Yeah, I'm aware of the drops in speed from hops between access points. That's the primary reason I bought orbi first. However, at this point I may need to drop the goal of getting my internet max speed everywhere in my house and just settle for stable wifi that's a bit slower than max. I would take a slower system if it is hands off and just works.
I guess by that argument I should just go back to my airport extreme. *sigh*
I have always used the Sonos Boost instead of my Wifi network. Sonos Boost is the way to go if you have more than one Sonos product. I have never had one single issue with Sonos and Orbi.
Please check back with us on here to let us know how it goes with Eero/Google, and how they compare to Orbi for you. BTW, I never got around setting up Sonos on the Eero, so can't be helpful there.
I just got an Orbi as well and am having a miserable time trying to get sonos to work with it. Really brings back bad memories of sonos. Funny thing is when I cast to 5 Google Home's in my home I have no issues at all. Seeing how others are having same behaviors with Orbi, thinking I'll be returning this netgear product.
Not sure if using Sonos bridges made a difference for me, but I spent an hour or so trying to setup Sonos using the Wifi without the bridges. Was getting ready to call them when I decided to use the bridges that I had. Most of my Sonos gear is on the first floor and my router/Orbi is setup on the second floor. Plugged one router into Orbi and setup the second bridge on the first floor. I did not have any problem setting up the rest of the Sonos speakers and Soundbar on the first floor. But I could not get it going without the bridges. Have not noticed a drop in sound with the Sonos. Played music for about 5 hours the other day.
Just to be clear, I actually don't think this is a Sonos specific issue. It is simply shown by Sonos because it constantly uses (and requires) stable wifi on at least *one* sonos unit (be it bridge or speaker). I actually think they have a much larger connectivity stability issue. As I traced it more, I found more and more devices were having connection issues. Those devices just don't usually constantly use wifi and usually missed the down time.
Do you mean Google Wifi? The brand new thing? Or actualy google home or onhub? I have both Google Wifi and eero coming this week. I'll report back. I suspect neither of them will get to my performance desires. I have heard both great things and nightmare stories about eero. Google Wifi is too new to have any first hand reports.
--Derrek
Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
If one of your bridges is plugged into the Orbi router, you may be dodging the issue. My issue is all speakers are either wifi or wired on one of the Orbi satellites. Neither satellite produced stable signal (though one worked better than the other one seemingly). So, whichever satellite was the wired source of sonosnet still needs to be stable. So, in my case, a bridge would not help. However, plugging in a speaker or bridge into the Orbi router instead of satellite, it may have fixed the issue in terms of sonos. The signal would have originated at the router and been stable. As far as I could tell, the router had no issues.
Doing that with sonos would not have fixed the issue for all other devices experiencing the issues. Hence why I gave up and returned it. Once I realized it wasn't sonos specific, it's a pretty massive flaw. It may still be that Sonos somehow triggers the issue, but I don't care. My airport extreme works better than orbi everywhere in my house. No point in spending more money that doesn't give me better internet in all rooms.
FYI: Sonos works fantastic purely on wifi with my airport extreme. Nothing is wired. Sonosnet settings are not available because of that. I would like to use Sonosnet, but, for me, it requires a mesh network that can get a wired port in a different room from the router. When I get another speaker for my office, that could be the source of the sonos net plugged into the router, just not currently. In a way I'm glad. I may not have found the networking issues early enough to reasonably return the orbi.
Dlelute, I meant Google Home (not the new Wifi product). Think I'll give Orbi a few more weeks to see if anything changes or new firmware comes out. However, I've tried everything like Boost vs no Boost. Think my setup is more "involved" than most people. I use the line-in with Play5 and group several speakers. I've tried all wireless vs Play5 only wired. Same results....sound drops and sometimes all speakers just seem to stop.
I also use SmartThings, which controls the muting/unmuting of Sonos in each room based on motion. This worked for the past couple of years without the issues I'm seeing with Orbi. Frustrating thing is that Google Home lets me cast to 5 Home speakers just fine. Unfortunately, I can't (yet) manipulate the mute state of Google Home. Whenever that happens, think I can rethink Sonos.
Just hope this is an Orbi firmware issue that will soon get fixed. I have more faith in Netgear than Google (Wifi) or startup Eero. Guess we'll see.
Having some issues primarily with Entertainment devices not maintaining a stable signal or dropping signals completely. Primarily TV, Roku, Xbox One S and PS4. Tablets, computers and phones connect without a problem. And I do have my Sonos setup through the bridges, nothing else connected to it. When I test the Wifi signal throughout the house on phone or computer it is solid. Not sure why the other Entertainment devices would be having a problem. Will try the powerline networking later today.
I assume it is fixable. But the question is when. I have found that waiting for firmware updates makes about as much sense as waiting for the new version of any technology product. By the time the firmware is stable, there are possibly price reductions and/or new products like google wifi that could potentially make other things obsolete. Asus and linksys have yet to jump into this race. They may come in with something spectacular.
Hence why I'm trying eero and google. I agree, netgear deserves more "faith" as this is all they do and they are not a startup. Google is known for discontinuuing products when they no longer have interest to google. Eero is still a bit young, and it's update process means you could suddenly have something that doesn't work for you. I've heard they can lock you on an older firmware on request. Google wifi is the same way as eero.
Still, if eero or google wifi (or orbi) lasted me 2-3 years, it will have lived its lifetime. New wifi technologies will replace it no matter what. So, when I purchase, it works on day one, can be made to work immediately after day one, or it goes back.
Incidentally, this is why I return apple products routinely now (12 apple watches so far, the current one is working though. 7 6s and 7 phones. In fact I never kept a 6s). They are no longer the "just works out of the box" company. By the time things are stabe (if ever) something better is out.
Sonos is the only product I've bought in the last few years that "just works" and works well. I love them, and I will be buying more of them. Especially now that I know any issues were due to bad connectivity.
That was the primary thing I saw. Basically anything that needs a constant connection to work in order to stream data was unstable. Games, movies, video conferencing, sonos. But things that "wake up" use internet for a bit and than stop (phones, laptops while browsing, etc) tended to miss the connectivity issues. So it seemed to be stable for them. (it wasn't).
Also, it was rare for wifi on both satellites to be dead at the same time. So devices that could move easily did. But devices that don't roam well or needed a solid connection would still have issues. Many of the devices that had the biggest difficulty were wired to one of the satellites so they had no other choice but to wait for the satellite to return.
Anyway, I'm an advocate of returning. Makes companies fix issues faster as it costs someone something. Either stores won't carry products with high return rates or the manufacturer has to absorb that.
Interesting. I never really thought that much about the systems requiring a constant connection, but they are the ones having problems for me. My Sonos setup was purchased when you needed the bridges so I always had the bridges setup. So they are hard wired into the router and not the satellite. All the devices for me having a problem would be running off the satellite wifi. I guess I do not need to buy an additional satellite for $260 as the problem would still exist. My pre Orbi setup was an Asus AC88U with a Netgear extender but I had the entertainment devices hooked up using a 4 port powerline setup and that provided a stable network. I am past my return date for Orbi so I will hope for a fix and see what happens. Will definitely setup the powerline today to see if I can get stable connections.
Can anyone that is having issues with there sonos message me what sonos product they are having issues with and also what firmware there orbi system is on. I may also need some debug logs from you so I can send them to the engineers to investigate the issue.
All sonos play 1 and connect as well as other devices. I was on the latest 1.4.x on router and both satellites but have since returned the orbi to Costco so I can't help with debug logs.
I installed Orbi on December 12, 2016 and it has been updated to the latest firmware 1.4.0.18.
I have Sonos Play-3 speaker for more than two years now. It came iwth Sonos bridge as well. I am always using bridge to connect this speaker. So I connected Sonos bridge to my switch and repaired my Sonos speaker. I have no issues with Orbi at all. It is set on channel 11. If you have issues then you may try different channels. I am happy customer, no issues with Sonos, no issues with Hue lights or Nest thermostat and Nest protect devices.
I recieved my eero and google wifi today. I have first impressions of each.
eero is stupid easy to install/setup. It just worked. It does take 15+ minutes to update all the devices to the latest firmware.
Once updated everytihng was fine. However, I found speed tests to be quite dissapointing as I moved around my house (50->60mbps was considered a good test result). And it just generally felt slower all around. Speed test were also highly erratic. And it's own internal speed test doesn't get anywhere near my actual internet speed (90mbps instead of 150). Laptop tests while connected to the main router also didn't get me full 150mbps+.
I unplugged eero and plugged in google wifi with relatively low expectations. Thus far, google wifi has been significantly faster. Sitting one hop away from the router, I am still getting 110mbps while streaming a movie downstairs and sonos upstairs. Setup was not quite as smooth. Had a few hiccups but it got through it. Same amount of time.
At this moment, Google Wifi is winning hands down. When you consider it is also $200 less ($100 in my case because of black friday), it's hard to argue with it. I'll be returning eero and giving google wifi to my mom for christmas. I just got 140mbps on my laptop one hope from the main router. I may be ordering a second one of these. 😉
Neither of them can compete with Orbi when it is stable. Orbi is obscenely good (Even at $200 over google wifi). If netgear wants to send me a 3 piece Orbi kit to test and help debug until the problems are resolved, I'll consider sticking with it. Otherwise, google wifi is likely where I'm going. (Or possibly back to a linksys ea9500 which worked surprisingly well once I worked around some issues)
I'll be using each of them over the next few days. Hopefully, they will just work.
That's great news to hear google wifi is working for you. Mine arrives this weekend and will replace Orbi, which is being returned. I'll take "slower" throughput over stability. I will rarely need such huge throughput in real use---sonos dropping will drive me to tears though.
Great the Google is working out. Yesterday I was setting up a new XBox One S. So I figured I would start hard wired into the router over ethernet. It had to load up the update initially and it was painfully slow. After about twenty minutes I disconnnected the cable from the Orbi router and let the XBox find the wireless. After that everything was fast. Installed a game which had an 8 Gb update and agin everything was fine over wireless. Installed another game and I notice again it went painfully slow. This time I could see the download speed dropped to 785Kbs - 2.5 mbs over wireless. This is in the same room as the Orbi router. So I ran a speed test through my cell phone which showed 200mbs and ran one through my computer over ethernet into the router which came out to around 170mbs. The wireless remained extremely slow so I plugged the ethernet cable back in to the XBox and speeds were now into the 70 - 90mbs. Definitely have to keep an eye on this. In answer to a previous question regarding devices hooked into the satellite. Optimum placement of the satellite did not allow for this so, no I am not hooked directly into the satellite. Prinicpal use of the system was for wireless and for the entertainment devices. So far only a couple of issues with Sonos but I do have them set up through the Sonos bridges. I had one instance yesterday where the music skipped but I could stop what I was doing to check what the cause was.
I plugged in the eero again to see if I can work through speed issues on it. Re-setting it up was quite frustrating but I think the initial setup may have been slow because the new firmware didn't entirely take on the base unit. After a full reset everything was back up.
Speeds were now on par with Google Wifi. In fact, both are now almost at the speed I really wanted. However, on eero, Sonos devices started disappearing. Ironically, the ones that stopped playing music are the ones I can still see in Sonos app. The other sonos is still playing but I can't control it. And it is not the base unit. I am currently using Sonos network from one wired sonos connect. That is the one that stopped, so I have no idea how/why the other continued to play. Very strange.
Both eero and google wifi suffer from two very annoying problems. First: 2 available ports for wired devices on a satellite just isn't enough. And 1 available on the main unit basically means it has to be some kind of switch (in my case, it's my airport extreme with 3 more ports as well as a time machine backup drive). Second: This cloud control crap needs to stop. Eeros app was constantly in a "we can't talk to your eero" state despite being *on the eeros network* which had internet acces. That mostly went away after the reset. But, both eero and google wifi need some kind of local mode. Google didn't actually show any issue with this. I'm wondering if they already have a local mode for the majority of communication with your own access points.
Orbi really got a lot of things right. I just want it to be stable. A strong backhaul with 4 ports on satellites. Not requiring cloud (BTW, I like having the cloud aspects, I just don't like it being a requirement like eero). Whichever I give to my mom, I will be able to manage it from my house. So, as long as her internet is up, I can make sure things are working. That's very nice.
Except for the Sonos blip this morning, eero has been pretty solid. And its app is better than google's in terms of ease of use and features (though possibly not for long). In the real world, for most people, this system will be fine. It's getting more speed than most people's internet connection. I'm going to run it with constant sonos for a day or two, and then switch to google wifi for a few days.
Right now, either system is looking "good enough". I see why so many reviews are basically "google because it's cheaper". There's no clear winner except in price. There are still some issues I haven't tried. I know wifi calling on eero (if your iphone/service support it) has been reported as problematic on the new firmware. Fortunately, I have great cell signal, so that's not a huge issue for me.
Hey Netgear, get orbi working so I can stop this nonsense and get my mom and myself functioning orbi.
eero is now routinely pushing 170mbps everywhere in my house! This is what I get wired. So, it's working very well. I think eero's "truemesh" update may really take a bit of time to figure out your network. My eeros are all within range of each other. And I think my traffic was originally double hopping to get back and forth. Eventually the eero units figured this out and optimized my traffic into more of a star topology (like orbi always is). And bam, suddenly I have good internet everywhere. That's my theory given I had iffy performance to start with. I'm going to ask eero about it.
Google wifi continues to be stable and reasonably fast. But I haven't seen it get the above speeds. I wouldn't be surprised if it is suffering from the double hop issue and simply does that faster than eero (it's hardware should be significantly faster than eero in raw performance). If true, this will be a better option for my mom's house as it will require a string of devices to cover everything instead of a cluster. It also has stronger antennae's which will also cope with my mom's house better.
On another note, I love wiring one sonos device. Switching between eero and google with a wired Sonos is seemless. Just pop the sonos connect cable into eero or google satellite I want to use and it comes back up. Awesome.
Anyway, unless eero starts biting the dust in weird ways, it's going to win this round. Will keep going!
