web or an App, usually not as well as from a Cloud Key or integrated (in another Ubiquity device) controller.
