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Table of 802.11 standards on Sonos products

  • 31 May 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 1115 views
R

Hello,

When setting up networks on the 2.4GHz band, it is required, for some Sonos devices, to set the router/access point to mixed mode (802.11 a/b/g/n).

The disadvantage of this is that with mixed networks, the speed always adapts to the lowest possible protocol. If someone has five devices in the house, four of which support 802.11n and one 802.11b, all four 802.11n devices will be affected because they will have to adapt to the speed of the 802.11b standard.

It is possible to use SonosNet to create your own internal network for the Sonos products. Preferably, one Sonos product should be connected by cable and the Sonos speakers should be connected via SonosNet. If this is not an option, then at least one Sonos device must be connected via Wi-Fi to be able to connect to the controller (which means the network setting must still be 802.11 mixed on older devices).

Now for my question. Can anyone indicate which chipsets in the Sonos products support which specific 802.11 standards?

I'm curious as to which Sonos products have a chipset on board with 802.11n support (and thus not B/G only).

I'd love to hear about it.

 

P.S. This table doesn't cover my question. It also doesn't show discontinued products like the Play:5 and Playbar for example.

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Best answer by ratty 31 May 2022, 12:36

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4 replies

J

Hi. I'm not sure why that table doesn't answer your question, so I clearly haven't thought carefully enough about it. 

I don't understand your comment about needing to have at least one Sonos device on WiFi in order to connect a controller by WiFi.

R

Hi. I'm not sure why that table doesn't answer your question, so I clearly haven't thought carefully enough about it. 

I don't understand your comment about needing to have at least one Sonos device on WiFi in order to connect a controller by WiFi.

If you have 1 Sonos device for example, and there is no possibility to connect it wired to the network, it needs to be connected to the Wi-Fi, right? If that device has no 802.11n network card internally, the network mode will need to be set to "mixed" which degrades the whole network to a lower speed because the network needs to support the (for example) 802.11g standard.

 

The list doesn't show all Sonos products (including discontinued ones) and it shows 802.11a (which should be AC of AX when speaking of 5GHz). Yesterday I was searching manuals and sometimes a Sonos product manual showed that a product "supports" 802.11n but the network mode should be set to mixed (so technically, the product doesn't have a 802.11n chipset on board).

ratty

First, it’s a myth that an 802.11b station degrades the entire network to the slower speed for everyone. It does have a small impact (the 802.11b TX/RX is slower so it takes up a larger chunk of time) but generally other non-b devices will perform at or close to their native speeds. Google is your friend.

Also, where Sonos mentions 802.11a it’s a. Not ac or ax. Basically a is like g but at 5GHz. 

As for older models, you can date them here. If they precede a known 802.11b/g model, they’re almost certainly b/g.

O
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I don’t really understand the issue with the list. Sonos lists all devices that support 802.11n. I would simply assume that any device that is not listed doesn’t support it. 

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