Sonos controller won't connect

I don’t quite understand? ..very little has changed if you’re still using your current system with the S1 App?

Relatively speaking I haven’t seen that many complaints about the S1 setup, other than it may nag a user to upgrade their ‘compatible (only)’ Sonos devices, or trade-up etc; but otherwise very little has changed with it’s MO. I have both S1 and S2 Households and both appear to run okay. 

The important piece of information missing from your post is the detail about device setup and the type of connection platform in use - these few details below, if answered in some detail, are ones that would likely help others here in the user-community, to perhaps suggest a few things to maybe try and see if they might fix your problems:

• If you are using a centrally based WiFi Router, or a Wifi mesh system?
• Any other Wifi Access points/Repeaters/Power-line Adapters (Are they using the same or different SSID/Subnet/WiFi-channels etc?)
• Any switches - managed/unmanaged?
• If you are running your devices on SonosNet, or WiFi?
• Which SonosNet/WiFi channels & channel-widths are currently in use?
• If the Sonos IP addresses have already been reserved in the routers DHCP reservation table?

You shouldn’t have to be an IT expert to use £3000 worth of audio kit - especially one sold on ‘ease of use’. What you’re asking for a way beyond the knowledge of a typical customer. 
 

It’s all connected via WiFi, using a BT Fibre router (set to 2.4ghz), via the App with initial speaker connection using a cable. How it connects to the other speakers in the setup after that I have no idea - though I would assume it’s via SonosNet/Mesh, There are no additional switches, routers, WiFi extenders or power line adaptors, nor are any IP addresses fixed for any device in the house.

The iphones are 11 and 12 Pros running iOS 14.

This has only become an issue since the release of S2 and Sonos dropping support for legacy products - in this case the Play 5 Gen 1 - all the rest allegedly is S2 compatible, but as the 5 is part of the system, I am forced to continue to use S1, or spend another £350 to upgrade the 5 to and S2 compatible product, which I’m simply not prepared to do as when it does connect, it works perfectly.

Seems pretty clear to me what the issue is, Sonos forcing loyal customers’ hands to upgrade older kit out of frustration.

I’m certainly no IT or Network expert either,  but changing a router’s WiFi channel, or fixing a devices IP address on a network is not exactly rocket science. Sometimes it’s a case of glancing through the routers manual or maybe watching a YouTube video about your router configuration/settings etc.

The Sonos speakers are a network based device - so the network setup needs to stable and configured correctly otherwise they won’t.. er ..connect.

Most cars need a decent road to run on and Sonos needs a decent network setup in the same way.

So if you are not sure how to lookup or change a routers WiFi channel then I suspect you are going to either have to look that up yourself, or perhaps find a friend or colleague with some basic understanding of networking to perhaps assist you. 

So that aside, here are my suggestions to hopefully help you fix things:

With so many devices, perhaps distributed all around your Home, I would personally recommend you consider running them all on SonosNet, if not doing that already … the difference between a SonosNet and  WiFi connection and how each setup works are outlined in this Sonos Support document:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3235

If opting for SonosNet (wired) mode, which I would personally recommend. I would also suggest doing the following:

• Set the routers 2.4ghz WiFi to a fixed ‘non-overlapping’ channel 1,6 or 11 and choose a 20MHz channel-width
• Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” so it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen router channel.
• Remove the WiFi credentials from the "Network/Wireless Setup” in the App as those are not needed when running on SonosNet and it will stop your devices hopping between SonosNet and your WiFi signal.
• Ensure all Sonos products, particularly the wired one is at least 3 to 4 feet away from other Wireless devices including the router and other access points.
• Consider adding the Sonos IP addresses to the local routers DHCP reservation table, as that too will improve stability, particularly during updates and reboots of the local network.

Hopefully those few suggestion will assist to prevent audio dropouts or problems with your S1 App… I also recommend checking out these two ‘hopefully’ helpful links too:

1. WiFi Interference
2. Wireless Interference Video: Wireless Interference and Sonos