sonos speakers at second location

Just for ease of use, I’d set up the wifi on the caravan to be exactly the same (SSID and password) as your home wifi. If you do this, your speakers won’t have any issue connecting. Only the ones that you have with you will show up on the controller, the ones in the other location won’t. 

Thanks for reply. What’s the SSID?  A shop set up my home system, so not familiar with setting up! 

Its the wifi “account” that you connect to with your various devices. It usually has a name (the SSID) and a password (for most versions, although you can set up public ones with no passwords….not recommended). If you set up, or have set up, the same at both locations, then you can just travel with your Sonos and not have to worry about connecting at either location, it will just happen. Makes life easier for other things, such as your phone and laptop, too, with just one wifi “name” to connect to. 

Thanks for all the info, will give it a try.  The caravan site has its own Wi-Fi address, but will take a speaker and Roamer and see what I can do.

How do you access the internet at the caravan? Is access provided by the site or do you have your own router in the caravan?

Access is provided by the site and it wasn’t too good last summer. However, over the winter they have had new internet cabling (?) laid and have also put routers (I think) in each caravan so the signal should be good now

Then you’ll not be able to change that wifi’s SSID, you don’t control it. You might potentially change your home SSID to match the one at the caravan….would be somewhat odd, but then again, the benefit of having your Sonos devices just “connect” without you having to do something might be great.

The other alternate could be getting a travel router to have at the caravan. The travel router would log in to the caravan’s network, and you could set it up to then transmit the same SSID as your home. 

Without knowing exactly how WiFi coverage is accomplished in each carvan, it’s hard for us to predict exactly what will happen. One scheme treats everyone on campus as part of one big, happy family. This is very risky for individual users because everyone has access to all of the data and devices on the network and this is usually a security and operational nightmare. Another scheme allows everyone to use the Internet, only the Internet. Other users on campus are not allowed access to your devices. This is much more secure, but devices such as SONOS cannot function because, while a user’s phone/tablet/computer can access the Internet, it cannot communicate with SONOS.

There is a device known as a “Travel Router” to resolve these situations.  Typically a Travel Router would be used in a hotel or dorm room, hence the name. The Travel Router will sign-on to the limited access facility’s WiFi or network and allow all of your local devices to communicate with each other and the Internet with a private WiFi connection, while providing security isolation from other users in the facility,

The most docile scheme would be for the facility to provide individual routers for each family. In this case you could give your caravan router the same SSID as your home system as Airgetlam suggests. Offhand, I don’t know how hard or easy this will be for you. This could be two minute task or an enigma.

If you go with a Travel Router, test your setup by taking it, along with a SONOS unit, to a friend’s house and pretend that this location is your caravan.

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At the risk of throwing too much technology at you, the facility may have installed additional “Access Points” in order to provide more uniform WiFi coverage, but this may not address the isolation (or lack of isolation) issues. A “Router” will create a private little network for you. Access Points are WiFi connections only. A Router may also include an Access Point. Sometimes these are called “Wireless Router”. I mention this only because it may give you better basic understanding of the technology. 

Thanks for your helpful response. When I get to the site, I’ll have a conversation with the warden who’s been overseeing the installation and find out a bit more about it.  Last year the signal came from masts, but now the caravans have all been individually connected underground, I understand.  All the caravans had individual log ins to the network, so I thin it’s quite secure.

If each caravan has its own wired / plug in, then it’s not using wifi at all, and you could then set up your own router with the same name (SSID) and password as your home, and your speakers wouldn’t care. 

Thanks for your reply again. I’ve had a look at the site’s recent newsletter and it talks of a leased fibre line being put in underground and once completed the Wi-Fi should be improved. I think each caravan is being supplied with a router as well. Sorry to be so bad on these basic technical bits. Perhaps they are using the wrong terms to describe the new system?

It’s possible that each caravan has it’s own router. In my opinion this would be the ideal situation, but this could create issues for you. From a site management perspective you should not be able to make changes to the router settings. If you are allowed to make changes, then management would need to interact with each router whenever the caravan occupants change. Otherwise, management would not be able to publish simple instructions because there may have been changes in the router settings. Management could deal with this but it would not be easy. I’m sure there is a cleaning crew that visits a caravan between tenants. It is unreasonable to expect the cleaning crew to be able to deal with router setup. The system could be setup to allow remote management, but this would be unusual for this sort of setup. Also, if users are allowed to tinker with the router, management would likely receive requests for support due to misconfiguration by users.

Overall, I think that your best approach would be to use a Travel Router. They are not very expensive and your setup can be tested locally -- before traveling to the caravan. At the caravan you would only need to give the Travel Router the caravan SSID details, but by then this would be a familiar process for you.

That sounds the best way forward.  The caravan belongs to me, so fortunately, not used by anyone else. Less fortunately, no cleaners either, but I can appreciate wardens don’t want routers fiddled with when all newly set up.  Will check out situation and hopefully travel router will be the solution. Many thanks for this.

You and I may be having a slight language issue. I think your “caravan” is what I would call a “camper” or “trailer”. This is not a major difference. Pick a Travel Router that offers a wired network input connection. When possible, use this wired connection rather than the site’s WiFi.

Always use high quality surge suppression for any wired connection (network, power, phone, TV, etc.).