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Forum Discussion
RBS50 thinks it's wired to another RBS50 Satellite
I have two of my satellites on different floors (Ground floor and 2nd floor) at opposite ends of the building. When I check the connection type on the admin page (192.168.1.1), one of the satellites thinks it's wired to the other one. I do not use wired backhaul. These have Sonos speakers, Shield TVs, AirTVs, and Apple TVs connected to them.
Sometimes, I have speed issues with anything connected to these satellites. I'm not sure if it's due to one of the satellites thinking it's wired to the other one or something else. I haven't seen any posts on the forum with a similar problem. Why does one satellite think it's wired to the other one and would this cause an issue? My router and all my satellites are on V2.5.1.8 firmware.
4 Replies
Are the Sonos speakers wired to Orbi or are they connected wirelessly?
- The upstairs satellite has a Sonos beam plugged into it (ethernet). The ground floor satellite has a Sonos playbase plugged into it (ethernet). I had the same inclination, thinking that the Sonos speakers were creating their own network, but I have a third satellite with another beam plugged into it in another part of the house and that satellite is connected to the router wirelessly (not thinking it's wired like the other satellite). Stranger still, I have switched around the satellites and the same thing happens with whichever satellites are in the upstairs and ground positions (one satellite says it's wired to the other in the 192.168.1.1 admin page). Everything did seem to point to the Sonos playbase having something to do with this strange behavior.
That's the problem!
When you have Sonos speakers in your network you have two options:
- Have one -only one- Sonos speaker wired to Orbi and all other Sonos speakers will be connected wirelesely to the Sonos mesh network.
- Connect all speakers wirelesly to the Orbi wifi network.
It's not possible to wire more than one speaker to Orbi. This will just create IP loops and cause all types of issues.
This seems to be a problem with Orbi and am relieved that someone else is experiencing this issue. I posted about this before and there wasn't a solution although the last firmware update does claim to contain fixes specific to Sonos but still this issue persists. As you noted this does impact the performance of Orbi and so is a real problem not just a cosmetic one.
We have one wired Sonos device which is a Sonos Soundbar and all other Sonos speakers connect wirelessly (although Orbi always reports them all as wired devices I presume due ot the Sonos mesh network connecting all other Sonos devices through the Soundbar). This is the solution I have which works for me but is far from ideal.
Turn off the sattelite that thinks it has wired backhaul and unplug the ethernet cable that goes to the Sonos device. Now power on the Orbi sattelite and wait until it connects and stablises using wireless backhaul. I usually wait 10-15 minutes and check the Orbi app or admin pages to make sure it shows as wireless. Now plug in the ethernet cable for the Sonos device again and check Sonos is working.
The Orbi sattelite should now keep showing wireless backhaul until the next time the sattelite is restarted/power cycled. This works for me 100% of the time but is a real pain due to manually unplugging/plugging in the ethernet cable. I've seen the wireless backhaul work without going through this process but I'd say it is rare so I always follow this process.
