SONOS Compatability with Orbi

If the intereference is from Sonos 5ghz which is the current theory, I doubt using a wifi setup will fix that. 5.1 surround sonos would still generate it's own 5ghz network for surround communication. Will it be smart enough to "dodge" the existing 5ghz networks because it's now in wifi instead of boost mode? I doubt it.

I think there aren't a lot of people that do extensive speed testing while running music through a sonos 5.1 surround speaker set. It may be a common issue with 5ghz interference in that setup. It does seem odd that your results are so much worse than others.

I'm not imagining that? You do have some speakers in surround sound mode, right?

--Derrek

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Dynamiteboy wrote:

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I just don't understand how the Sonos setup I am working with could have all the issues that no one else is experincing. If there was a client side interference this major due to Sonos, that would, like you said effect literally any wireless system I deployed and I cannot imagine that to be the case.

 

What I will do is test with a single TP-link router on 5ghz in boost setup for Sonos and see if I can replicate my Orbi speed drops.

 

One last hail mary, any chance a Non-boost setup wouldn't cause me to have these speed drops? If I have full coverage with Orbi, I don't technically need a Boost setup.

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I can't tell if my earlier point was clear or not.  Seems like it was not.

It's important to understand that you will NOT see maximum WiFI throughput with more than one device concurrently using the WiFi!!

Wireless devices share the same radio spectrum and must coordinate to avoid colliding with each other.  This coordination drops the throughput substantially.

If your prior testing involved streaming media from your phone, while doing a Speedtest from your wirlelesss laptop, then the speed drops are entirely normal.

Similarly, if you were to setup your Sonos in a non-Boost configuration, then you would have 9 Sonos devices using WiFi, plus your Speedtest laptop would be sharing the same WiFi channel, and you would see even worse speed drops.

I'm not certain yet that your results are anything beyond normal and that you actually have an Orbi/Sonos problem.

I second what st_shaw said.

All wifi traffic is actually serialized. Each client gets a very brief section of time to communicate then moves on to the next client. It goes in this rotation very very quickly. It is entirely serial.

MU-MIMO changed this but is not supported by *anything* client side currently. So, some wifi traffic means significant throughput reduction. This is especially true if the devices all have different antenna ranges and capabilities. Everything slows down to the lowest common denominator.

You may have some old device on the orbi network that is killing you. This is one reason tri-band routers started band steering putting older devices on one network/antennae set and better devices on the other one. Etc.

--Derrek

The Galaxy S7, release March 2016, supports MU-MIMO.

Exploding phone brands definitely do not count. ;)

I have a dongle that supports it too. The problem is it's not particularly helpful until every device supports it. I don't want to live on an S7.

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st_shaw wrote:

 

 

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Dynamiteboy wrote:

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I just don't understand how the Sonos setup I am working with could have all the issues that no one else is experincing. If there was a client side interference this major due to Sonos, that would, like you said effect literally any wireless system I deployed and I cannot imagine that to be the case.

 

What I will do is test with a single TP-link router on 5ghz in boost setup for Sonos and see if I can replicate my Orbi speed drops.

 

One last hail mary, any chance a Non-boost setup wouldn't cause me to have these speed drops? If I have full coverage with Orbi, I don't technically need a Boost setup.

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I can't tell if my earlier point was clear or not.  Seems like it was not.

 

It's important to understand that you will NOT see maximum WiFI throughput with more than one device concurrently using the WiFi!!

Wireless devices share the same radio spectrum and must coordinate to avoid colliding with each other.  This coordination drops the throughput substantially.

 

If your prior testing involved streaming media from your phone, while doing a Speedtest from your wirlelesss laptop, then the speed drops are entirely normal.

 

Similarly, if you were to setup your Sonos in a non-Boost configuration, then you would have 9 Sonos devices using WiFi, plus your Speedtest laptop would be sharing the same WiFi channel, and you would see even worse speed drops.

 

I'm not certain yet that your results are anything beyond normal and that you actually have an Orbi/Sonos problem.

 

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I understand your point, but here's what I haven't made clear, there is no devices on this Sonos network other than the laptop, phone and sonos. No I should not see my 120mb/s internet line drop to 20-80mb/s EVERY single test. If Sonos is really consuming this much bandwidth, most average home internet connections of 50mb/s could not even play Sonos music. This is clearly interference of some sort and not just bad reporting because of a speed test. I understand that speedtests aren't always reliable, but if they weren't reliable at all, no one would use them for anything. I wouldn't call this minor interference, this is massive interference I am seeing. A drop in 40%-80% of my connection speed. 

The phone or the computer is no doing anything else other than Sonos, and Speedtesting. There is no other traffic on the network. Of course I wouldn't hook back up all 30 devices in the house and then speedtest. Who knows which one would be updating in the background or something.

That being said speedtesting a network even at a large company you can see your paid for speeds (or close to them) exactly because of this serialization. You can't claim that speedtests become irrelevant just because there are other devices connected to the network. If your point is true how come I can speedtest my home network on my phone while there are 25 wireless devices simultaneously connected to both bands and still pull 130-150 (150 being my paid for speed)?

OR my work network which we have a business line of 100mb/s with hundreds of devices and I can still speedtest 85-100mb/s. Those are the speedtest results I am used to seeing despite network traffic or radio interference.

I will continue to test and report back. 

I agree, something is going on on your network. But it could still be wifi interference.

Can you test on 2.4 and 5 separately? 2.4 should be able to pull your full download speed if near the router/satellite. IF both channels see the same level of interference, I would say it's isolated to orbi or an entirely different source of interference.

My first orbi did not work right. My second has been nearly flawless.

Also, one other story: I was testing the linksys ea9500 recently. I saw these weird drops in bandwidth from my macbook while I was testing. However, I was option clicking the wireless menu to produce detailed info. Doing this briefly interrupts wifi on a macbook and reduces signal for a few seconds. I discovered that and a few other tools I had running was triggering that cycle. Speed would drop basically anytime I had my performance tools open. Story: router that was possibly perfectly fine got returned.

Anyway, it seems like there is some other thing going on. I would limit the Sonos to one speaker then test. Add another, then test. Etc. At least isolate when the problem happens. I had a speaker next to a router once that killed my wifi. ;)

--Derrek

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dleute wrote:

I agree, something is going on on your network. But it could still be wifi interference.

Can you test on 2.4 and 5 separately? 2.4 should be able to pull your full download speed if near the router/satellite. IF both channels see the same level of interference, I would say it's isolated to orbi or an entirely different source of interference.

My first orbi did not work right. My second has been nearly flawless.

Also, one other story: I was testing the linksys ea9500 recently. I saw these weird drops in bandwidth from my macbook while I was testing. However, I was option clicking the wireless menu to produce detailed info. Doing this briefly interrupts wifi on a macbook and reduces signal for a few seconds. I discovered that and a few other tools I had running was triggering that cycle. Speed would drop basically anytime I had my performance tools open. Story: router that was possibly perfectly fine got returned.

Anyway, it seems like there is some other thing going on. I would limit the Sonos to one speaker then test. Add another, then test. Etc. At least isolate when the problem happens. I had a speaker next to a router once that killed my wifi. ;)

--Derrek

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Will do, The bridge is close to the router though? This was my original thought on the interference, but it is necessary for Sonosnet.

The bridge isn't a speaker. It doesn't generate a magnetic field of significance (or it shouldn't). I had an 8 inch bass speaker blasting into an older router. Wasn't a good plan.

It doesn't hurt to separate by a few feet (length of a short ethernet cable), but it shouldn't be necessary. Also, a bridge is always on. Any interference shouldn't change *unless* it is 2.4ghz interference from the basic sonosnet. I don't think the bridge would repeat the 5ghz network. But I don't know the details about sonos 5ghz network.

--Derrek

These 2 articles are giving me some interesting testing ideas. Do you think it would be smart to wire in all Sonos components? The first article recommends this.

https://bsteiner.info/articles/disabling-sonos-wifi

https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990/sonos-slowing-down-network-giving-buffering-issues-when-streaming-hd-content-40423

My gut feel is it's not a good idea. The issue is Sonos uses a protocol called STP. This protocol is designed to deal with network loops in this kind of broadcast networking. The problem is it's behavior is unclear when mixing with multi-point mesh networks via wireless. I think this has been the issue with eero and Sonos. One of the articles mentioned it briefly.

However, doing it won't hurt anything (might crash the ethernet network instead). So if it solves your problem, might be the answer for you.

You shouldn't need to decativate the network in the sonos device. It prefers wired if it's available. I'm not sure how 5.1 works when all wired.

I would still love to know if this happens on both 2.4 and 5ghz connections. And if it's definitely only limited to the 5.1 mode.

--Derrek

Have you considered other wireless devices? Wireless phones? baby monitors?

None of those are in the home, its just so immediate the drops when Sonos is playing it is clear the interference of sorts is coming from Sonos. 

Baisc Results of what happened with my testing yesterday.

• -Change Channels again (1,6,11)
  • Still experiencing Speed Drops
• -Changed Orbi Channel width to not support 40/20 simultaneously (Can't remember exact setting name)
  • Still experiencing Speed Drops

• -Test wired connection speed to Router while playing music
  • No issues
• -Test wired connection speed to satellite while playing music
  • No issues
• -Disabling 2.4 ghz band completely and test
  • Still Experiencing Speed Drops, seemed to reduce interference though Enabled saw speeds drop to 100 kpbs while playing Sonos.
• -Disable 5.8 ghz completely and test
  • Not relevant most likely
• -Wire in as Many Sonos devices as possible
  • Reduced interference but still only pulling 50 max with Sonos playing all day.

Not sure what Orbi and Sonos have against eachother, but because I cannot tweak settings on the backhaul between the 2 of them regardless of whether this is the issue I have kind of given up on Orbi. If I knew the house had wired drops, Orbi would not have been my first choice anyways, so now onto Google Wifi, and then to Unifi for some wired backhaul AP's.

Have decided to give Google Wifi 3 pack a try. One question, there is an area in the home (the kitchen/dining room area) that just gets poor coverage in general, but there is not a single network drop there. Can I do a wired backhaul for 2 of the google wifi points and one of them be wireless mesh?