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Forum Discussion
SONOS Compatability with Orbi
Is Orbi compatable with the SONOS mesh network? I have an extensive SONOS system throughout my house (7000 sq ft). It works flawlessly and I have wondered why a mesh network for a LAN application ha...
Hey Derrek,
I have installed Orbi's for freinds and familys in a couple homes with no issues and have loved the powerful backhaul and I still think it's the best consumer grade mesh system avalible, despite the mesh systems popularity rising. I am an IT engineer by trade so troubleshooting is usually pretty simple for me.
My issue is this, and this is how I found your thread. Today I was working on setting up Orbi with Sonos. Everything seemed to be working fine, but trying to setup the Sonos wirelessly with Orbi (Plug in to Orbi temp till it gets creds then remove) everytime I would remove the Sonos bridge from Orbi the Sono would lose connection to the network and make me try and setup Sonos wireless all over again.
So, having little expereicne with Sonos, I decided to just wire in one of the Sonos receivers directly into the Router portion of Orbi and leave it plugged in. Sonos had no issues then, no dropping, stable sound throughout the home. Well then I speedtested back where the satelite was.... which had changed its color to amber which means fair connection between the router and satelite, and now was only pulling 1-25 mb/s of the previous 125 it should have been pulling before Sonos was setup.
I could replicate it that Sonos was indeed interferring with Orbi. Now I am trying to determine if they are truly incomatible, or can be tweaked to work together and that is what I am trying to determine from the feed.
The Router and The Satelite are on the latest firmware as of Today. I will try changing the channels this week (Saw that as a possible fix on this thread) to see if it alleviates the issues, but I have little hope.
In your last post it seems you have Orbi and Sonos working fine now? I do not completely understand the point of the Sonos bridge (I do not personally own a Sonos system) and if it is the only device causing the interference. It is not the "boost" just the bridge.
Sonos can introduce a number of issues to mesh networking devices. (Technically Orbi is not a "mesh" network, but the same issues apply because of the multiple physical units)
The bridge and boost serve essentially the same purpose, a purpose that was rendered unnecessary by updates to Sonos speakers. In the past, you needed a "base" for all the Sonos speakers to communicate. At some point Sonos enabled connecting directly to your own wifi network in which you plugin the ethernet cable, setup wifi and then unplug the speaker. If this doesn't work, you may have some speakers setup as one sonos network and others as another. I had a brief period where my speakers behaved as two independent Sonos speaker networks. Not sure how or why, but it was temporary as I was re-setting all network stuff.
Some caveats: If any single Sonos device is plugged in via ethernet, all sonos devices will prefer their own wireless network. I would avoid plugging in more than one device via ethernet. This likely creates the networking problems for mesh systems because it is unclear how protocols it uses should behave on a mesh network and each vendor behaves differently.
I only have two Sonos devices: A connect to play through my existing home theater system. I wired this to one of the Orbi's as they sit right next to each other. The other one (a play:1) connects over the built-in sonosnet created by the connect. This has worked essentially flawlessly on my replacement Orbi. No bridge, no boost, nothing else.
This all assumes you are on Sonos 7.1 (or whatever the latest released firmware).
Option 1: If one of the speakers (not bridge) is near the Orbi, use that one to plug-in to the Orbi and *only* that one. Then setup all speakers elsewhere and leave the bridge out of the picture (not needed). Finally, make sure the Sonosnet channel is opposite the 2.4ghz channel used by Orbi. I put Sonos on channel 11 because 1 was being used by Orbi (I believe that is Orbi's default). Easily done in Sonos app.
Option 2: If no speaker is near an Orbi, then put the bridge near the orbi, plug it in via ethernet, and only it (no other speakers via ethernet). Again, make sure the Sonos channel is opposite Orbi.
Option 3: The final option is to connect *all* speakers through Orbi wifi only. All Sonos devices must remain on wifi only and not wired. If anything is wired, it will flip to SonosNet usage. This works great at my mom's house where google wifi blankets the house in solid wifi and no Sonos device is near a wifi mesh point. But the SonosNet will often work better with interference.
The only reason Sonosnet wouldn't work is if the distances are too large for it to handle. This would be mansion size house like 10,000+ square feet between Sonos devices. This is where the Boost would become useful (the bridge could be used in this case as well). It is unlikely your own wifi will do better than sonosnet with boost/bridge devices.
The only downside to this (and what triggered me returning my first orbi) is if the satellite that the single wired Sonos is connected to starts misbehaving, all Sonos speakers will stop working. The wi-fi way, sometimes only the units connected to that satellite would stop. They might even switch to a functional satellite wifi signal.
I have not seen any of these issues in any Sonos configuration on the new Orbi. It's been working wonderfully daily.
--Derrek
Thanks everyone for the replies.
I was experiencing these issues with the Orbi speed when I had the non-bridge plugged in. In the house there was a "bridge unit" and then each speaker had its own white receiver box? Am I understanding this right? They had multiple Connect amp receivers, that is what I plugged the Orbi router portion into and expereinced the signal drops and speed issues even when it was left plugged in. I am unsure if this is the "Sonosnet setup". I also experience the speed drops when I wired in the wireless bridge to the orbi router portion.
Disclaimer, this sonos setup was supposedly setup by a professional awhile ago, but there are so many connect amps, that I am confused what they are all for.
Anyways, I can clearly replicate the problem by hooking up the sonos to the Orbi router portion. Then when I remove the sonos amp portion, and restart Orbi, the speed goes back up and the satelite does not get a amber "fair connection" light.
The Orbi firmware is up to date, and I never wired more than 1 Sonos unit into the Router portion of Orbi.
So my problem really can only be 3 things from what I am hearing from you guys.
- The Sonos Firmware is not update (didn't even think to check that)
- The Channels are interfereing and I need to set Orbi to 11 and Sonos to 1
- I have a defective Orbi unit, which I just feel is highly unliekly as it works flawlessly without Sonos involved.
Or maybe I need to purchase one of the new "Boost Units" and set it up that way? I don't understand how the bridge is different from it though.
I am not limited to any specific sort of "Wireless only" setup, I could find a way to wire any sonos piece to ethernet because the house is wired with network drops.
Sorry, I am not sure what is happening in your setup. I can explain my setup.
I have one Sonos bridge which connected to my switch with ethernet cable on the ground floor. This bridge is sending wifi signal in whole house. So when I setup new speaker, it connects to this bridge via wifi but on its own channel to the bridge. I hope this make any sense?
First, make sure your Orbi Router and Satellites are all on the same current firmware. Early Orbi's refused to update the satellites automatically. You had to do it manually.
Second, make sure all Sonos devices are up to date.
Third - I want to clear up your understanding of the different Sonos pieces:
Play:1/Play: 3/Play:5/Subwoofer/Other Speaker - These are all speakers, they are configured to either use the sonos network (which they will if *any* Sonos product is wired via ethernet to any Orbi) Or you can configure all of them to use Orbi network directly. As many of us have said, we prefer to wire a single Sonos device and have it be the source of SonosNet on channel 11. All speakers re-broadcast sonosnet if that is what you are using.
Connect/Connect:AMP - These join sonosnet but do not have speakers built-in. The connect is designed to link to a home theater reciever (usually via optical or digital coax). The Connect:AMP can connect to raw speaker wires as it has an amp built-in. Both act like speakers in that they will join a Sonosnet if available, or can be configured to join Orbi Wifi. Same as speakers, it will re-broadcast Sonosnet.
Bridge/Boost - These are effectively Sonosnet repeaters. They take the Sonosnet signal and re-broadcast it (or create it, if they are the wired sonos device). If you are using a Wifi only setup, these are useless. If any speaker can be wired via ethernet, it will serve the purpose of one of these and create your sonosnet. The only real reason to use one is if you want to use Sonosnet (and we think you do) and none of the speakers are within range of an Orbi. In that case, plug one in at the orbi and let all other speakers link to that Sonosnet. Boost is just a newer version of the bridge, better antennas. Only necessary if you are having Sonosnet range issues. You likely don't need these at all if you can wire any other Sonos device.
The issue is that Orbi speed drops when Sonos is connected? I would suggest that multiple Sonos products are wired and a network loop is being created. Make sure only one is wired and all sonos devices are configured for the same speaker collection. If you are using Sonosnet, I would re-configure the Sonos units to not know the Orbi network or password password (In thi iOS App Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Wireless Setup (if it is already asking for you to type something push done and then push the reset button which will remove wireless info from Sonos). Then there is no chance they are hopping back and forth. Also make sure the wired Sonos device always has power.
--DerrekI can confirm that I manaully updated both the Satelite and the Orbi Router to the latest firmware. But I have no idea if Sonos is using the latest Firmware and will have to check on that.
Yeah I am not sure why there are so many white amps (5 in total I beleive) so I will have to see if they are running to a speaker system or just not really doing anything at all. I was wiring one of these amps into the Orbi Router portion which would work for a little bit but then Orbi would go a bit haywire.
So What I will do is just:
- Ensure Sonos is on the latest firmware
- Wire in the Sonos Bridge (Not the Connect Amp) directly into the Orbi Router
- Remove the possible Wifi Creds from the Sonos system
- Ensure no other Sonos device is wired into a network drop on the wall or something
- Set Sonosnet to Channel 11 (Where can I do this?)
- Restart Orbi
Is there anything I should do to reset the Sonos system or individual devices to ensure it is using the "Boost" configuration and not the standard?
Also, does the bridge have any relevance if its ethernet is not plugged into anything? (This is how I found it) Does it like wirelessly boost the Sonosnet signal? I think a lot of my confusion stems from Sonos making their devices communicate directly with eachother as of an update or something like you said.
Best,
Jonathan
Dynamiteboy You need to make sure only one Sonos component is plugged into the LAN, not just into the Orbi. You cannot have a second Sonos plugged into ANY Ethernet drop anywhere. You definitely need to set the channels to 1 and 11. You might need to reset the Sonos system and start from scratch to ensure everything is setup properly. You shouldn't need a Boost. It's nothing more than a bridge with more powerful wifi hardware.
Another option is to hardwire every single Sonos and disable their radios. This requires accessing some undocumented web pages though.