Missing features?


There are a few things which need to be added to this app immediately (read on for my questions): 

First, different model speakers need to be able to be grouped in the same room.  Sonos apparently claims that this is to prevent sound quality issues.  We have some rooms with multiple of the same speaker and some rooms with multiple of different speakers and the sound quality difference that I can discern is precisely zero.  Context - we have on the third floor a large room multiple play1 speakers.  To stream directly to that room, I added a sonos one (which you have to do, because the system won’t allow you to stream directly to a play1).  To my utter annoyance, you can’t pair these two different types of speakers to work together. So is it because of sound quality issues or just because sonos hasn’t bothered?  If it is because of some imperceptible phantom drop in sound quality, allow me to confirm after exactly no market research that no one cares about that s***.
 

Second, there needs to be an iOS widget and an Apple Watch app.  At this price point, this should be self-explanatory.  


This besides the issue of certain rooms skipping horribly at times.  As I can already see this being blamed on our wifi, which I have had checked, I’d like to ask if this system was designed to work in a house - with walls - or just in an open field somewhere?  I also do have the subnet thing set up where a main speaker is hardwired into the router.  


I don’t mean to over-dramatize this but we are 13 speakers and thousands of dollars into this system and at this price point, is it too much to ask to have someone write the code for that option into the app?  PRETTY PLEASE.

 

Normally I just overlook these (admittedly small) annoyances because the sound quality is amazing and the experience worth the hassle.  I also realize that in the grand scheme of things none of this s*** matters but c’mon, throw me a bone here.  

 

Mod Edit: Profanity removed


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11 replies

Userlevel 7

On your first issue… you CAN group different Sonos speakers together in the same room. You just can’t PAIR two different models together as a stereo pair. The Play:1 is a different model than a One.

To your first point, sound quality is the issue, along with likely code issues in combining various speaker types. Sonos resolves this by allowing grouping, and named groups in the controller that you have control over. 

Second, given the furor over the Trueplay feature being only available to iOS users, and not Android folks, I would expect there’s not likely to be a lot of anxiousness to do another feature that is only available to a select few users. I would guess, however, that it’s on the backlog somewhere, just not high enough priority. And they’d probably need to do a simultaneous release for all of the versions of Android watches that there are.

Third, sounds a lot like you have network issues. Given the non-ordinary requirements of the Sonos system, I’d guess that you have some additional concerns that need to be worked out, I would encourage you to submit a diagnostic and contact Sonos directly, they can walk through all of the potentials based on the hard data in the diagnostic.  But you’re right, a Sonos network does have greater needs than the average network device, since all of the devices not only have to talk to the outside world, but they need to talk to each other, something that some networks have difficulty with, especially some mesh networks, many of which break up a network into different subnets. Given that you have a non-surround, non-Sub device wired to your router, it should be relatively simple for the Sonos folks to give you some good information from that diagnostic.

 

And, for what it’s worth, all of the network issues that have occurred on my Sonos system were a result of issues outside my home. Neighbors, mostly.

Wow, I definitely had a fire in my eye today ha.  Moments of frustration combined with first world problems and next thing you know I’m going all Karen over the bourgeois music player.  
 

Thanks for your input all.  Here is some technical background - we have range extenders in the house and the speakers which are most often affected are a pair the farthest from the router/“base station” speaker.  Those speakers work fine when it’s just them and maybe one other room playing.  
 

Previous wifi issues have been resolved through these extenders and channel changes, everything in the house seems to work fine.  
 

my understanding is that the system creates a mesh network/subnet in the house such that all communication between the system and the outside world takes place through that hardwired speaker.  Do I have this right?  
 

something also just occurred to me.  If the system is on its own network, it’s not making use of those wifi extenders, is it?  Could this be causing the issue?

Userlevel 7

It could be causing the issue.

In the Sonos app, if you go to Settings > System > About My System, are all of your speakers listed as WM: 0?

They are, yes

In that case, everything is indeed on SonosNet.  That does mean that the data traffic between Sonos units is not using the extenders - but that’s how you want it to be.  SonosNet is a mesh in which every speaker is a potential repeater.

What type of extenders are you using.  Powerline adapters?

What type of Sonos device is wired to your router?  Whatever it is, make sure it is a t least a couple of feet from the router.  Do you know what wireless channel(s) your router and extenders are using.  What about Sonos? (Settings, System, Network).  Router and extenders should be on 1, 6 or 11 (and NOT Auto); Sonos should be on a different channel.

 

Channel for Sonos is set to 11.  Not sure about the network.  There is a 5 hooked up to the router.  

Your router instructions should tell you how to check the channel.  In any case, try changing the Sonos channel to 1 and see if there is any improvement.  Try channel 6 if not.  Whatever the outcome, please post back and if necessary there are other things that could be looked at.

Make sure that your wired Five is not too close to the router. 

I am familiar with the process I just need to take some time to log into it. I can never remember the password.  

 

how close is too close? They are on different shelves but you know.

Anything closer than a meter (3 feet) can be suspect. But it depends on how closely each device follows the requirements of the FCC (here in the US) on absorbing/rejecting interference, and even that can vary from device to device, albeit in very slight amounts, unless one of them is “broken” in some way. I’ve had microwaves that were “broken” in that particular manner, and spewed all sorts of wifi interference in my home. Fortunately, was easy to identify (Hey, whenever I’m running the microwave, my Sonos system stops playing in the kitchen).