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Contributor I
August 6, 2023
Answered

Wifi interference question

I am about to purchase an ARC and subwoofer but want to be sure of something.  I currently use a soundbar system from Samsung that connects to the subwoofer and rears on Samsung created 5.8ghz WiFi channel 165.    This worked great for a few years until we moved to a new house with many other homes saturating the upper WiFi channels of 161 and higher, causing the subwoofer and rears to cut out or make noise.

If I am reading the SONOS info correctly, as long as I don't connect the ARC by ethernet to my home network the ARC and the subwoofer will connect to my existing home WiFi network and send the sound through that. If I use the ethernet, then it will turn on SonosNet and create its own WiFi which could run into the same interference as the Samsung system I own.  Am I understanding this correctly? 

I have an ASUS mesh WiFi network with ethernet backhaul. Signal in my home is rock solid in all areas. 

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Airgetlam
AirgetlamAnswer
August 6, 2023

No, although I don’t think it’s terribly well delineated anywhere. Much like your old sound bar, the Sonos will use a ‘hidden’ 5Ghz network channel to connect the signal coming from the Arc going to both the surrounds and the Sub. You don’t have any control over that channel, it automatically is selected for you. 

As to the connection between your Arc and your router, you can choose to either connect via a wired connection, SonosNet, or directly to your 2.4Ghz channel that your router is using (channels 1, or 6, or 11, since they don’t overlap).

There’s essentially zero connection between those two concepts. The Arc will want to connect on an unseen network with its ‘satellites’, whether or not you have the Arc wired or not. which is why the ‘radio/WiFi’ needs to be left on at all times, whether it’s wired or not. 
 

Note that there is a secondary method of connecting both surrounds and subs to your router by cabling,  likely for installs that are super rich interference environments, so the radio/Wi-Fi can actually be turned off, but I tend not to recommend that, as it feels like a fall back. Some Sonos engineer is probably cursing me now for all the work they put in to that feature.

If you’re going with the Arc, I’d suggest using the ‘normal’ connection, and only fall back if you find significant disconnects. One of the issues that many people run into are networking issues, not Wi-Fi issues, but they don’t understand the difference. There are some routers that just don’t handle the DHCP table as well I would like, and the nature of all Sonos devices asking for new IP addresses every time they reboot for new software makes lots of people think Sonos is at fault, so if you have the opportunity, reserving IP addresses, while not required per we, is a good idea.

I’m sure you’ve read about all of the prior issues with ASUS and Sonos in the past, they’re not held in high regard, at least by me, but I do think it’s been a couple of years since the last major software release for the routers that were an issue. 

Bruce

11 replies

ratty
August 7, 2023

The Sub is always bonded to another ‘parent’ device, which means it communicates on a 5 GHz signal where it can. You have no control over that channel, the Sonos system looks for the best available. I don’t know how frequently it does that, though, whether it’s periodic, or a one time thing.

The HT master continuously monitors, and will change channel if required. The HT master simultaneously instructs the satellites, so channel switching is very rapid. Audio should not be interrupted.