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My Sonos setup:

4 rooms:

  • Office: Stereo pair of One Gen 2 (left) & One SL (right) (both on 5 GHz wifi)
  • Living Room: Sonos Beam Gen 1 (on 2.4 GHz wifi)
  • Kitchen: One Gen 2 (on 5 GHz wifi)
  • Bedroom One Gen 2 (on 5 GHz wifi)

All running the latest Sonos firmware (91.0-70070)

My network:

  • 1x Eero Pro 6 (running the latest Eero firmware)

(I used to have a second Eero Pro 6, but I’ve recently found that a single unit provides sufficient coverage for my whole house. So I removed the second unit to avoid creating additional interference.

The problem I describe below occurred both before and after I removed the second Eero.)

All Sonos speakers have reserved IP addresses.

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The issue:

I’ve found a strange issue when airplaying to the stereo pair in my office, if I try to then move playback to another speaker (still via airplay):

  1. I connect via airplay to the Office stereo pair and playback works fine. Sometimes the right speaker starts playing a second after the left speaker, but both speakers play perfectly in sync with each other.
  2. I open the airplay menu on my iPhone and select another room - let’s use the Bedroom speaker as an example (but it could be any other room). So now the Office and Bedroom are both selected in the airplay menu. The right speaker in the Office briefly drops out, but starts playing again a second later. All three speakers are playing perfectly in sync.
  3. I then untick the Office speaker in the airplay menu, leaving the Bedroom speaker selected. The left speaker in the Office immediately stops playing, but the right speaker continues playing for a while, still in sync with the Bedroom speaker. This will continue for up to around 30 seconds. Then eventually the right speaker in the Office will stop playing - and the Bedroom speaker continues playing as normal.

The only workaround I’ve found is to switch playback back to the phone first when I want to change rooms, then start airplaying to the new room.

I’ve tried basic troubleshooting steps like rebooting my Sonos speakers, and rebooting the Eero.

Anyone else encountered anything like this? I’ll probably give Sonos Support a call about it, but I was just curious if anyone else found that their stereo pair behaved the same way.

Hi ​@jamie72 

Thanks for your post!

I cannot share my own experience with AirPlay as I don’t have any Apple devices to use as a source, nor do my colleagues here in the Community.

We do tend to advise only using AirPlay to get a stream on to one Sonos device, then to use the Sonos app to redistribute the stream from that speaker to any others that you want included, rather than using the AirPlay interface to select more than one Sonos target.

So, my advice would be to play to Office, then use the Sonos app to group in Bedroom. Should you then want to only play in Bedroom, use the AirPlay source to stop playback, restart it in Bedroom, and ungroup the Office from the Sonos app. It is a bit more work, I know, but it should result in a more “seamless” experience.

As I said, however, I don’t use AirPlay myself. My replying here will get your post back on to the list of those Recently Active and perhaps some users who do use AirPlay will have some further advice for you.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply ​@Corry P

We do tend to advise only using AirPlay to get a stream on to one Sonos device, then to use the Sonos app to redistribute the stream from that speaker to any others that you want included, rather than using the AirPlay interface to select more than one Sonos target.

Interesting, I’ve never heard this recommendation before. Maybe this could be mentioned on Stream AirPlay audio to Sonos if this is the case? 

 

It does currently say:

When an AirPlay compatible Sonos product is playing AirPlay audio, you can group it with any other Sonos product in your system for multi-room playback.

While this suggests that you can use the Sonos app to group speakers while AirPlaying, it doesn’t say that this is required or even recommended.

The “Start an AirPlay stream using an iPhone or iPad” instructions in that article even say (in step 3):

Tap one or more Sonos products to stream the same audio across all of them using AirPlay.

So this suggests that streaming to multiple speakers over AirPlay is a valid way of doing things, and that grouping speakers or redistributing streams to other speakers in the Sonos app isn’t necessary.

I have a similar issue with a pair of Play:1s but using the Sonos App. They play in time with each other, but if you stop or pause the music, one speaker carries on playing for a good second or so longer after the first has stopped. 

this is no more than a niggling issue, but annoying all the same. Tried all the usual things; latest firmware/ software, reset speakers, re-add pairing, both speakers have strong WiFi signal, SNR>50db and on a channel with no interference from neighbours.

Hi ​@jamie72 

Those are fair comments!

Part of the inconsistency may be due to the fact that Apple clearly intend for you to be able to choose more than one target from the AirPlay interface, but at the same time, the source device can only cope with broadcasting the same stream to so many targets. 

If things start going wrong, then it makes sense to alter things such that the phone’s connection is no longer swamped with simultaneous connections.

So, ultimately, things are - as ever - dependant on your WiFi/network environment. There is no right or wrong method, only that which works best for you. Certainly, if one method produces problems, it makes sense to try another.

I hope this helps.

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