To homepage To homepage
Answered

Wired or wireless setup

U

I am wondering whether to set up my system as wired or wireless.  I am getting a lot of errors that it can’t find network using the wireless setup or trying to stream music.  I have the cable modem/router my internet provider (cox cable) which is a Technicolor CGM4141. I have a mixture of older and newer products.  I have also have the McAffee security and firewall running downloaded from my provider.  I just now connected one of my Ones instead of using the bridge that came with my original Play 5. I’m not sure if that will make a difference.  I want to use whichever setup which is most dependable.  I also want to use whatever setup doesn't slow down or affect other products in the house. 

icon

Best answer by Ken_Griffiths 7 June 2020, 02:15

I would personally choose to go with the wired SonosNet Connection. See below…

Cable a single Sonos device direct to your main router (if practicable) and that will move all your Sonos products over to a SonosNet connection.

  1. Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” of the Sonos App so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen ‘fixed’ non-overlapping router 2.4ghz channel.
  2. Remove/reset the WiFi credentials in the Sonos App “Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup”. These are not needed when running the devices on SonosNet. (This step is optional, if running Sonos Software v11.0 or higher) and do not remove the credentials if you have a Sonos ‘Move’ as that device may require these settings.

Hope that assists.

View original

12 replies

Ken_Griffiths

I would personally choose to go with the wired SonosNet Connection. See below…

Cable a single Sonos device direct to your main router (if practicable) and that will move all your Sonos products over to a SonosNet connection.

  1. Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” of the Sonos App so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen ‘fixed’ non-overlapping router 2.4ghz channel.
  2. Remove/reset the WiFi credentials in the Sonos App “Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup”. These are not needed when running the devices on SonosNet. (This step is optional, if running Sonos Software v11.0 or higher) and do not remove the credentials if you have a Sonos ‘Move’ as that device may require these settings.

Hope that assists.

D

The way I got my sonos Amp to be stable on my wireless connection was by assigning the device a static IP address. After this, I had no problem connecting right as I opened the app or while reconnect when I reset the amp. 

This can work for various devices if you have a router that integrates both the 2.4GHz band and the 5GHz band.

You can do this by going to 192.168.1.1 on a browser such as Chrome and login into your router. If you haven’t setup your login information, search online for your router’s default credentials. The setting should be somewhere around connect devices. 

 

Though, wired will always be more stable

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +21

The Bridge is very old technology and usually performs much worse than a Bridge or connecting any but the oldest ZP units to your router.

 

X

I would personally choose to go with the wired SonosNet Connection. See below…

Cable a single Sonos device direct to your main router (if practicable) and that will move all your Sonos products over to a SonosNet connection.

  1. Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” of the Sonos App so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen ‘fixed’ non-overlapping router 2.4ghz channel.
  2. Remove/reset the WiFi credentials in the Sonos App “Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup”. These are not needed when running the devices on SonosNet. (This step is optional, if running Sonos Software v11.0 or higher) and do not remove the credentials if you have a Sonos ‘Move’ as that device may require these settings.

Hope that assists.

Hi Ken, I am new to Sonos and have bought our first Sonos Arc and Sub Gen 3. I have the Arc connected to router. My question is regarding the one wired device you mentioned. Do I need to  “Disable Wi-Fi”? How do I need to configure the one device directly connected to router? Thanks

X

Just did some more digging and I think I found my answer: https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3237?language=en_US

Basically, the one device connected to router should still have Wi-Fi Enabled.

Then in About My System page, should show the IP of the wired device as Associated Product and All other connected devices should show as WM: 0 (meaning the system is in a wired setup).

J
Badge +2

I would personally choose to go with the wired SonosNet Connection. See below…

Cable a single Sonos device direct to your main router (if practicable) and that will move all your Sonos products over to a SonosNet connection.

  1. Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” of the Sonos App so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen ‘fixed’ non-overlapping router 2.4ghz channel.
  2. Remove/reset the WiFi credentials in the Sonos App “Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup”. These are not needed when running the devices on SonosNet. (This step is optional, if running Sonos Software v11.0 or higher) and do not remove the credentials if you have a Sonos ‘Move’ as that device may require these settings.

Hope that assists.

Hi,

what would you prefer if you had more than 1 AP. For example I have 3 APs - channels 1, 6 and 11 and pretty good coverage of wifi everywhere. Would you still connect any Sonos by wire? I used to have all speakers connected wirelessly. Few weeks ago I bought Arc and connect it by wire but not sure whether it is the best way to do it in case of several APs.

I would also guess that the speaker, which is most far away from the next Sonos has a weak signal of SonosNet (don’t know how to measure it).

What do you think?

Ken_Griffiths

I would personally choose to go with the wired SonosNet Connection. See below…

Cable a single Sonos device direct to your main router (if practicable) and that will move all your Sonos products over to a SonosNet connection.

  1. Set the SonosNet channel in “Settings/System/Network” of the Sonos App so that it is at least 5 channels away from your chosen ‘fixed’ non-overlapping router 2.4ghz channel.
  2. Remove/reset the WiFi credentials in the Sonos App “Settings/System/Network/Wireless Setup”. These are not needed when running the devices on SonosNet. (This step is optional, if running Sonos Software v11.0 or higher) and do not remove the credentials if you have a Sonos ‘Move’ as that device may require these settings.

Hope that assists.

Hi,

what would you prefer if you had more than 1 AP. For example I have 3 APs - channels 1, 6 and 11 and pretty good coverage of wifi everywhere. Would you still connect any Sonos by wire? I used to have all speakers connected wirelessly. Few weeks ago I bought Arc and connect it by wire but not sure whether it is the best way to do it in case of several APs.

I would also guess that the speaker, which is most far away from the next Sonos has a weak signal of SonosNet (don’t know how to measure it).

What do you think?

My own personal choice is to setup all WiFi Access points on the network to use the same credentials as the main router, same SSID, Password, channels and channel width. I use 20MHz channel width for the 2.4ghz band and choose a non-overlapping channel; 1, 6 or 11. I use 40MHz channel width for the 5ghz Band and I personally opt to use Channel 48. 
 

I then use a device wired to the main router (Boost or standalone Sonos One etc;) and set the SonosNet channel so it is set ‘at least’ 5 channels away from the main routers 2.4ghz WiFi channel… note there is no harm in wiring other Sonos products to the network as long as the device wired to the main router is set as the roof bridge - there are other posts here on the forum which describe how to go about that (If necessary). I tend to wire the main Home Theatre devices like Arc and Beam etc; in addition to my Boost.. I never personally cable HT surrounds, or sub as I prefer  them to communicate with the main HT device over the 5ghz or 2.4ghz internal connection, depending on whether they are being used for TV or Music audio.

 

If you find you encounter audio dropouts after using this type of setup then try using different (but separated) WiFi/SonosNet channels and if the issue is with one far away device, perhaps try a ‘man In the middle’ device you see if that improves its connectivity.


Hope that has been easy to follow and assists?

J
Badge +2

Well, I must say I don’t have any problem with playing music on any of my Sonos speakers. It works great  both on WiFi or on SonosNet. The question was only theoretical.

However, do you use the same channel on all APs? That doesn’t sound right. You should have different channels on all APs. Yes, the SSID, password etc should be the same, but the channels shlould be different. That was the question. I have 3 APs:

  • AP1 - channel 1
  • AP2 - channel 6
  • AP3 - channel 11

So now, there is “no space” for SonosNet. The Sonos Arc creates the SonosNet on channel 6 (i believe it’s the default setting) and it’s ok for AP1 and AP3, but not for AP2.

Ken_Griffiths

jakudo,

My Access points are all running on the same channel, as I described, works fine for me - I have all on channel 11 and SonosNet is currently set on channel 1 in my case, as our neighbour uses channel 6. Can’t recall the last issue with my system - I also reserve the Sonos IP addresses in my routers DHCP reservation table.
 

I have a fair few sonos products about the place too, plus other numerous smart-home products, lights, heating, plugs, security cameras and such like and not ever suffered any issues with those either.

 

So using the same wifi channel works well here for me.

J
Badge +2

Good for you. I also don’t have any issues. I was just curious if there is any benefit of the SonosNET.

Stanley_4
Userlevel 7
Badge +21

Using SonosNet allows you to use the full capabilities of your WiFi gear, no need to change from optimum settings to ones that will allow Sonos to operate on it.

I put SonosNet on my quietest 2.4 GHz channel and use the other two for WiFi.

 

Ken_Griffiths

Good for you. I also don’t have any issues. I was just curious if there is any benefit of the SonosNET.

With SonosNet you are effective running all the sonos devices on an ‘exclusive’ network that connects devices in a mesh network using the spanning tree protocol that usually involves ‘best’ route back to the sonos root bridge and there’s no other 3rd party devices taking up bandwidth over the connection..

 

So any other WiFi connected devices are out the way on your WiFi signal and in my case I also put many of those other devices on the 5ghz band where practicable.

 

I also choose to set the Sonos ‘Moves’ to use the 5ghz band so there is less opportunity for the sonos products falling back into ‘mixed mode’ but that really is only relevant if you have a ‘Move’ as part of your setup. It can help to prevent the sonos devices jumping between SonosNet and the 2.4ghz WiFi signal when the 2.4ghz network credentials have also been removed from the Sonos App network settings. 

Reply


View real-time service status