using both wifi and ethernet connection

  • 26 December 2017
  • 11 replies
  • 1310 views

Userlevel 1
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Hello,
I have a couple of play 1 and a single play 5.
My problem is that where the play 5 is located wifi coverage is really low and unstable so I have used an ethernet cable to link it to the lan.
The play 1 are both located in two rooms very near to the router and the wifi coverage is very strong and steady, and anyways I have no chance here to connect them with an ethernet cable.
I don't know if this is a normal behaviour but as soon as I connect the play 5 with cable it immediately switch in boost mode becoming itself hotspot for the other two play 1 but due to problem shown upper it is to far and often play one units lose the connection.
Is there a way to configure play 5 on ethernet and play 1 on wifi provided by router?
thanks in advance for you kind support.
regards

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11 replies

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of an official way to set method of connection per device.

That being said, I've seen others post about some sort of way to turn off the wifi card (I think?) which I would assume is per speaker, so perhaps a google search for "Sonos turn off radio" or something like that might find you some information you could use to force the issue?

But to be clear, such a method would certainly knock you off of the supported systems list, and probably not garner much help from the official Sonos folks.

I've never had an issue, but I do have a BOOST, as well as lots of speakers spreading the SonosNet mesh network, so I've never tried this.
Userlevel 1
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Thanks for your prompt reply.
I am going to try and let you know
I'll be interested in your experience, to be sure.

Good luck!
Userlevel 1
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You are great!!

I was able to disable wifi interface
As soon as I have disable wi fi interface on my play 5, play 1s immediately switched their status to wm1 and connected to the router
Thank you very much.
regards and happy new year
Renato
Wouldn't be surprised to see your post edited by Sonos staff, since it's an unsupported setup, but who knows. I'm glad you were able to find it, and hope that it helps with your issue.
Userlevel 1
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Really i can't figure out why they should, I suppose that this should have no impact on future update or functionality but who knows. I don't want create problem so I am going to edit my previous post even if I firmly believe that sonos should provide an official way to do that, in my case this was the only solution to solve my issue and have everything working fine.
There are a lot of people who aren't quite as savvy who might attempt the change, and then have it not work in some way for them, causing a substantial increase in Sonos support calls/cost."I read it on the official Sonos boards, it has to work!"

I imagine that's why they'd prefer not to have direct information. I tent do be somewhat vague when pointing to things outside of officially supported setups. People who are motivated to go the extra mile usually understand that they're doing something that is not supported.
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
We aren't going to delete the steps, but we will highly discourage doing it. Generally speaking, a mixed mode setup like you're trying to run here can potentially get into all sorts of trouble. If it works well for you, we couldn't be happier. But we wouldn't call it a solution, more of a workaround. If you do run into trouble and have to speak with our technicians, expect that to be one of the first things they dig into as a potential cause.

Best of luck!
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
I was going to say. In general ryan hasn’t deleted threads to the fact you can disable. From a support standpoint they definitely discourage it. I can see they don’t won’t people tinkering to much and then call innnot knowing what they did. I’m. It sure if a factory reset reenables or not.
A more conventional approach to the problem would be to get a Boost device and wire it to the router instead of or as well as the P:5. A Bridge bought off eBay would be a cheaper option and would probably work fine.
Userlevel 7
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The Boost give you Sonos Net v2, the Bridge is I believe only v1. I spent a couple bucks more to get the Boost and am very happy with my system's stability now.

As I have several wired Sonos devices as well as several WiFi ones I did tweak the Boost to be the Root but apparently that isn't needed.