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Forum Discussion
PiepeltjeNL
Jan 25, 2019Tutor
Sonos can't connect to Orbi
Hi there,
I'm in stress... ;-)
I bought myself an Orbi router+satellite last week. But after succesfull installation of my mesh-network, my Sonos play:1 (2 pcs) can't connect to the wifi-netw...
- Jul 01, 2019
Spent a few months figuring how to get my Sonos speakers working on a new Orbi Wifi. The changing of Wifi routers effectively bricked 2,500 bucks of Sonos products for me. It just wouldn't work on the new router. My setup is a Boost (connected by wire to Orbi router) and 5 Play Ones, a Playbar and Sub; all wifi connected.
The boost (and probably a speaker if it's hardwired into the Orbi router) will be seen by the Sonos Controller App, but the wireless connections would not transfer over or be seen by Sonos. Factory reset or no factory reset. The issue lies in my Orbi router. When I would try to add a wifi speaker in the Sonos App, it would time out and fail. Every time. Upon some sleuthing, for whatever reason, I noticed the Orbi router would allocate an IP to the speaker, but in the Orbi device settings, it would be set up as "disabled" and therefore the add new speaker would time out and fail in the Sonos App, then the speaker's IP address would disappear in the Orbi app as well since I didn't "enable" it in the device settings. You manually have to "approve"/slide the new Wifi Sonos speaker IP address to "enable" in the Orbi App to finish assignment of an IP address, which then allows the Sonos Controller App to finish seeing and capturing the Wifi Sonos speakers.
So my fix went like this:- Connect the boost by wire to the router (i'm guessing a speaker would work also)
- Open Sonos Controller App (it should see whatever is hardwired to the router, my Orbi auto enabled the Boost, but if it doesn't, keep reading, you will have to "enable" in the Orbi app).
- Factory reset the Wifi speaker (i know Sonos is all against this, i'm just showing you how it worked for me on 7 speakers and a Sub.; i factory reset all of them; i did this process individually for all speakers and sub)
- After the factory reset, I restarted the speaker and selected "add new speaker or sub" in the Sonos App. Follow the directions in the app.
- Have your Orbi app open on the same device or another device, you will need to enable the new speaker's IP address. This is key as you will have to toggle back and forth between the Sonos Controller app and the Orbi app.
- During the final setup stages of Sonos Controller installation of the new speaker it will "hang" a little. During this final part of the install step is where you will have to be vigilant at seeing when Orbi sees it and gives it a "disabled" IP address in the Orbi app.
- Keep refreshing your Orbi app's "device settings" page by going back and forth between the home screen and device settings. After about 15-40 seconds of the final installation part of the new speaker, a new Sonos speaker will show up in the Orbi device settings, with a unique IP address but will be "disabled". My orbi required me to approve the new IP address by sliding the toggle from "diabled" to the green "enable".
- Once enabled in the Orbi app - device settings, the Sonos Controller finished installing the new speaker, and since it was factory reset, updated the firmware. It was now visible in the Sonos Controller App.
So the issue was my Orbi requiring a manual approval of the IP address to give the wifi Sonos speakers. There's a key 30 seconds in the process above where the Sonos app is almost finished installing, but you have to get in the Orbi app to toggle the wifi IP address to "enable". That was the issue, not my speaker but the IP allocation process of my Orbi. I thinks it's a security feature of the Orbi to prevent subnetworks leaching onto a wired connection.
justlisa
Aug 11, 2019Aspirant
i had trouble with this at first. i read all these posts and they scared me lol. i am technical enough to really mess things up.
what i found that worked was easy.
- I reset the controller on my sonos from my iphone.
- i connected my iphone to the orbi wifi
- i have 7sonos players. I started with a sonos 3. i did a factory reset on it.
- i connected that sonos to an orbi satalite with a cord
- in sonos ap i added a new speaker and went through the set up
- i continued this process with all the speakers
- good bye old network, hello Orbi. it connected to 2.4ghz like others have mentioned
there were a couple of speakers (playbars) that failed at first. but then i selected the alternate set up which wanted the hard wire (even through it was hard wired) and that seemed to work.
good luck
ekhalil
Aug 11, 2019Master
So do you mean that you now have more than one Sonos Speaker wired to Orbi?
- justlisaAug 11, 2019Aspirant
- justlisaAug 12, 2019AspirantNo. They are all wireless. The “wire” was just used to get them set up on the orbi. Once they were accepted I took the cord away.
- ekhalilAug 13, 2019MasterThis sounds very strange to me!
How would the Sonos get the Orbi SSID and password if all speakers were setup as wired? Have you been asked about this information during the Sonos setup?