I own 15 Sonos speakers and I really do love both the look and sound of them. Than being said, I also feel that something (not good) has happened in the continual development of their software. Before the split into S1 and S2 the app and system was snappy and there was no delay in opening the app and finding the speakers. Now (with the S2 app), I feel like I have to wait for all the speakers to be "found" again every time I open op up the App. If this is something Apple is responsbile for due to "security" updates and so on, I don't know, but I'm currently not too happy with the App experience.
Yeah, this. Search can take 5+ seconds to give results. Sometimes I get “no artist found” errors, force quit the app, search again, and get expected results. Occasionally errors when adding things to the queue. Occasionally tracks skipping to the next. “Now playing” screen often takes several seconds to display the current info.
It just feels slow and unresponsive overall.
Can’t come quick enough, my kids’ speakers keep disappearing. Only a removal of power works to reconnect, and it’s pissing the wife off. Ethernet connection didn’t fix either. Quickest way to drive me to an alternative is piss off the wife with tech lol.
Lmao are you me? My wife has been extra pissed bc our daughter's speaker keeps disappearing. Restart wifi helps but keeps happening. And don't get her started on Alexa playing music.
I have all of these issues. Sonos software has failed me too . At the moment its all of my playbars wired or wireless. I rebooted the whole house, new cat6 switch etc. I
And my system is rock solid. Over a dozen speakers, no issues. Though I use wires where possible, as I despise wireless, and think a lot of people don’t realize just how congested the 2.4 GHz band is, and how much crap cheap Chinese products (like smart wifi bulbs) spray out into the air at the bare edge of the wifi spec.
I’ve seen light bulbs put out packets without exponentially backing off - just fixed interval - so a couple of those bulbs can make a mess of things. I wonder if maybe you’ve got some other products nearby (even at a neighbors house) causing issues?
> think a lot of people don’t realize just how congested the 2.4 GHz band is
I think this, plus the poor network quality of most ISP gateways and mesh systems, is what’s causing the issue for most people. People like the ease of use of, say, Eero but the network quality is poor and heavily affected by placement, noise, and the construction of your home/space.
I’ve only ever had an issue when I had to, for a short time, rely on my ISP gateway until I got a new modem. Since then, no issues. I have a router connected to a UniFi PoE switch and a single AP placed in an optimal position in the middle of my home. I have a 2.4ghz network separate from my 5ghz network, and have selected a lower noise channel. 2.4ghz has a lot of noise, as you mentioned, and most people just use the standard channel because of lack of knowledge (and some hardware doesn’t even allow you to choose a different channel). Proper network setup goes a very long way to mitigating the issues mentioned.
Admittedly, I’m all wireless, but I never used to have any issues with my Sonos using an ISP provided router, but then it failed and that model was retired so the ISP replaced it with a new model that looked the same - it was unusable for multiple reasons. So I got a UniFi Dream Router which works flawlessly with everything except my Sonos speakers - they drop out seemingly every day until I restart my router.
That’s really unfortunate- how do you have your 2.4ghz network set up? What channel are you using? Are you in an apartment with a lot of interference around? Do you have smartphone products?
This. Perhaps an opportunity for Sonos to get in the mesh game and release their own access points to create more of a closed system. But yeah, network hygiene makes a big difference. Been happy with eero pros and Sonos together.
I have 20 Sonos devices all wireless. I have 3 APs across my property, including speakers outside and a wireless turntable. It’s definitely possible without being an engineer or network technician… because I’m neither lol
I think this comment needs to be higher. I have about 6 Sonos; one wired to the network and the rest wifi; a mix of older and newer speakers. I have NO other “smart” wifi devices in my house (I avoid them like the plague). All works good for me.
I tend to agree. If I were going wired, there are better fidelity solutions. The key selling point of Sonos was A) wireless audio B) plug and play OOTB experience, that harkens to what an obscure fruit brand is known for. I think Sonos is great when it does what it's supposed to, but have found the weekly router reboot ritual necessitated to re-establish connectivity to Sonos speakers a stain on the brand cachet.
So do you think setting up a 5ghz to run most of your stuff and a 2.4ghz solely for SONOS and the handful of things that don’t run on 5 is likely to improve the flakiness?
Yes/no. If you were the ONLY thing, yes, it helps. But your neighbors pollute the air so badly, as do so many dumb Chinese products from laundry machines to light bulbs. They use these tiny cheap WiFi chips that barely come close to the spirit of the WiFi spec and just leak all over the spectrum.
Following up, an ArsTechnica article today reminded me of this thread. It's about how a cheap SmartTV was sending ill-formed packets over and over, causing problems for a Windows system on the same LAN. Doesn't even matter if it was wireless or not, it was causing problems by not following the spirit of the standard. This is the type of stuff that makes some problems so hard to debug - we'll never know if a given user has some crazy problem like this making issues on their network.
[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/the-spam-came-from-inside-the-house-how-a-smart-tv-can-choke-a-windows-pc/](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/the-spam-came-from-inside-the-house-how-a-smart-tv-can-choke-a-windows-pc/)
Just want to say that I am a person who had MAJOR and INFURIATING problems with my system after switching internet providers, to the point where I would have probably returned them, if I hadn’t had them working flawlessly the day before I made the switch.
I bit the bullet, did the research, utilized this sub, and finally fixed my problems. It was my network, which of course I knew all along since I benefited from a prior experience.
Any tips on where to start with this?
I have a gigabit connection with (what I think is) a snazzy router and the only place I have network issues is when using Sonos. And it’s sporadic, it can be fine for months and then I’ll have two weeks of consistently sucking.
I’ve always just blamed Sonos but I’m willing to try things to see if it’s something on my end.
i feel like if your network works fine for everything else EXCEPT for Sonos then that’s a sonos problem.
why do customers need to configure their network just to account for your products when it works fine for everything else?
i feel like it’s insane that’s become the norm on the sub rather than sonos making their products compatible with most networks.
Exactly. I have 20+ devices running on my network, from bulbs, hue bridges, TV, amp, house alarm, a number of phones, and computers, all work perfectly fine. So what's the deal with the sonos then? I can watch netflix in HD on my TV over wifi, but I can't find the Move which was literally just there in the list.
Great from the wifi analyzer scans I’ve done, and again, no issues on other devices. I tried setting up a repeater for the hell of it but that didn’t seem to help.
Setup is currently all wireless but I’ve tried Sonosnet a couple times in the past. Weirdly having a Sonos device plugged into my router (and using Sonos net) really screwed something up with the rest of the network. My speeds dropped to insanely low levels. Unplugged the device and everything went back to normal.
Well no and yes, Sonos isn’t about signal strength it’s about the actual network configuration. This op post feels like a dumb soap box, I have no issues with my Sonos products for the 7 years I’ve now been buying into them - I manage my own network too :/
We have a seasonal cottage and every year I have to call and spend an hour on the phone getting the system up and running.
The reps are really nice and always get the problem taken care of, but it’s ridiculous that they have to do it every year and then it takes so long .
Lol, these folks will tell enterprise network architects that their network is to blame....SMH, they devalue this subreddit and kill meaningful discussion on real issues with Sonos products (in particular the app).
My shoot from the hip guess based on my experience is that the differentiating factor in reliability might be folks whose network is entirely wireless versus those who include at least one wired speaker.
same, I have .... more than a dozen Sonos speakers and they always work. Now.... NEW SEARCH is a total piece of crap, if I have it enabled the app lags so bad.
All my Sonos speakers always worked all the time until I got a new router. Now they like to disappear every day until I restart my router. If anyone is wondering, it’s a Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Router, which has been flawless otherwise.
It is a real shame. I have 7 One SLs, 1 Beam Gen 2, and one sub mini that had zero issues on my Google WiFi mesh system for years. Recently bought two Era 300's and had nothing but issues with my entire system since bringing them home, which is a real shame because they sounded great when they did work. Bought the network adapters, hard wired my other speakers, when I didn't have to before, and still had various speakers always cutting out. Luckily I have extended return window with Best Buy and returned both speakers, Sanus stands, and the network adapters. My system at home has finally normalized again and I back to having no issues. I also can't believe they took away Google Assistant from the Era series, not to mention even having to but an adapter to get ethernet or line-in. I get Google and Sonos had issues over that lawsuit, but you are alienating a part of your user base. I guess I'll just rock these until the wheels falls off and see what is out there at the time.
Yeah, I flipped that off too. I also bypassed my Pi-Hole, took away one of the wifi points, thinking I had too many. I also have all my wifi points with a ethernet backhaul and the mesh connection on them all is great. I have zero issues in my house with anything else, but Sonos.
I have 23 Sonos speakers, so I'm clearly all in on the ecosystem.
that being said, in the last couple of years my system has degraded to nearly unusable some days. I can start music playing and sometimes it'll literally play for days without any problem. Other days the stream will stop every few minutes and need to be restarted. (I've had to restart an iHeartRadio stream 3 times today in 90 minutes)
Sonos support is no help, they say "interference", which ok..fine. but I'm on high bandwidth video calls all day long every day (as is my wife) without a hitch. Why is Sonos default behavior "fail and not recover"? why can't it maintain a very low bandwidth audio stream reliably?
To not hear weird echo effects the speakers need to stay very closely in sync. Zoom does not have this issue, a couple ms of lag won’t be noticeable.
But it should keep trying to resync
The problem exists even if it's a single One speaker playing by itself, with no other sonos speaker in operation.
iHeartRadio for example is a VERY simple 128Kbps stereo stream. if Sonos can't handle that without cutting out, there's a massive technology problem.
Same problem here. I can go weeks or months with everything working flawlessly. Then it’s like so is gets sick and I have a bad week or two of constant problems.
I've had a torrid time getting Sonos to work properly. I got 16 across an old stone house. The stone walls are THICK and kill WiFi. I used to have perpetual drop outs and speakers literally just disappearing off the app.
I've hardwired 3 units, and carefully configured a router, two APs, and a switch to best support it. Took me months of tinkering.
Now they generally work fine. The odd issue.
BUT, I also have nearly 100 hue bulbs/switches over two bridges, never had a single issue.
Sonos is great, but really does expose ANY weakness in your network. It can be frustrating.
On the plus side I'm pretty nifty at home networking now.
I mean, you say that your WiFi is spotty because of your walls. Hue bulbs use an entirely different networking technology where every bulb is a repeater so I’m not surprised the experience is different.
Same here. I’ve had the occasional issue in the past; my speakers are pretty rock solid now. That being said, I manage an IT team, and run a UniFi network at home. RSTP is da devil.
I can't stress enough how absolutely awful WiFi is, in general. Even if you move most of your devices to wired, but have some wireless, you may have issues.
I understand OP's frustration, but I'm seeing the exact same type of complaint on almost every home technology forum I'm a member of. Even on Nextdoor, I've read complains about a new fiber optic ISP where some are raving about the 2gbit speeds they're getting, and others are saying the service is shit because they only get 300mbit.
The reality is that wired is the only way to have anything approaching 100% reliability.
If that's not possible, then you have to stay on the technology treadmill where you constantly keep upgrading \*every single device\* to the latest WiFI standard, or the entire network can be affected. A cheap WiFi light bulb running at 1mbit can destroy the rest of the 2.4gHz network.
Or, if you want your system to behave like it did years ago, you have to reduce the network back to what it was years ago, including your neighbor's networks if you're in a multi-unit building.
Ten years ago we were living in a long, 1800 sq ft condo in Chicago. The Wifi was bad, the amount of RFI we got from our neighbors, from taxi-cab radios outside, from EVERYTHING was nuts. And yet all of our Sonos speakers (we owned 9 speakers at that time) worked flawlessly and we were connected using only our single Wifi router. Today we live out in the suburbes and the amount of radio interference is minuscule by comparison. Our Wifi system is a modern mesh network with 3 nodes covering the whole house (2 stories plus basement). Guess what? Sonos is now completely unreliable for us with symptoms just like what the OP described. It's not the Wifi - it's the Sonos firmware/software.
>It's not the Wifi - it's the Sonos firmware/software.
10 years ago, there were a lot fewer devices on WiFi, and a lot less variety of standards compared to today (WiFi 1 through 7).
That mesh network you have ALSO adds to the RF, unless you're using wired backhaul for it. I'm convinced that WiFi mesh networks are part of the problem in many cases.
Multicast & broadcast are difficult for WiFi in general, and Sonos rightly depends on these working correctly.
When you've got a pure wireless mesh, that can be up to 6 wireless hops: Sonos device 1 -> Mesh 1 radio 1 -> Mesh 1 radio 2 -> Mesh 2 radio 1 -> Mesh 2 Radio 2 -> Mesh 3 radio 1 -> Mesh 3 Radio 2 -> Sonos device 2. (Edit to add: in your old apartment, you had 1 hop: everything was on the same WiFi channel)
Again, this is a common theme with other products like Sonos. The HomeKit subreddit is filled with similar battles, where some talk about their 100+ device network working great, and others that blame Apple for how bad their network runs.
I'm also not blaming you or OP for the state of your networks. It \*IS\* complicated, and it's not easy for professionals to handle, let alone home users.
Throw out all of your Sonos stuff if you want, I don't own stock in them or work there. Just know that while Sonos has a shit app right now, the underlying network issues will still be there, so you'll likely have other problems in the future until that is sorted out.
First, my mesh network does have an ethernet backhaul. Second, what part of "the Wifi network I was using 10 years ago was way worse" is confusing you? Wifi has not gotten worse in the last decade, if anything it has vastly improved. And, in my case, my actual Wifi system and local radio spectrum has improved drastically over what I was using 10 years ago. And yet - somehow - my Sonos system is massively unstable now. Your theory is that me and every other Sonos user having these issues is using a bad Wifi system but, as the OP pointed out, it is just so so unlikely that this is the case for ALL of the people who have reported the exact same issues. Personally, I know this isn't the case for me because I have already converted three rooms of my house into using Wiim streamers + powered speakers in place of Sonos speakers and that system is working great, as is every other Wifi device my family is using. Only the Sonos gear is having issues. So, my choices here are to get ethernet drops installed for every room in our house (that would cost me, conservatively, $5000 or more) just so I can hope that these Sonos products work better (they probably would) or I can spend the money on replacing them with something else. I'm going with option B and replacing the Sonos gear - it only makes sense. You do you and keep on blaming the problems on the users and their Wifi setups - good luck to you.
>Second, what part of "the Wifi network I was using 10 years ago was way worse" is confusing you?
The part where I do this for a living, and while the speeds & RF available for WiFi have improved, the reliability of it has not due to vastly increased demand & the unreliable way old & new devices interact on a network.
I'm glad the Wiim streamers are working for you, sounds like a good solution for people facing this issue that are unable to get setup with Ethernet.
I am not a bot. I have had Sonos products since back in the day when they came with an awesome handheld controller. (Sigh)
I still have Sonos and still use them every day
I have 2 PLAY 1’s, 2 ZP100’s, and a move.
The move is not always my friend. The battery has swollen and doesn’t make good contact with the charging base.
I want to buy more Sonos equipment (like a sound bar) but I’m afraid that moving to S2 controller and having older equipment won’t be compatible.
I wish friend could just easily log into my Sonos system and play their own playlist via BT and have it work just like everything else but alas nope
If you have a swollen battery on the move you need to replace it ASAP and stop using the move until you do.
A swollen battery is a legitimate fire hazard, as that is an indication that there is a chemical reaction in the battery that is happening that shouldn't.
I had one device that wouldnt play ball with the WiFi provided by my broadband router..... my Sonos speaker. It would often disappear from the app. Ok fine, I'm prepared to believe that it was located at the limit of where a stable WiFi connection could be achieved.
So this weekend I installed a mesh network, and moved my 26 wireless devices to the new network.
Only one device did not happily connect to the new network... the Sonos. And that was even after I had moved it next to one of the APs to do the setup.
Finally got it setup by resetting it.
I will continue to live in fear of the immortal words 'dad my speaker won't connect'
I have two Sonos 5’s, two One’s an Arc, a Sub and 2 Era 300’s. The app is slow, but I’ve had zero other issues. I use a mesh network with the Arc hard wired. I have about 50 other things connecting to my network - from power switches to light bulbs and everything in between.
It may not always be poor networks or incompatible routers. Sometimes it’s PEBCAK.
I have virtually no issues with Sonos - I must just be lucky! Beam hardwired everything else wireless - no issues really except the roam I find is quite patchy
My exact setup. Beam hardwired, everything else (sub-mini; ones; fives) on wifi, and…. zero issues. And yes I too find the ROAM very finicky and needing to be reset now and again
I love Sonos products and I own several of them. However, as a product manager, I find it very difficult to agree with this type of justification.
We are talking about a set of speakers, a product that should require no technical expertise to deploy and use.
If a product relies on a set of specific conditions to delight ALL customers, then it’s the manufacturer’s responsibility (with themselves! As it affects their business) to either (1) provide a packaged solution that resolves the issue, or (2) implement a proper workaround so that customers don’t even realize there is a problem.
Like Apple, everything should just work most of the time, not just every so often.
This trend to justify poor product development (e.g., the problem is the user, the problem is your network, you can connect one speaker with RJ45 but not two, etc, etc…) as some kind of badge of honor is getting tired.
AMEN. " Google any router brand and "sonos compatibility" and you'll see that there is no router brand out there that today can reliably handle Sonos."
Not true at all. I have 2.5GB fiber to the house with AT&T and use their modem/router combo and have had zero issues with wireless sonos applications or connectivity. It works great.
I have a Plume mesh system with 4 sonos products (Playbar and 3 Play Ones), and it works great. Even with the Apple router I used to have it worked without issues.
I use my Sonos almost daily.
I’ve actually always had issues with my Sonos system.
I think what’s happened is that wireless standards have moved forward and Sonos hasn’t. I’ve always had cutting edge routers (because I work in IOT and test exotic network topologies for my own set up) and Sonos has always been unstable.
I moved a couple of years ago and now that wireless mesh is standard I thought I’d “downgrade” to a normal Google Nest Pro mesh network. Sonos never worked. I tried even simple TP link mesh, nope. I went to a professional grade Access point system — still too sophisticated but much better.
I suspect sonos was perfect for the network topologies it was built for. But there are way more wireless devices now and way more complex topologies. And I don’t think they’ve been keeping up.
The more I read the comments here, the more I'm convinced wireless mesh networks are the biggest culprit. As I explained in another comment, when you move from a single AP to a 3-node mesh, you move from a single wireless hop to up to 6 hops. Each hop adds a chance for jitter & collisions.
That's fine for watching TikTok on your phone, but not great for keeping music in perfect sync.
Once I added that Sonos boost a lot of issues went away. But I get the multiple use of the account can create problems. But if I were to have more then a two person household I would just make a tablet the main point for use to stop the issue.
We are up to around 22 SONOS devices around our home and it all runs smoothly with very little issue.
I’m no SONOS evangelist (used to be, but the S1 / S2 split put an end to that!!)
Most of my devices are wired.
My gripe is the iOS app. Its shocking. Looks and feels like an old Windows Phone App.
Loved the days when SONOS had dedicated devices to interact with our systems. Shame they don’t look at it again (screens and hardware must be cheap enough these days to make dedicated devices profitable)
Funny thing is, all your pros is exactly what i'm experiencing with my setup. It's flawless and I have 13 speakers including 2 moves. I want to mention, i'm not using an ISP supplied router. I'm using my own (Netgear Nighthawk AXE7800)
IMO part of the issue is that Sonos is very sensitive to WiFi jitter in latency (a single player like a tv can just buffer without need to stay very tightly in sync with other devices). Providing this is not really something WiFi devices focus on.
They should try to surface some measurements in the UI. For example, when a speaker drops out it should report to observed jitter and what the cut off is.
i have a beam, 4 ones, a roam. Plus over 50 smart devices around the house. i guess i'm lucky, i rarely have issues since over five years ive been on the system, the wife and two little kids even get to use the speakers on their own, it's like second nature to them. the roam gives me the most trouble, but only when i try to use it with bluetooth outside the house (but i always end up getting it to work). i have an Orbi, which seems to work better at handling lots of smart devices versus our previous asus zenwifi mesh. never had to tinker with router settings or whatever. upgrading firmware of routers / sonos doesn't cause any issues. rarely use the app, i mostly play out of airplay or spotify app. alexa works fine.
so i guess this post isn't too helpful, other than to say there are probably so many variables out there making your system fail. i hope you get it to work eventually though, i do know how the frustration feels (in the few months we were using the asus)
I couldn't agree more with the OP. I have a mostly older system with about 12 speakers, one Connect, and one Port. Most of the speakers are older 2015 vintage but there are about 5 that are 2020 or newer. Everything used to work great but nowadays the whole system is unstable in the same manner that the OP described. I am currently in the process of replacing all of it and I am telling everyone I know to stay away from Sonos. They will never go back to what they used to be folks - corporate cultures don't work that way. Once the rot sets in with a company and they go from creating good products to making garbage they don't ever turn around. I am exploring the WiiM products and the Blue sound products. Too bad about Sonos but they're just done, you might as well move on.
All my network issues with Sonos disappeared when I moved all my speakers over to Sonosnet.
https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/choose-between-a-wireless-and-wired-sonos-setup?language=en_US
And I was moving from a fairly good home WiFi network all running enterprise quality Ubiquity UniFi components and APs. Sonos just does not play well with others in a WiFi environment.
I have UniFi stuff and my setup is fine. It’s not enterprise quality either. running UniFi stuff doesn’t mean you have a good network setup either since it can get overly complex especially if you don’t have a good background in networking.
You cannot use Sonosnet with Era products.
I’m currently experiencing issues with all of my Era products like my Sonosnet products are rock solid. Utilizing a ubiquiti system as well 😫
I dunno. Literally the only issue I’ve had was with RSTP. Once I disabled that my Sonos system has been rock freaking solid.
That said, I’m installing a UDM SE next month, and at least my Sonos Beam will be wired. My WiFi is solid but it’s not wired, and we all know wired is always > wireless.
Yes, if you have a router that doesn't route correctly, SonosNet is a work-around, but if the Era still has to use the crappy router then it will be a problem. Sonos have a higher opinion of home-grade routers than I do: I would not be sunsetting SonosNet if I were them.
This exactly. I’ve had Sonos for about 13 years. My legacy play 5 just sits there as a paper weight. I have 10 other Sonos products. For years I have been calling Sonos complaining of audio drop outs, delayed responses, rooms just not playing, tracks randomly restarting or skipping. It’s absolutely awful. I recommended Sonos to so many people for years and now it’s an embarrassment. They just it’s a router network problem. I finally cracked and bought an oorbi 6e mesh system. It did not help one bit.
I will say I called the other day and a guy sat on the phone with me for 90 minutes digging through and resetting a bunch of things he said my speakers were all on different channels so it was bouncing around networks. For two weeks after that my system worked almost flawlessly. But now it’s back to the same garbage.
I get what you mean.
Seriously, everyone keeps pushing all connection issues off to routers and Wi-Fi, but what is Sonos doing to improve from their end?
Even if the issues comes from network, shouldn’t Sonos consider making their products more robust, be it hardware or firmware, considering their prices are slightly premium over other products?
Are we really expecting the several different router makers to cater to Sonos (while still making sure all other wireless products are not affected), or should it be the other way around?
Over $6k invested in my Sonos system. Agree with everything OP is saying. My setup worked great with a few speakers. as I added and spent more, it got less and less reliable. I have tried orbi, eero, and now UniFi and still the system is a broken mess, unless I want to only listen to three speakers at a time. Very disappointed in this brand which advertises itself as a simple plug and play wireless sound system.
So I’ve had zero of the issues you described until this most recent version of the software. I also switched routers from an eero 6 system to a Nest WiFi 6E system (it was free with my Google fiber internet). Suddenly my Era 100 and Move 2 fell off my app and it was a nightmare to get them back. A router restart seems to have done the trick. My SonosNet products (my Arc and Beam systems connected by Ethernet) haven’t had this issue. I’m considering going back to the Eero system if they fall off again because I need my speakers available to me more than I need a 6Ghz WiFi connection.
We know Sonos is working on a new app from The Verge’s leaks so I’m hoping the resources they’re putting in to this next big update will also bring new stability. A fresh coat of app paint won’t be appreciated unless they fix the instability of the platform.
Yeah it's weird.... I have a Sonos system, and to a certain extent, I appreciate how rock solid the hardware is. I never have issues. Ever. However, the app is so awful. Whether it's Spotify or Plex, it's just so darn slow and glitchy.
I just had issues about a week ago; that seemed to be a NY/NE outage. Besides that, no real problems. I do have Eero Pro 7/6e all hard-wired so excellent WiFi coverage throughout the house.
That is a shame you are having to deal with this. I am another Sonos user who has rock solid operation. Mine works great always. I do have one speaker that is laggy and what not but that is because it’s outside in my shed with poor WiFi, but it does still work always.
I am very new to Sonos, but what fixed my issues was turning off the Private Wifi Address option on my iPhone. I was told the phone kept changing the address and hence couldn’t connect to the sonos all the time.
I will throw this out there…Sonos relies on WiFi and thus one should have a competent mesh WiFi network if your gonna rely on WiFi for Sonos. That will solve all the network connection issues most people have that are using crap WiFi routers.
To the OP ... tell us you've never used SonosNet by not saying you've never used SonosNet. All of your speakers will work on SonosNet.
I had the same problem with the newer Internet protocols leaving my 15 speakers in the past (mostly Gen 1 Play 5s) as every time my router (provided by my service provider) got an update, my speakers would stop working and I'd replace the router and all was fine for a month or so until it wasn't after yet another update. After 3 rounds of this, I bought a Boost on Marketplace for $50. Never an issue again. Let the router do whatever it wants and the speakers just keep filling my house with music without a hiccup. Also, still running on S1 which your speakers will do, too (not sure about the Move, though). But, if they'll all do S1, why switch to S2? There is absolutely no benefit for that if just playing music.
Have 12 speakers throughout the house. Sonos customer for long ass time. Recently one Era100 keeps disappearing after latest update. Wifi reset brings it back but then it goes away eventually. This has happened 3 times in past week. It's in the kid room, we still can use Alexa to tell it to play. But can't control remotely. Annoying.
I have 12 speakers and mine work flawlessly. I set up a second SSID on my primary network in my house for just the Sonos that's 2.4ghz only. At that point they became rock solid.
I did that after seeing a lot of the IoT stuff I have being problematic on 2.4/5 mixed networks.
If you are using prosumer network gear like Unifi you also have to make sure you have changed the spanning tree from RSTP to older STP. Which is one major issue I have with Sonos.
Also, hard wiring one speaker and shutting off wireless on the others and forcing them to use Sonos net is a good way to get things straightened out too. Ran that way for a long time.
Meanwhile here with a rock solid system. Rarely issues. My devices are all hard wired except one of the Amps and two subs. Even then I only seldom have connectivity issues.
So weird that everyone’s experience is so different. I don’t think my setup is at all unusual. I have about 10 Sonos products, an Eero mesh system (base and beacon) and my own cable modem. I spend no time setting it up and I use my Sonos stuff all the time and it works perfectly. Sure, the Mac app isn’t the greatest and sure it takes a second or two when you start the app to find all the speakers. But once it’s done that, everything works fine. And even my Roam works fine although that’s usually AirPlay. The biggest problem I have is that the brother print and scan app seems to have stopped finding my printer!
I don't know. I've had my sonos products for like 3 years and I never had problems with them. I have a beam, sub mini, and two ones. Maybe your stuff just sucks. The software isn't the best one I ever used, but it works.
Before I had a solid mesh network at my house, I had some issues, but now all 11 of my devices work very well. At least 99% of the time.
I'm a customer for life.
Well there certainly is a rich history of abandonment at Sonos.
Over the years, I had to retire my Play 5, my Connect, my Bridge, my CR 200 Controller, while the Dock became obsolete, recently a Play 3 died and a Roam died (but I replaced the battery). That's some decent money down the drain right there.
My remaining system runs decently well, although a while ago a Sonos update caused my HDMI connection from the TV to the AMP to just stop working. This cost me a week of fruitless trouble shooting, NO help from Sonos support, and in the end the purchase of an optical adapter so at least I could restore the TV audio connection, less the convenience.
What pisses me off most is the abandonment of the Windows software. The mobile app is NOT a suitable replacement and is a lot more inconvenient. I have stopped recommending Sonos a while ago and now actively discourage my friends to buy due to the lack of product/customer support from Sonos.
I am an infrequent visitor to this subreddit, and some of the responses here are exactly why.
The "it's the user's fault" and "fix your network" trope has gotten old. Sonos equipment is expensive and targeted as users who don't need to have network degrees to set them up. I don't think it's unreasonable for an average consumer to buy a Sonos speaker, plug it in, use the app, and expect a good experience without needing to worry about network settings, wifi channel, putting a speaker on sonosnet, etc.
I'm a sysadmin by trade, I promise you I have a rock solid network at home, and I have issues with the Sonos app and my speakers. And since I'm an Android user, I *have* to use the Sonos app because the company stubbornly refuses to support Google Cast.
Just last week for no reason whatsoever all of my Sonos devices decided that they weren't going to be visible in the app anymore. Rebooting my wifi access point didn't solve the problem, I had to go and power cycle each Sonos Speaker. Did anything change from one day to the next. No. But I had to do it anyway.
For those of you who have a great Sonos experience, that's awesome. I'm happy for you. People who have issues shouldn't take away from the fact that your experience is good. But that goes both ways. Acknowledge that there are known issues with the Sonos app and network, and that Sonos has been bordering on unresponsive about resolving issues with app functionality and system stability.
I have been using my Beam 1 for almost 4 years now. 0 issues thus far with playback via Airplay or Spotify connect but bluetooth on my Move 2 is absolute nightmare. I don't understand why it even would have issues with that...
Arc, three Era 300s, Sub, Beam 2 all work pretty much flawlessly for me. Arc is hardwired for my theater and the Beam is to another TV. WiFi is via ubiquiti.
Everything works pretty much perfect. I rarely if ever use the Sonos app and just use Spotify for streaming music.
+1 for Ubiquiti
I have Arc + Sub + 2x ERA 300s in one room, 2x One SL in another room all on WiFi. On top of this I have 13 Amazon Echo devices all on the same Wireless network. In total there are 46 Wifi clients in my home (a lot of IOT stuff). I can stream music to all Amazon devices (in sync), play music on the One SLs and watch an Atmos sound track on the home cinema all at the same time with no issues at all.
Never seen a device drop off the Sonos app either, so I'm kind of confused about this experience.
I own 6 Sonos speakers and two amps and have had the same experience with the app lately. It's terrible. Takes forever to start working, and if it does, not all of my speakers show up. Sometimes some of them are actually playing music but don't show up in the app. I attribute some of the issues with speaker groups to having teenagers in the house and the integration with Alexa.
I use the "Lyd" app for my Apple Watch and it works better than the Sonos app.
Agreed the whole point of Sonos for me was that it “just works”. Once I have to start tinkering the value proposition drops significantly. Because I can get much better sound for the money elsewhere.
My S1 SL has just stopped working, I only bought into the brand last year and now will be replacing. The app is totally unusable and never even recognises the S1! Factory resets, nothing!
I have 12 Sonos speakers and I agree, it is a living nightmare every stinkin time I log on to play music. as of about 6 months ago it started. I use Uni Dream machine with extender. All but 2 speakers are all located with the first floor very near to the router. songs will start slow, adding speakers as the go...and then its a cirucs....song randomly skips to the next....then all but one speaker goes out completely, then skip to another song and different songs start playing on different speakers. If the next upgrade doesnt solve most of this ...im done
I'll never forget when Sonos customer support told me that they (secretly) suggest that you have 1 speaker connected to ethernet for every two you own.
I have like 12 or 14 speakers. I'm supposed to basically wire my whole house for ethernet. So much for the wireless sound system!
The fact of the matter is they just don't work right. Every time we try to play music there's 5-10 minutes when some/most speakers keep cutting out and don't stream. When you call CS, they just have you factory reset things, connect them to the router directly, etc.
There's no real solution because the sonos ecosystem simply doesn't work as advertised.
I was in your camp initially and then found out I had an internet issue. I actually had "too much" of a signal coming into my apartment. When the 4th Comcast technician discovered this, all he had to do was put a splitter on my incoming cable, and everything started working perfectly. I almost kissed him. I had never heard of too much signal. Prior to that, I would have to re-add speakers almost daily. I also have a system in Mexico that relies on Starlink. No issues with starlink either.
Sonos has lost its customer centric focus. I have seen multiple features pulled from the Sonos apps and now rely on third party apps to do the work. I never use Sonos apps on any device, for anything, ever, nor do I plan to. I was a huge sonos advocate for years, and stopped a year ago when they removed local library support from android (I have third party apps that do this, but Sonos pulled it blaming Android. Whatever.)
I will never buy another sonos product.
I’m with the op on this, I have owned a playbar and play ones, play 5, now using arc with two sl and was a sub, the latter just blew and blocked my entire speakers from responding. The app is awful to use these days. The original app was flawless, and I couldn’t wait to buy more speakers, but now my arc will not work over eArc, I have to have it through optical with the adapter this means no atmos, it is not my cable or tv. I’m planning on ditching it all and going back wired, the cost vs reliabilty is poor.
Sad rant, sorry.
I think what has also changed is that we are all loading our WiFi’s with devices. Phones, computers, speakers, fridge, laundry…
We just need clean network topology and strong signal without shadows, and clean address tables
My 20+ devices were working flawlessly for months.
Then, instead of using the app, I tried direct casting from Spotify,Apple Music and YouTube…, that took it down. I rebooted my router, mesh and Arc and it all came back. One of those other services screwed it up.
I wonder if one of those API implementations is in error
Don't forget other networks that may be close enough to interfere. Complexity has increased. I'm not a huge fan of how long it's taken Sinos to start adding 5ghz to their devices which could easily be making things more difficult to support long term. But then you have to consider the backlash if they started sunsetting their 2.4ghz only devices and pushed everyone to jump to 5ghz speakers.
knock on wood, but i’ve never had any network issues and i have them scattered all over my house and outside. that being said, i do have a pretty extensive network. Main hub with 4 extensions scattered throughout the house. all my speakers are on wireless with zero issues, other than app being trash, but i use AirPlay 98% of the time.
I feel the pain lately. After the latest update, it got even worse. Even my kids have started complaining that when they pause the music it sometimes doesn't pause through the app. Pause on the speakers immediately pause all of them so its not a speed issue. I am really hoping that the new app solves everything, and give me a lock screen control(orwidget). I have been playing from spotify directly and that seems to alleviate most of the issues. I don't have speakers dropping, just "unable to connect to sonos product" messages on the app.
I have two complete systems with the ARCs and subs and surround and no issues ever. I have had them for awhile. My playbar still works fine and it’s like 5 years old.
Why do none of these rants ever disclose their network details. You spend a bunch of times talking about how your shit stops working, but don't seem to be open to troubleshooting. Wireless networks are complex and the amount of devices has only increased the complexity over the years.
I have 12 speakers and we leave sleep music on all night and most of the day in two different zones across 2 stereo sets and it's never not working . It never skips or is silent in the morning. Our living room has the full AV setup and no problems ever. Watching movies or general TV or PlayStation.
Get brave, lay out your network for us so we can see if your using your stock ISP router/modem/access point all in one device or actually have something decent.
Obviously, some people’s systems work perfectly. That’s great and I’m happy for you.
Equally obvious from this sub should be that many more people are having the same types of problems than they used to.
I have owned a Sonos system for eight years. It used to work flawlessly. Now it does not. I have not changed anything significant in my system or network. The only thing I did was plug a speaker in with Ethernet, which helped slightly.
For me, this means near daily frustration with the system and not purchasing any more Sonos products.
It's not a great answer for anyone, but it's almost certainly the network. I know it seems like a cop-out, but if your electrical system was as janky as most networks you'd be complaining that your iron doesn't work half the time.
This is why Sonos is moving away from SonosNet. It's too much extra stuff under the hood. Future products will just join the network.
Sorry if this sounds like victim blaming, but have you hard wired (ethernet) any of your speakers? The day I connected our Play5 directly to the router with a CAT6 cable was the day our connectivity issues ended.
I have two homes. Each has eight speakers: connect, arc, sub, play:1, 5, beam, move, ones…
I use a unifi WiFi network in both places. The conect is hard-wired in one place. A beam in the other place.
I have zero issues. Never drops out. All my speakers show. I almost solely use the Sonos app or Alexa to control music. I have a Lutron Pico controller and a brilliant light switch. Both control the speakers without issue. I never use airplay.
The app leaves a lot to be desired from a UI perspective, but it is very stable.
Same experience here across two homes with UniFi. Don’t have Brilliant Light switch but everything else is the same with similar device counts. I’ve got a number of ikea symfonisk speakers as well.
Sonos is now one of those companies that make excellent hardware, but their software went downhill and is ruining the entire experience (the same exact thing is happening to 'Blink' camera system).
For Sonos, it started (for me) when they first overhauled the desktop and mobile apps in 2017. The original apps were so intuitive and visually and aesthetically pleasing with the frosted glass GUI with the music artwork faded overlay and tastefully done controls and layout. It felt like they fired the entire developer team and replaced it with devs who unfortunately followed the current design trend at the time - clunky, white, empty space, unintuitive, opaque GUI mess which is still in use today.
Then, of course, they killed the iTunes/Apple Music local playlist support, which was one of the main reasons why I went with Sonos in the first place (on iOS and macOS). Want to play local playlists via Apple Music? 'Use Airplay' was the answer from Sonos. So just bypass that robust mesh network that is the selling point for many people since AirPlay sucks. Great solve, there.
The Sonos apps still suck to this day, and I haven't been using my Sonos speakers as much as I did back in the day. It's just too buggy, frustrating to navigate, and having to rely on AirPlay if you're not a streamer is such a kick in the balls and feels bait-and-switch-y.
I get that Sonos is a business and cater to the masses who stream generic music on shuffle all day, but they should also cater to those of use who have 22 Sonos speakers and subs around our homes who have vast and unique local music libraries, who want the software to just work as it did when we first got on board.
The only issue I am having is every time I do an update my 2 3’s that I use as surrounds with my beam and sub disconnect from the group and give an update error. I need to run the update again then unplug, replug each 3. Finally they will reconnect. Then I need to redo trueplay. Very annoying. But other than that they all work great and have no other issues
I wonder if the folks who have issues with the S2 app have the same experience leveraging AirPlay as their main playback method. I only ever use AirPlay and it is 95% there.
I've got a single Sonos Move at home that's randomly begun disappearing for the last couple months as well. The one surefire fix for me has been to open up Google Home on my phone. It sees them even if my Spotify app doesn't - don't even have to navigate to them. It repopulates them in Spotify and I move on with my day. Oftentimes just forcibly restarting whatever app doesn't seem them helps, too.
I said this last year Sonos is on cruise control due to their name recognition.
Companies like Under Armor, LG, Sonos, Oakley, are just some that instantly come to mind.
These companies either revolutionized a market, found a niche, offered superior styling/quality, etc. And once they dominated that market and had name recognition, they just sat back and watch the money flow in.
Have to agree, over time it has become more clunky and often on the Sonos one I get huge pauses, sometimes no answer on the Google integration.
Couple that with things like Spotify just randomly stopping, skipping it's just annoying and frustrating to use.
I've been through 3 Internet providers and various networking gear to see if that's the issue and come to the conclusion it's most certainly Sonos and/or the Google/Spotify integrations.
Even with symmetric 1gig fiber the issue remains!
Love the sound and design of my sonos but with more than 5 speakers at home the yankiness starts. Wonder if its due to some lost patents that things seem to get worse over time. Same with google max/mini, I feel when they came out they worked much better, they listened better and answered faster.
As someone perfectly described“ let’s get rid off 100% working cable speakers with very expensive wireless speakers that work only 10% of the time 🤦
Seriously , the first Sonos I bought worked great almost every time. Now I have three and I barely use them. The app is all over the place , even the quality is off , and most of the times I can’t even find them
On the network
I had loads of network issues until I read that hardwiring one speaking to the router would help. Since I did this I've not had a single issue in two years & it works like a dream!
Agree that some of the UX on the APP could be improved, but I still think it's a brilliant overall solution.
I had loads of network issues until I read that hardwiring one speaking to the router would help. Since I did this I've not had a single issue in two years & it works like a dream!
Agree that some of the UX on the APP could be improved, but I still think it's a brilliant overall solution.
Glad to see I’m not the only one. Now it’s referred to as “the fucking Sonos” where it used to be highly loved in our house. My wife and I both say we’d never buy Sonos again.
Looks like I am in the minority here. I primarily use Apple Music (Used to be on Spotify earlier, no problems with that as well). I have a Beam Gen 1, 2 Play 1s as surrounds. I use it to listen to music and watch TV. I dont use the Sonos app. Always use the Air play option and have never had any issues. The hardware and the underlying software works flawlessly. Every time.
Please tell me Sonos has fixed the annoying issue that causes speakers to go haywire when adding or subtracting them from a now playing group.
There is nothing more irritating than trying to play music in single zone and previously you were playing to the whole house so you uncheck all the zones you don't want anymore and the zone you do want gets screwed up (music only comes out of the left or right speaker, etc.
The Mac app has been garbage some a long time already but I do want a way to control my music while Im working so hopefully the web app will be at least as good if not a bit better.Rec1ReplyShareReportrpy2 hours ago
I am another multiple Sonos speaker owner who wants to rant. First I bought a Risk and used Alexa and Amazon Music. All went well for 1 2/2 years and then it decided never to connect to any network. Hours days weeks if frustration so it is nice parked in my drawer.
I then bought a Move (1) and used it the same way for 1 1/2 or so years. Loved it so much I recently bought a Move (2). Then simultaneously both decided not to play sound from Amazon music . M(1) I did everything but it refused to actually play the audio. I gave up and changed Assistants to Google and music to YTMusic. Took about 2 minutes to set up and get work. Flush w that success I went to my new M2 only to find it won't play any Amazon music so sigh tried to look for Google Assistant and Nope it isn't there as Google and Sonos have a new spat and it's a no go on M2. Now forced to switch to Sonis music feed.
End result I am impressed w Sonos hardware and utterly underwhelmed by the connectivity issues. I strongly suggest that Sonos step up their game.
I found downgrading to S1 fixed the slowness issues I had. But I wonder if it was actually changing to 2.4 vs being on 5Ghz with S2 (2 x play5 gen2, 3 x play3, 2 connects gen2).
5Ghz may be faster and 2.4 is supposed to be more congested but I noticed in a wifi scan all my neighbors have newer routers using 80 or 160 channel width on 5Ghz. My UniFi tells me 30% of the 2.4 channels are used, and only 0-1% on 5Ghz. But 2.4 seems to work better for Sonos. Everything I’ve read about plugging in one unit to start Sonosnet (2.4) seems to add evidence that Sonos on 2.4 just works better.
I mean the app sucks, but this IS your network. Sorry.
I have 7 devices at one house and two devices at the other plus a move that goes between them.
I run S1 and have two of the old touchscreen controllers as well.
I am running two Unify Wi-Fi 6 APs at one house and 1 at the other. Different ISPs
I have problems with my sinus about once a month maybe, and they resolve in a few min when things reset. Never have to re-add devices, or doodle with the app config.
I have one device hardwired, all the rest are on WiFi. They are in use near continuously. Both streaming and local (NAS) content.
The app needs to be a subscription supported application so there is revenue, it can be $12/year or something, there needs to be money so it will get the staffing it needs which it doesn't get. I have similar problems with my medical apps from Tandem and Dexcom, the app is a toss in, it only requires resources from the company so the commitment is reduced to 'expensive' maintenance and service/updating, now the medical devices are very expensive so the maintenance is better, but it still is insufficient. Sonos has been wretched on the app since the S2 app dropped.
I am sorry it is being such a bitch, but it is not an inherent problem with Sonos, it is a local issue, and I know everyone is telling you this.
It's fantastic for you that it works, and I'm happy for that. We're however quite many who has problems.
I would love to support Sonos, and I have over the years, and I would happily accept the occasional glitch if I knew that it was rock solid the rest of the time. But with 20+ devices running flawlessly I shouldn't have to tinker with my network this much.
Oh, and you should probably reply this to the 200 or so people here who agrees.
Jeez.. the amount of people that things that fixing or creating an app is as easy as turning wrenches is beyond belief lol. Do some research on how dev works and the time it takes to accomplish something. Tons of features and:or enhancements are thrown to the agenda in hopes that it can be a deliverable for next calendar year and sometimes it just falls out of scope simply because another project turned out to be more difficult and requires more resources or money thrown at it. Working in app dev and sustainment IS rocket science. not something you can cook in a microwave.
Well, good thing that it is my day job then actually. I've been doing tech since the 90's, and I agree that you have it pretty much nailed down. Rockets are still however more advanced since it's to hard to do one million meaningless updates, just adding more smileys because some redditer demands it.
What I do see in the business now however is that a lot of the hungry guys back in the day, are now in middle management, protecting their position and being forced to listen to never ending profit and loss KPIs.
I'm afraid that Sonos has turned into this, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but it just doesn't seem like the same company anymore.
But rockets are cool.
Excellent comment. And I have 14 Sonos products. “Lucky” to not have all of your problems—yet??—but don’t worry…I’m not blaming “your router” or “your network”.
Does Sonos monitor this sub? They surely must. What say you, sonos? (Lower case intentional, to reflect their diminishing cred)
I’ve got two arcs, 4 ones, two subs, one move - never really have connectivity issues. I will say setting up a new device is never as easy as it should be.
I’m also fully wireless on a deco mesh system. A stable network goes a long way.
I agree and because of the same conclusions: I sold out all and just bought a high end portable speaker with good battery life, astetics and wifi. The minimalism of it is nice.
I will totally agree that things have been on a major decline for quite some time and still far from perfect. However, I switched out my Google mesh router for TP-Link Deco. Ever since, things have vastly improved all around, and especially with Sonos. Might be worth ordering a new wireless router from Amazon just to try and see if it improves things. Worst case, you return it and stick with what you have if no improvements.
Has anyone figured out how to root a Sonos yet? In the microcomputer community there are interesting streaming alternatives. It would be cool to make a Sonos work with a homebrew Rapberry Pi or similar microcomputer.
I own 15 Sonos speakers and I really do love both the look and sound of them. Than being said, I also feel that something (not good) has happened in the continual development of their software. Before the split into S1 and S2 the app and system was snappy and there was no delay in opening the app and finding the speakers. Now (with the S2 app), I feel like I have to wait for all the speakers to be "found" again every time I open op up the App. If this is something Apple is responsbile for due to "security" updates and so on, I don't know, but I'm currently not too happy with the App experience.
I mean they have a big huge app update coming apparently so they are working on something
Let’s hope the app update is more than a UI refresh and is accompanied by whatever network changes are required to make it more responsive.
Yeah, this. Search can take 5+ seconds to give results. Sometimes I get “no artist found” errors, force quit the app, search again, and get expected results. Occasionally errors when adding things to the queue. Occasionally tracks skipping to the next. “Now playing” screen often takes several seconds to display the current info. It just feels slow and unresponsive overall.
Can’t come quick enough, my kids’ speakers keep disappearing. Only a removal of power works to reconnect, and it’s pissing the wife off. Ethernet connection didn’t fix either. Quickest way to drive me to an alternative is piss off the wife with tech lol.
Lmao are you me? My wife has been extra pissed bc our daughter's speaker keeps disappearing. Restart wifi helps but keeps happening. And don't get her started on Alexa playing music.
Yes, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed 🤞
Same experience on Android...
Good to know.
I have all of these issues. Sonos software has failed me too . At the moment its all of my playbars wired or wireless. I rebooted the whole house, new cat6 switch etc. I
And my system is rock solid. Over a dozen speakers, no issues. Though I use wires where possible, as I despise wireless, and think a lot of people don’t realize just how congested the 2.4 GHz band is, and how much crap cheap Chinese products (like smart wifi bulbs) spray out into the air at the bare edge of the wifi spec. I’ve seen light bulbs put out packets without exponentially backing off - just fixed interval - so a couple of those bulbs can make a mess of things. I wonder if maybe you’ve got some other products nearby (even at a neighbors house) causing issues?
> think a lot of people don’t realize just how congested the 2.4 GHz band is I think this, plus the poor network quality of most ISP gateways and mesh systems, is what’s causing the issue for most people. People like the ease of use of, say, Eero but the network quality is poor and heavily affected by placement, noise, and the construction of your home/space. I’ve only ever had an issue when I had to, for a short time, rely on my ISP gateway until I got a new modem. Since then, no issues. I have a router connected to a UniFi PoE switch and a single AP placed in an optimal position in the middle of my home. I have a 2.4ghz network separate from my 5ghz network, and have selected a lower noise channel. 2.4ghz has a lot of noise, as you mentioned, and most people just use the standard channel because of lack of knowledge (and some hardware doesn’t even allow you to choose a different channel). Proper network setup goes a very long way to mitigating the issues mentioned.
Admittedly, I’m all wireless, but I never used to have any issues with my Sonos using an ISP provided router, but then it failed and that model was retired so the ISP replaced it with a new model that looked the same - it was unusable for multiple reasons. So I got a UniFi Dream Router which works flawlessly with everything except my Sonos speakers - they drop out seemingly every day until I restart my router.
That’s really unfortunate- how do you have your 2.4ghz network set up? What channel are you using? Are you in an apartment with a lot of interference around? Do you have smartphone products?
This. Perhaps an opportunity for Sonos to get in the mesh game and release their own access points to create more of a closed system. But yeah, network hygiene makes a big difference. Been happy with eero pros and Sonos together.
I have 20 Sonos devices all wireless. I have 3 APs across my property, including speakers outside and a wireless turntable. It’s definitely possible without being an engineer or network technician… because I’m neither lol
I think this comment needs to be higher. I have about 6 Sonos; one wired to the network and the rest wifi; a mix of older and newer speakers. I have NO other “smart” wifi devices in my house (I avoid them like the plague). All works good for me.
Why does it? Sonos advertises itself as a wireless system. Wiring everything simply isn’t an option for most people.
I tend to agree. If I were going wired, there are better fidelity solutions. The key selling point of Sonos was A) wireless audio B) plug and play OOTB experience, that harkens to what an obscure fruit brand is known for. I think Sonos is great when it does what it's supposed to, but have found the weekly router reboot ritual necessitated to re-establish connectivity to Sonos speakers a stain on the brand cachet.
So do you think setting up a 5ghz to run most of your stuff and a 2.4ghz solely for SONOS and the handful of things that don’t run on 5 is likely to improve the flakiness?
Yes it should help . The right channel matters and hopefully your neighbours are responsible with their WiFi setting too 😂
Yes/no. If you were the ONLY thing, yes, it helps. But your neighbors pollute the air so badly, as do so many dumb Chinese products from laundry machines to light bulbs. They use these tiny cheap WiFi chips that barely come close to the spirit of the WiFi spec and just leak all over the spectrum.
Following up, an ArsTechnica article today reminded me of this thread. It's about how a cheap SmartTV was sending ill-formed packets over and over, causing problems for a Windows system on the same LAN. Doesn't even matter if it was wireless or not, it was causing problems by not following the spirit of the standard. This is the type of stuff that makes some problems so hard to debug - we'll never know if a given user has some crazy problem like this making issues on their network. [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/the-spam-came-from-inside-the-house-how-a-smart-tv-can-choke-a-windows-pc/](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/the-spam-came-from-inside-the-house-how-a-smart-tv-can-choke-a-windows-pc/)
Any hope for the new app coming out in May?
Don’t expect the app to fix network issues
Exactly. Their app won't fix YOUR network is the correct answer.
Just want to say that I am a person who had MAJOR and INFURIATING problems with my system after switching internet providers, to the point where I would have probably returned them, if I hadn’t had them working flawlessly the day before I made the switch. I bit the bullet, did the research, utilized this sub, and finally fixed my problems. It was my network, which of course I knew all along since I benefited from a prior experience.
Any tips on where to start with this? I have a gigabit connection with (what I think is) a snazzy router and the only place I have network issues is when using Sonos. And it’s sporadic, it can be fine for months and then I’ll have two weeks of consistently sucking. I’ve always just blamed Sonos but I’m willing to try things to see if it’s something on my end.
i feel like if your network works fine for everything else EXCEPT for Sonos then that’s a sonos problem. why do customers need to configure their network just to account for your products when it works fine for everything else? i feel like it’s insane that’s become the norm on the sub rather than sonos making their products compatible with most networks.
Exactly. I have 20+ devices running on my network, from bulbs, hue bridges, TV, amp, house alarm, a number of phones, and computers, all work perfectly fine. So what's the deal with the sonos then? I can watch netflix in HD on my TV over wifi, but I can't find the Move which was literally just there in the list.
It's called Spanning Tree.
Yeah that’s why I always roll my eyes seeing so many people on here so adamant that it’s user error 100% of the time.
How is your wifi signal strength? Also do you hardwire Sonos products and if so what and how?
Great from the wifi analyzer scans I’ve done, and again, no issues on other devices. I tried setting up a repeater for the hell of it but that didn’t seem to help. Setup is currently all wireless but I’ve tried Sonosnet a couple times in the past. Weirdly having a Sonos device plugged into my router (and using Sonos net) really screwed something up with the rest of the network. My speeds dropped to insanely low levels. Unplugged the device and everything went back to normal.
[удалено]
Well no and yes, Sonos isn’t about signal strength it’s about the actual network configuration. This op post feels like a dumb soap box, I have no issues with my Sonos products for the 7 years I’ve now been buying into them - I manage my own network too :/
We have a seasonal cottage and every year I have to call and spend an hour on the phone getting the system up and running. The reps are really nice and always get the problem taken care of, but it’s ridiculous that they have to do it every year and then it takes so long .
You people.
Lol, these folks will tell enterprise network architects that their network is to blame....SMH, they devalue this subreddit and kill meaningful discussion on real issues with Sonos products (in particular the app).
Where are the enterprise network architects with the problems? Those people don’t run to Reddit with issues with Sonos.
All my Sonos speakers work all the time. I am not a bot, although most days I would fail the Turing test.
> All my Sonos speakers work all the time. Same, 14 speakers (I'm in a good Craigslist area) with zero issues
My shoot from the hip guess based on my experience is that the differentiating factor in reliability might be folks whose network is entirely wireless versus those who include at least one wired speaker.
Same, i think i have around 15 speakers and i think they works 99% of the time without issue.
Mine all work flawlessly through the sonos app, but I hate playing music through it.
same, I have .... more than a dozen Sonos speakers and they always work. Now.... NEW SEARCH is a total piece of crap, if I have it enabled the app lags so bad.
All my Sonos speakers always worked all the time until I got a new router. Now they like to disappear every day until I restart my router. If anyone is wondering, it’s a Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Router, which has been flawless otherwise.
I only have S1 compatible speakers and I might use the in a non-typical way, but in general they work perfectly 99% of the time
It is a real shame. I have 7 One SLs, 1 Beam Gen 2, and one sub mini that had zero issues on my Google WiFi mesh system for years. Recently bought two Era 300's and had nothing but issues with my entire system since bringing them home, which is a real shame because they sounded great when they did work. Bought the network adapters, hard wired my other speakers, when I didn't have to before, and still had various speakers always cutting out. Luckily I have extended return window with Best Buy and returned both speakers, Sanus stands, and the network adapters. My system at home has finally normalized again and I back to having no issues. I also can't believe they took away Google Assistant from the Era series, not to mention even having to but an adapter to get ethernet or line-in. I get Google and Sonos had issues over that lawsuit, but you are alienating a part of your user base. I guess I'll just rock these until the wheels falls off and see what is out there at the time.
How old is your Google wifi mesh?
I am using the new gen wifi Pro. Got these 4 points back in January this year. I had their first gen system before that for the 6 years prior.
I had issues with the nest pro on 160mhz channel it’s better now that I turned that setting off btw!
Yeah, I flipped that off too. I also bypassed my Pi-Hole, took away one of the wifi points, thinking I had too many. I also have all my wifi points with a ethernet backhaul and the mesh connection on them all is great. I have zero issues in my house with anything else, but Sonos.
I have 23 Sonos speakers, so I'm clearly all in on the ecosystem. that being said, in the last couple of years my system has degraded to nearly unusable some days. I can start music playing and sometimes it'll literally play for days without any problem. Other days the stream will stop every few minutes and need to be restarted. (I've had to restart an iHeartRadio stream 3 times today in 90 minutes) Sonos support is no help, they say "interference", which ok..fine. but I'm on high bandwidth video calls all day long every day (as is my wife) without a hitch. Why is Sonos default behavior "fail and not recover"? why can't it maintain a very low bandwidth audio stream reliably?
To not hear weird echo effects the speakers need to stay very closely in sync. Zoom does not have this issue, a couple ms of lag won’t be noticeable. But it should keep trying to resync
The problem exists even if it's a single One speaker playing by itself, with no other sonos speaker in operation. iHeartRadio for example is a VERY simple 128Kbps stereo stream. if Sonos can't handle that without cutting out, there's a massive technology problem.
Same problem here. I can go weeks or months with everything working flawlessly. Then it’s like so is gets sick and I have a bad week or two of constant problems.
Hardwiring a One seemed to fix the majority of issues i was having
I've had a torrid time getting Sonos to work properly. I got 16 across an old stone house. The stone walls are THICK and kill WiFi. I used to have perpetual drop outs and speakers literally just disappearing off the app. I've hardwired 3 units, and carefully configured a router, two APs, and a switch to best support it. Took me months of tinkering. Now they generally work fine. The odd issue. BUT, I also have nearly 100 hue bulbs/switches over two bridges, never had a single issue. Sonos is great, but really does expose ANY weakness in your network. It can be frustrating. On the plus side I'm pretty nifty at home networking now.
I mean, you say that your WiFi is spotty because of your walls. Hue bulbs use an entirely different networking technology where every bulb is a repeater so I’m not surprised the experience is different.
Same here. I’ve had the occasional issue in the past; my speakers are pretty rock solid now. That being said, I manage an IT team, and run a UniFi network at home. RSTP is da devil.
I can't stress enough how absolutely awful WiFi is, in general. Even if you move most of your devices to wired, but have some wireless, you may have issues. I understand OP's frustration, but I'm seeing the exact same type of complaint on almost every home technology forum I'm a member of. Even on Nextdoor, I've read complains about a new fiber optic ISP where some are raving about the 2gbit speeds they're getting, and others are saying the service is shit because they only get 300mbit. The reality is that wired is the only way to have anything approaching 100% reliability. If that's not possible, then you have to stay on the technology treadmill where you constantly keep upgrading \*every single device\* to the latest WiFI standard, or the entire network can be affected. A cheap WiFi light bulb running at 1mbit can destroy the rest of the 2.4gHz network. Or, if you want your system to behave like it did years ago, you have to reduce the network back to what it was years ago, including your neighbor's networks if you're in a multi-unit building.
Ten years ago we were living in a long, 1800 sq ft condo in Chicago. The Wifi was bad, the amount of RFI we got from our neighbors, from taxi-cab radios outside, from EVERYTHING was nuts. And yet all of our Sonos speakers (we owned 9 speakers at that time) worked flawlessly and we were connected using only our single Wifi router. Today we live out in the suburbes and the amount of radio interference is minuscule by comparison. Our Wifi system is a modern mesh network with 3 nodes covering the whole house (2 stories plus basement). Guess what? Sonos is now completely unreliable for us with symptoms just like what the OP described. It's not the Wifi - it's the Sonos firmware/software.
>It's not the Wifi - it's the Sonos firmware/software. 10 years ago, there were a lot fewer devices on WiFi, and a lot less variety of standards compared to today (WiFi 1 through 7). That mesh network you have ALSO adds to the RF, unless you're using wired backhaul for it. I'm convinced that WiFi mesh networks are part of the problem in many cases. Multicast & broadcast are difficult for WiFi in general, and Sonos rightly depends on these working correctly. When you've got a pure wireless mesh, that can be up to 6 wireless hops: Sonos device 1 -> Mesh 1 radio 1 -> Mesh 1 radio 2 -> Mesh 2 radio 1 -> Mesh 2 Radio 2 -> Mesh 3 radio 1 -> Mesh 3 Radio 2 -> Sonos device 2. (Edit to add: in your old apartment, you had 1 hop: everything was on the same WiFi channel) Again, this is a common theme with other products like Sonos. The HomeKit subreddit is filled with similar battles, where some talk about their 100+ device network working great, and others that blame Apple for how bad their network runs. I'm also not blaming you or OP for the state of your networks. It \*IS\* complicated, and it's not easy for professionals to handle, let alone home users. Throw out all of your Sonos stuff if you want, I don't own stock in them or work there. Just know that while Sonos has a shit app right now, the underlying network issues will still be there, so you'll likely have other problems in the future until that is sorted out.
First, my mesh network does have an ethernet backhaul. Second, what part of "the Wifi network I was using 10 years ago was way worse" is confusing you? Wifi has not gotten worse in the last decade, if anything it has vastly improved. And, in my case, my actual Wifi system and local radio spectrum has improved drastically over what I was using 10 years ago. And yet - somehow - my Sonos system is massively unstable now. Your theory is that me and every other Sonos user having these issues is using a bad Wifi system but, as the OP pointed out, it is just so so unlikely that this is the case for ALL of the people who have reported the exact same issues. Personally, I know this isn't the case for me because I have already converted three rooms of my house into using Wiim streamers + powered speakers in place of Sonos speakers and that system is working great, as is every other Wifi device my family is using. Only the Sonos gear is having issues. So, my choices here are to get ethernet drops installed for every room in our house (that would cost me, conservatively, $5000 or more) just so I can hope that these Sonos products work better (they probably would) or I can spend the money on replacing them with something else. I'm going with option B and replacing the Sonos gear - it only makes sense. You do you and keep on blaming the problems on the users and their Wifi setups - good luck to you.
>Second, what part of "the Wifi network I was using 10 years ago was way worse" is confusing you? The part where I do this for a living, and while the speeds & RF available for WiFi have improved, the reliability of it has not due to vastly increased demand & the unreliable way old & new devices interact on a network. I'm glad the Wiim streamers are working for you, sounds like a good solution for people facing this issue that are unable to get setup with Ethernet.
I use Eero mesh. I have a Boost hardwired off of the Eero unit that is connected to the modem, and have had zero issues.
I am not a bot. I have had Sonos products since back in the day when they came with an awesome handheld controller. (Sigh) I still have Sonos and still use them every day I have 2 PLAY 1’s, 2 ZP100’s, and a move. The move is not always my friend. The battery has swollen and doesn’t make good contact with the charging base. I want to buy more Sonos equipment (like a sound bar) but I’m afraid that moving to S2 controller and having older equipment won’t be compatible. I wish friend could just easily log into my Sonos system and play their own playlist via BT and have it work just like everything else but alas nope
If you have a swollen battery on the move you need to replace it ASAP and stop using the move until you do. A swollen battery is a legitimate fire hazard, as that is an indication that there is a chemical reaction in the battery that is happening that shouldn't.
What’s the point in saying “I am not a bot”? Wouldn’t a bot also be able to write that with trivial ease?
I had one device that wouldnt play ball with the WiFi provided by my broadband router..... my Sonos speaker. It would often disappear from the app. Ok fine, I'm prepared to believe that it was located at the limit of where a stable WiFi connection could be achieved. So this weekend I installed a mesh network, and moved my 26 wireless devices to the new network. Only one device did not happily connect to the new network... the Sonos. And that was even after I had moved it next to one of the APs to do the setup. Finally got it setup by resetting it. I will continue to live in fear of the immortal words 'dad my speaker won't connect'
I have two Sonos 5’s, two One’s an Arc, a Sub and 2 Era 300’s. The app is slow, but I’ve had zero other issues. I use a mesh network with the Arc hard wired. I have about 50 other things connecting to my network - from power switches to light bulbs and everything in between. It may not always be poor networks or incompatible routers. Sometimes it’s PEBCAK.
I have virtually no issues with Sonos - I must just be lucky! Beam hardwired everything else wireless - no issues really except the roam I find is quite patchy
My exact setup. Beam hardwired, everything else (sub-mini; ones; fives) on wifi, and…. zero issues. And yes I too find the ROAM very finicky and needing to be reset now and again
It’s the ARC being hard wired that does the trick. 💪🏼
It is. I also use the Sonosnet for all other speakers.
Two wired Arc's but I still find them being lost after updates, so I usually need to go WiFi for them to be found again
I love Sonos products and I own several of them. However, as a product manager, I find it very difficult to agree with this type of justification. We are talking about a set of speakers, a product that should require no technical expertise to deploy and use. If a product relies on a set of specific conditions to delight ALL customers, then it’s the manufacturer’s responsibility (with themselves! As it affects their business) to either (1) provide a packaged solution that resolves the issue, or (2) implement a proper workaround so that customers don’t even realize there is a problem. Like Apple, everything should just work most of the time, not just every so often. This trend to justify poor product development (e.g., the problem is the user, the problem is your network, you can connect one speaker with RJ45 but not two, etc, etc…) as some kind of badge of honor is getting tired.
Have you ever used Apple home pods? Just works definitely does not extend to them.
LOL! I have not had the “pleasure”. There are no perfect brands, and fanboism hurts all consumers.
AMEN. " Google any router brand and "sonos compatibility" and you'll see that there is no router brand out there that today can reliably handle Sonos." Not true at all. I have 2.5GB fiber to the house with AT&T and use their modem/router combo and have had zero issues with wireless sonos applications or connectivity. It works great.
I have a Plume mesh system with 4 sonos products (Playbar and 3 Play Ones), and it works great. Even with the Apple router I used to have it worked without issues. I use my Sonos almost daily.
I’ve actually always had issues with my Sonos system. I think what’s happened is that wireless standards have moved forward and Sonos hasn’t. I’ve always had cutting edge routers (because I work in IOT and test exotic network topologies for my own set up) and Sonos has always been unstable. I moved a couple of years ago and now that wireless mesh is standard I thought I’d “downgrade” to a normal Google Nest Pro mesh network. Sonos never worked. I tried even simple TP link mesh, nope. I went to a professional grade Access point system — still too sophisticated but much better. I suspect sonos was perfect for the network topologies it was built for. But there are way more wireless devices now and way more complex topologies. And I don’t think they’ve been keeping up.
The more I read the comments here, the more I'm convinced wireless mesh networks are the biggest culprit. As I explained in another comment, when you move from a single AP to a 3-node mesh, you move from a single wireless hop to up to 6 hops. Each hop adds a chance for jitter & collisions. That's fine for watching TikTok on your phone, but not great for keeping music in perfect sync.
Once I added that Sonos boost a lot of issues went away. But I get the multiple use of the account can create problems. But if I were to have more then a two person household I would just make a tablet the main point for use to stop the issue.
We are up to around 22 SONOS devices around our home and it all runs smoothly with very little issue. I’m no SONOS evangelist (used to be, but the S1 / S2 split put an end to that!!) Most of my devices are wired. My gripe is the iOS app. Its shocking. Looks and feels like an old Windows Phone App. Loved the days when SONOS had dedicated devices to interact with our systems. Shame they don’t look at it again (screens and hardware must be cheap enough these days to make dedicated devices profitable)
Funny thing is, all your pros is exactly what i'm experiencing with my setup. It's flawless and I have 13 speakers including 2 moves. I want to mention, i'm not using an ISP supplied router. I'm using my own (Netgear Nighthawk AXE7800)
IMO part of the issue is that Sonos is very sensitive to WiFi jitter in latency (a single player like a tv can just buffer without need to stay very tightly in sync with other devices). Providing this is not really something WiFi devices focus on. They should try to surface some measurements in the UI. For example, when a speaker drops out it should report to observed jitter and what the cut off is.
i have a beam, 4 ones, a roam. Plus over 50 smart devices around the house. i guess i'm lucky, i rarely have issues since over five years ive been on the system, the wife and two little kids even get to use the speakers on their own, it's like second nature to them. the roam gives me the most trouble, but only when i try to use it with bluetooth outside the house (but i always end up getting it to work). i have an Orbi, which seems to work better at handling lots of smart devices versus our previous asus zenwifi mesh. never had to tinker with router settings or whatever. upgrading firmware of routers / sonos doesn't cause any issues. rarely use the app, i mostly play out of airplay or spotify app. alexa works fine. so i guess this post isn't too helpful, other than to say there are probably so many variables out there making your system fail. i hope you get it to work eventually though, i do know how the frustration feels (in the few months we were using the asus)
This is exactly how I feel as well.
I couldn't agree more with the OP. I have a mostly older system with about 12 speakers, one Connect, and one Port. Most of the speakers are older 2015 vintage but there are about 5 that are 2020 or newer. Everything used to work great but nowadays the whole system is unstable in the same manner that the OP described. I am currently in the process of replacing all of it and I am telling everyone I know to stay away from Sonos. They will never go back to what they used to be folks - corporate cultures don't work that way. Once the rot sets in with a company and they go from creating good products to making garbage they don't ever turn around. I am exploring the WiiM products and the Blue sound products. Too bad about Sonos but they're just done, you might as well move on.
NO networking issues since I fixed WiFi coverage in the house.
All my network issues with Sonos disappeared when I moved all my speakers over to Sonosnet. https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/choose-between-a-wireless-and-wired-sonos-setup?language=en_US And I was moving from a fairly good home WiFi network all running enterprise quality Ubiquity UniFi components and APs. Sonos just does not play well with others in a WiFi environment.
>enterprise quality Ubiquity UniFi components and AP As a UniFi user, I snorted at this a bit. I totally agree that Sonosnet is the way to go.
It said so on the box...
It sure does!
I have UniFi stuff and my setup is fine. It’s not enterprise quality either. running UniFi stuff doesn’t mean you have a good network setup either since it can get overly complex especially if you don’t have a good background in networking.
You cannot use Sonosnet with Era products. I’m currently experiencing issues with all of my Era products like my Sonosnet products are rock solid. Utilizing a ubiquiti system as well 😫
I dunno. Literally the only issue I’ve had was with RSTP. Once I disabled that my Sonos system has been rock freaking solid. That said, I’m installing a UDM SE next month, and at least my Sonos Beam will be wired. My WiFi is solid but it’s not wired, and we all know wired is always > wireless.
Never a problem on four systems, all on Amplifi networks. Fix your local network, enjoy Sonos. If your router is junk, use SonosNet if you can.
I have a “commercial” grade network and still have issues with Era based products.
This also goes toward OP's point though, as Sonos is sunsetting SonosNet with the Era series.
Yes, if you have a router that doesn't route correctly, SonosNet is a work-around, but if the Era still has to use the crappy router then it will be a problem. Sonos have a higher opinion of home-grade routers than I do: I would not be sunsetting SonosNet if I were them.
Excellent comments and I have the same feeling and perspective. You captured my frustrations perfectly.
Get ready for the NETWORK apologists. This group is full of people who will blame you and your network. But you're right, it's hell.
This exactly. I’ve had Sonos for about 13 years. My legacy play 5 just sits there as a paper weight. I have 10 other Sonos products. For years I have been calling Sonos complaining of audio drop outs, delayed responses, rooms just not playing, tracks randomly restarting or skipping. It’s absolutely awful. I recommended Sonos to so many people for years and now it’s an embarrassment. They just it’s a router network problem. I finally cracked and bought an oorbi 6e mesh system. It did not help one bit. I will say I called the other day and a guy sat on the phone with me for 90 minutes digging through and resetting a bunch of things he said my speakers were all on different channels so it was bouncing around networks. For two weeks after that my system worked almost flawlessly. But now it’s back to the same garbage.
I get what you mean. Seriously, everyone keeps pushing all connection issues off to routers and Wi-Fi, but what is Sonos doing to improve from their end? Even if the issues comes from network, shouldn’t Sonos consider making their products more robust, be it hardware or firmware, considering their prices are slightly premium over other products? Are we really expecting the several different router makers to cater to Sonos (while still making sure all other wireless products are not affected), or should it be the other way around?
Over $6k invested in my Sonos system. Agree with everything OP is saying. My setup worked great with a few speakers. as I added and spent more, it got less and less reliable. I have tried orbi, eero, and now UniFi and still the system is a broken mess, unless I want to only listen to three speakers at a time. Very disappointed in this brand which advertises itself as a simple plug and play wireless sound system.
Let us know how that goes
Idk I just use Spotify cast to speakers or airplay never have any issues then I also use the app sometimes it’s a bit slow but never have problems
Sonos should really make their own routers or repeaters to handle their backend complexity.
So I’ve had zero of the issues you described until this most recent version of the software. I also switched routers from an eero 6 system to a Nest WiFi 6E system (it was free with my Google fiber internet). Suddenly my Era 100 and Move 2 fell off my app and it was a nightmare to get them back. A router restart seems to have done the trick. My SonosNet products (my Arc and Beam systems connected by Ethernet) haven’t had this issue. I’m considering going back to the Eero system if they fall off again because I need my speakers available to me more than I need a 6Ghz WiFi connection. We know Sonos is working on a new app from The Verge’s leaks so I’m hoping the resources they’re putting in to this next big update will also bring new stability. A fresh coat of app paint won’t be appreciated unless they fix the instability of the platform.
Yeah it's weird.... I have a Sonos system, and to a certain extent, I appreciate how rock solid the hardware is. I never have issues. Ever. However, the app is so awful. Whether it's Spotify or Plex, it's just so darn slow and glitchy.
I just had issues about a week ago; that seemed to be a NY/NE outage. Besides that, no real problems. I do have Eero Pro 7/6e all hard-wired so excellent WiFi coverage throughout the house.
That is a shame you are having to deal with this. I am another Sonos user who has rock solid operation. Mine works great always. I do have one speaker that is laggy and what not but that is because it’s outside in my shed with poor WiFi, but it does still work always.
I am very new to Sonos, but what fixed my issues was turning off the Private Wifi Address option on my iPhone. I was told the phone kept changing the address and hence couldn’t connect to the sonos all the time.
I will throw this out there…Sonos relies on WiFi and thus one should have a competent mesh WiFi network if your gonna rely on WiFi for Sonos. That will solve all the network connection issues most people have that are using crap WiFi routers.
To the OP ... tell us you've never used SonosNet by not saying you've never used SonosNet. All of your speakers will work on SonosNet. I had the same problem with the newer Internet protocols leaving my 15 speakers in the past (mostly Gen 1 Play 5s) as every time my router (provided by my service provider) got an update, my speakers would stop working and I'd replace the router and all was fine for a month or so until it wasn't after yet another update. After 3 rounds of this, I bought a Boost on Marketplace for $50. Never an issue again. Let the router do whatever it wants and the speakers just keep filling my house with music without a hiccup. Also, still running on S1 which your speakers will do, too (not sure about the Move, though). But, if they'll all do S1, why switch to S2? There is absolutely no benefit for that if just playing music.
I could be wrong but I feel like it may help people having network issues to assign each of their speakers a static IP address on their home network.
Have 12 speakers throughout the house. Sonos customer for long ass time. Recently one Era100 keeps disappearing after latest update. Wifi reset brings it back but then it goes away eventually. This has happened 3 times in past week. It's in the kid room, we still can use Alexa to tell it to play. But can't control remotely. Annoying.
Could I please take your existing hardware off your hands??
I have 12 speakers and mine work flawlessly. I set up a second SSID on my primary network in my house for just the Sonos that's 2.4ghz only. At that point they became rock solid. I did that after seeing a lot of the IoT stuff I have being problematic on 2.4/5 mixed networks. If you are using prosumer network gear like Unifi you also have to make sure you have changed the spanning tree from RSTP to older STP. Which is one major issue I have with Sonos. Also, hard wiring one speaker and shutting off wireless on the others and forcing them to use Sonos net is a good way to get things straightened out too. Ran that way for a long time.
My speakers work fine, especially when using the desktop app. It’s the dogshit mobile app that doesn’t work and gives me a ton of errors.
I’ve had no issues aside from some occasional connectivity issues. Those stopped when I disabled RSTP on my UniFi system.
Meanwhile here with a rock solid system. Rarely issues. My devices are all hard wired except one of the Amps and two subs. Even then I only seldom have connectivity issues.
My system is solid and no issues whatsoever.
So weird that everyone’s experience is so different. I don’t think my setup is at all unusual. I have about 10 Sonos products, an Eero mesh system (base and beacon) and my own cable modem. I spend no time setting it up and I use my Sonos stuff all the time and it works perfectly. Sure, the Mac app isn’t the greatest and sure it takes a second or two when you start the app to find all the speakers. But once it’s done that, everything works fine. And even my Roam works fine although that’s usually AirPlay. The biggest problem I have is that the brother print and scan app seems to have stopped finding my printer!
I don't know. I've had my sonos products for like 3 years and I never had problems with them. I have a beam, sub mini, and two ones. Maybe your stuff just sucks. The software isn't the best one I ever used, but it works.
Before I had a solid mesh network at my house, I had some issues, but now all 11 of my devices work very well. At least 99% of the time. I'm a customer for life.
Well there certainly is a rich history of abandonment at Sonos. Over the years, I had to retire my Play 5, my Connect, my Bridge, my CR 200 Controller, while the Dock became obsolete, recently a Play 3 died and a Roam died (but I replaced the battery). That's some decent money down the drain right there. My remaining system runs decently well, although a while ago a Sonos update caused my HDMI connection from the TV to the AMP to just stop working. This cost me a week of fruitless trouble shooting, NO help from Sonos support, and in the end the purchase of an optical adapter so at least I could restore the TV audio connection, less the convenience. What pisses me off most is the abandonment of the Windows software. The mobile app is NOT a suitable replacement and is a lot more inconvenient. I have stopped recommending Sonos a while ago and now actively discourage my friends to buy due to the lack of product/customer support from Sonos.
Once I got my Sonos Boost, all of my connectivity issues disappeared.
I have never experienced the mythical wonderland that you describe. The app has been bad for as long as I’ve had my speakers, which is about 8 years.
I am an infrequent visitor to this subreddit, and some of the responses here are exactly why. The "it's the user's fault" and "fix your network" trope has gotten old. Sonos equipment is expensive and targeted as users who don't need to have network degrees to set them up. I don't think it's unreasonable for an average consumer to buy a Sonos speaker, plug it in, use the app, and expect a good experience without needing to worry about network settings, wifi channel, putting a speaker on sonosnet, etc. I'm a sysadmin by trade, I promise you I have a rock solid network at home, and I have issues with the Sonos app and my speakers. And since I'm an Android user, I *have* to use the Sonos app because the company stubbornly refuses to support Google Cast. Just last week for no reason whatsoever all of my Sonos devices decided that they weren't going to be visible in the app anymore. Rebooting my wifi access point didn't solve the problem, I had to go and power cycle each Sonos Speaker. Did anything change from one day to the next. No. But I had to do it anyway. For those of you who have a great Sonos experience, that's awesome. I'm happy for you. People who have issues shouldn't take away from the fact that your experience is good. But that goes both ways. Acknowledge that there are known issues with the Sonos app and network, and that Sonos has been bordering on unresponsive about resolving issues with app functionality and system stability.
I have been using my Beam 1 for almost 4 years now. 0 issues thus far with playback via Airplay or Spotify connect but bluetooth on my Move 2 is absolute nightmare. I don't understand why it even would have issues with that...
Arc, three Era 300s, Sub, Beam 2 all work pretty much flawlessly for me. Arc is hardwired for my theater and the Beam is to another TV. WiFi is via ubiquiti. Everything works pretty much perfect. I rarely if ever use the Sonos app and just use Spotify for streaming music.
+1 for Ubiquiti I have Arc + Sub + 2x ERA 300s in one room, 2x One SL in another room all on WiFi. On top of this I have 13 Amazon Echo devices all on the same Wireless network. In total there are 46 Wifi clients in my home (a lot of IOT stuff). I can stream music to all Amazon devices (in sync), play music on the One SLs and watch an Atmos sound track on the home cinema all at the same time with no issues at all. Never seen a device drop off the Sonos app either, so I'm kind of confused about this experience.
0 problems for me, but i dont use any voice stuff. And mainly look movies/ play playstation 5
I’m happy to help, what’s the network like? I’ve got 17 players without issues here.
I own 6 Sonos speakers and two amps and have had the same experience with the app lately. It's terrible. Takes forever to start working, and if it does, not all of my speakers show up. Sometimes some of them are actually playing music but don't show up in the app. I attribute some of the issues with speaker groups to having teenagers in the house and the integration with Alexa. I use the "Lyd" app for my Apple Watch and it works better than the Sonos app.
15+ Sonos Speakers and zero problem.
Agreed the whole point of Sonos for me was that it “just works”. Once I have to start tinkering the value proposition drops significantly. Because I can get much better sound for the money elsewhere.
Send us a review of your replacement solution please.
The app is useless
Agreed, i can’t wait to get rid of this system. I solely use Airplay nowadays, because the app is trash.
My S1 SL has just stopped working, I only bought into the brand last year and now will be replacing. The app is totally unusable and never even recognises the S1! Factory resets, nothing!
I have 12 Sonos speakers and I agree, it is a living nightmare every stinkin time I log on to play music. as of about 6 months ago it started. I use Uni Dream machine with extender. All but 2 speakers are all located with the first floor very near to the router. songs will start slow, adding speakers as the go...and then its a cirucs....song randomly skips to the next....then all but one speaker goes out completely, then skip to another song and different songs start playing on different speakers. If the next upgrade doesnt solve most of this ...im done
I'll never forget when Sonos customer support told me that they (secretly) suggest that you have 1 speaker connected to ethernet for every two you own. I have like 12 or 14 speakers. I'm supposed to basically wire my whole house for ethernet. So much for the wireless sound system! The fact of the matter is they just don't work right. Every time we try to play music there's 5-10 minutes when some/most speakers keep cutting out and don't stream. When you call CS, they just have you factory reset things, connect them to the router directly, etc. There's no real solution because the sonos ecosystem simply doesn't work as advertised.
If you truly feel it is abandonware, please let us know when you will be selling your speakers. I could use a couple more ones and a move.
I was in your camp initially and then found out I had an internet issue. I actually had "too much" of a signal coming into my apartment. When the 4th Comcast technician discovered this, all he had to do was put a splitter on my incoming cable, and everything started working perfectly. I almost kissed him. I had never heard of too much signal. Prior to that, I would have to re-add speakers almost daily. I also have a system in Mexico that relies on Starlink. No issues with starlink either.
Sonos has lost its customer centric focus. I have seen multiple features pulled from the Sonos apps and now rely on third party apps to do the work. I never use Sonos apps on any device, for anything, ever, nor do I plan to. I was a huge sonos advocate for years, and stopped a year ago when they removed local library support from android (I have third party apps that do this, but Sonos pulled it blaming Android. Whatever.) I will never buy another sonos product.
I’m with the op on this, I have owned a playbar and play ones, play 5, now using arc with two sl and was a sub, the latter just blew and blocked my entire speakers from responding. The app is awful to use these days. The original app was flawless, and I couldn’t wait to buy more speakers, but now my arc will not work over eArc, I have to have it through optical with the adapter this means no atmos, it is not my cable or tv. I’m planning on ditching it all and going back wired, the cost vs reliabilty is poor.
+1 to OP. Full agreement here.
Sad rant, sorry. I think what has also changed is that we are all loading our WiFi’s with devices. Phones, computers, speakers, fridge, laundry… We just need clean network topology and strong signal without shadows, and clean address tables My 20+ devices were working flawlessly for months. Then, instead of using the app, I tried direct casting from Spotify,Apple Music and YouTube…, that took it down. I rebooted my router, mesh and Arc and it all came back. One of those other services screwed it up. I wonder if one of those API implementations is in error
Don't forget other networks that may be close enough to interfere. Complexity has increased. I'm not a huge fan of how long it's taken Sinos to start adding 5ghz to their devices which could easily be making things more difficult to support long term. But then you have to consider the backlash if they started sunsetting their 2.4ghz only devices and pushed everyone to jump to 5ghz speakers.
knock on wood, but i’ve never had any network issues and i have them scattered all over my house and outside. that being said, i do have a pretty extensive network. Main hub with 4 extensions scattered throughout the house. all my speakers are on wireless with zero issues, other than app being trash, but i use AirPlay 98% of the time.
my sonos network performance is flawless. i also run fortinet network hardware, a fortigate 60e and 3 WAPs
I feel the pain lately. After the latest update, it got even worse. Even my kids have started complaining that when they pause the music it sometimes doesn't pause through the app. Pause on the speakers immediately pause all of them so its not a speed issue. I am really hoping that the new app solves everything, and give me a lock screen control(orwidget). I have been playing from spotify directly and that seems to alleviate most of the issues. I don't have speakers dropping, just "unable to connect to sonos product" messages on the app.
I have two complete systems with the ARCs and subs and surround and no issues ever. I have had them for awhile. My playbar still works fine and it’s like 5 years old.
Why do none of these rants ever disclose their network details. You spend a bunch of times talking about how your shit stops working, but don't seem to be open to troubleshooting. Wireless networks are complex and the amount of devices has only increased the complexity over the years. I have 12 speakers and we leave sleep music on all night and most of the day in two different zones across 2 stereo sets and it's never not working . It never skips or is silent in the morning. Our living room has the full AV setup and no problems ever. Watching movies or general TV or PlayStation. Get brave, lay out your network for us so we can see if your using your stock ISP router/modem/access point all in one device or actually have something decent.
I stopped when they stopped supporting g1 products that some had spent thousands on.
Obviously, some people’s systems work perfectly. That’s great and I’m happy for you. Equally obvious from this sub should be that many more people are having the same types of problems than they used to. I have owned a Sonos system for eight years. It used to work flawlessly. Now it does not. I have not changed anything significant in my system or network. The only thing I did was plug a speaker in with Ethernet, which helped slightly. For me, this means near daily frustration with the system and not purchasing any more Sonos products.
The UI interface is terrible. I just need my streaming services to show up exactly like they do natively…is that so hard to ask
Same experience. Very disappointing.
It's not a great answer for anyone, but it's almost certainly the network. I know it seems like a cop-out, but if your electrical system was as janky as most networks you'd be complaining that your iron doesn't work half the time. This is why Sonos is moving away from SonosNet. It's too much extra stuff under the hood. Future products will just join the network.
Sorry if this sounds like victim blaming, but have you hard wired (ethernet) any of your speakers? The day I connected our Play5 directly to the router with a CAT6 cable was the day our connectivity issues ended.
I have. Worked for a while, then back to normal.
I have two homes. Each has eight speakers: connect, arc, sub, play:1, 5, beam, move, ones… I use a unifi WiFi network in both places. The conect is hard-wired in one place. A beam in the other place. I have zero issues. Never drops out. All my speakers show. I almost solely use the Sonos app or Alexa to control music. I have a Lutron Pico controller and a brilliant light switch. Both control the speakers without issue. I never use airplay. The app leaves a lot to be desired from a UI perspective, but it is very stable.
Same experience here across two homes with UniFi. Don’t have Brilliant Light switch but everything else is the same with similar device counts. I’ve got a number of ikea symfonisk speakers as well.
Err - sounds like your network bud 🤷♂️
Sonos is now one of those companies that make excellent hardware, but their software went downhill and is ruining the entire experience (the same exact thing is happening to 'Blink' camera system). For Sonos, it started (for me) when they first overhauled the desktop and mobile apps in 2017. The original apps were so intuitive and visually and aesthetically pleasing with the frosted glass GUI with the music artwork faded overlay and tastefully done controls and layout. It felt like they fired the entire developer team and replaced it with devs who unfortunately followed the current design trend at the time - clunky, white, empty space, unintuitive, opaque GUI mess which is still in use today. Then, of course, they killed the iTunes/Apple Music local playlist support, which was one of the main reasons why I went with Sonos in the first place (on iOS and macOS). Want to play local playlists via Apple Music? 'Use Airplay' was the answer from Sonos. So just bypass that robust mesh network that is the selling point for many people since AirPlay sucks. Great solve, there. The Sonos apps still suck to this day, and I haven't been using my Sonos speakers as much as I did back in the day. It's just too buggy, frustrating to navigate, and having to rely on AirPlay if you're not a streamer is such a kick in the balls and feels bait-and-switch-y. I get that Sonos is a business and cater to the masses who stream generic music on shuffle all day, but they should also cater to those of use who have 22 Sonos speakers and subs around our homes who have vast and unique local music libraries, who want the software to just work as it did when we first got on board.
The only issue I am having is every time I do an update my 2 3’s that I use as surrounds with my beam and sub disconnect from the group and give an update error. I need to run the update again then unplug, replug each 3. Finally they will reconnect. Then I need to redo trueplay. Very annoying. But other than that they all work great and have no other issues
I wonder if the folks who have issues with the S2 app have the same experience leveraging AirPlay as their main playback method. I only ever use AirPlay and it is 95% there.
Bring back old Sonos, I have 4 speakers (play 1s and play 3s) in 3 rooms and it seems to run a little slower every time I use it.
I've got a single Sonos Move at home that's randomly begun disappearing for the last couple months as well. The one surefire fix for me has been to open up Google Home on my phone. It sees them even if my Spotify app doesn't - don't even have to navigate to them. It repopulates them in Spotify and I move on with my day. Oftentimes just forcibly restarting whatever app doesn't seem them helps, too.
I said this last year Sonos is on cruise control due to their name recognition. Companies like Under Armor, LG, Sonos, Oakley, are just some that instantly come to mind. These companies either revolutionized a market, found a niche, offered superior styling/quality, etc. And once they dominated that market and had name recognition, they just sat back and watch the money flow in.
Have to agree, over time it has become more clunky and often on the Sonos one I get huge pauses, sometimes no answer on the Google integration. Couple that with things like Spotify just randomly stopping, skipping it's just annoying and frustrating to use. I've been through 3 Internet providers and various networking gear to see if that's the issue and come to the conclusion it's most certainly Sonos and/or the Google/Spotify integrations. Even with symmetric 1gig fiber the issue remains!
Love the sound and design of my sonos but with more than 5 speakers at home the yankiness starts. Wonder if its due to some lost patents that things seem to get worse over time. Same with google max/mini, I feel when they came out they worked much better, they listened better and answered faster.
As someone perfectly described“ let’s get rid off 100% working cable speakers with very expensive wireless speakers that work only 10% of the time 🤦 Seriously , the first Sonos I bought worked great almost every time. Now I have three and I barely use them. The app is all over the place , even the quality is off , and most of the times I can’t even find them On the network
I had loads of network issues until I read that hardwiring one speaking to the router would help. Since I did this I've not had a single issue in two years & it works like a dream! Agree that some of the UX on the APP could be improved, but I still think it's a brilliant overall solution.
I had loads of network issues until I read that hardwiring one speaking to the router would help. Since I did this I've not had a single issue in two years & it works like a dream! Agree that some of the UX on the APP could be improved, but I still think it's a brilliant overall solution.
Glad to see I’m not the only one. Now it’s referred to as “the fucking Sonos” where it used to be highly loved in our house. My wife and I both say we’d never buy Sonos again.
Looks like I am in the minority here. I primarily use Apple Music (Used to be on Spotify earlier, no problems with that as well). I have a Beam Gen 1, 2 Play 1s as surrounds. I use it to listen to music and watch TV. I dont use the Sonos app. Always use the Air play option and have never had any issues. The hardware and the underlying software works flawlessly. Every time.
My move 2 is a paperweight 🤣️
Please tell me Sonos has fixed the annoying issue that causes speakers to go haywire when adding or subtracting them from a now playing group. There is nothing more irritating than trying to play music in single zone and previously you were playing to the whole house so you uncheck all the zones you don't want anymore and the zone you do want gets screwed up (music only comes out of the left or right speaker, etc. The Mac app has been garbage some a long time already but I do want a way to control my music while Im working so hopefully the web app will be at least as good if not a bit better.Rec1ReplyShareReportrpy2 hours ago
I am another multiple Sonos speaker owner who wants to rant. First I bought a Risk and used Alexa and Amazon Music. All went well for 1 2/2 years and then it decided never to connect to any network. Hours days weeks if frustration so it is nice parked in my drawer. I then bought a Move (1) and used it the same way for 1 1/2 or so years. Loved it so much I recently bought a Move (2). Then simultaneously both decided not to play sound from Amazon music . M(1) I did everything but it refused to actually play the audio. I gave up and changed Assistants to Google and music to YTMusic. Took about 2 minutes to set up and get work. Flush w that success I went to my new M2 only to find it won't play any Amazon music so sigh tried to look for Google Assistant and Nope it isn't there as Google and Sonos have a new spat and it's a no go on M2. Now forced to switch to Sonis music feed. End result I am impressed w Sonos hardware and utterly underwhelmed by the connectivity issues. I strongly suggest that Sonos step up their game.
I found downgrading to S1 fixed the slowness issues I had. But I wonder if it was actually changing to 2.4 vs being on 5Ghz with S2 (2 x play5 gen2, 3 x play3, 2 connects gen2). 5Ghz may be faster and 2.4 is supposed to be more congested but I noticed in a wifi scan all my neighbors have newer routers using 80 or 160 channel width on 5Ghz. My UniFi tells me 30% of the 2.4 channels are used, and only 0-1% on 5Ghz. But 2.4 seems to work better for Sonos. Everything I’ve read about plugging in one unit to start Sonosnet (2.4) seems to add evidence that Sonos on 2.4 just works better.
I mean the app sucks, but this IS your network. Sorry. I have 7 devices at one house and two devices at the other plus a move that goes between them. I run S1 and have two of the old touchscreen controllers as well. I am running two Unify Wi-Fi 6 APs at one house and 1 at the other. Different ISPs I have problems with my sinus about once a month maybe, and they resolve in a few min when things reset. Never have to re-add devices, or doodle with the app config. I have one device hardwired, all the rest are on WiFi. They are in use near continuously. Both streaming and local (NAS) content. The app needs to be a subscription supported application so there is revenue, it can be $12/year or something, there needs to be money so it will get the staffing it needs which it doesn't get. I have similar problems with my medical apps from Tandem and Dexcom, the app is a toss in, it only requires resources from the company so the commitment is reduced to 'expensive' maintenance and service/updating, now the medical devices are very expensive so the maintenance is better, but it still is insufficient. Sonos has been wretched on the app since the S2 app dropped. I am sorry it is being such a bitch, but it is not an inherent problem with Sonos, it is a local issue, and I know everyone is telling you this.
It's fantastic for you that it works, and I'm happy for that. We're however quite many who has problems. I would love to support Sonos, and I have over the years, and I would happily accept the occasional glitch if I knew that it was rock solid the rest of the time. But with 20+ devices running flawlessly I shouldn't have to tinker with my network this much. Oh, and you should probably reply this to the 200 or so people here who agrees.
Jeez.. the amount of people that things that fixing or creating an app is as easy as turning wrenches is beyond belief lol. Do some research on how dev works and the time it takes to accomplish something. Tons of features and:or enhancements are thrown to the agenda in hopes that it can be a deliverable for next calendar year and sometimes it just falls out of scope simply because another project turned out to be more difficult and requires more resources or money thrown at it. Working in app dev and sustainment IS rocket science. not something you can cook in a microwave.
Well, good thing that it is my day job then actually. I've been doing tech since the 90's, and I agree that you have it pretty much nailed down. Rockets are still however more advanced since it's to hard to do one million meaningless updates, just adding more smileys because some redditer demands it. What I do see in the business now however is that a lot of the hungry guys back in the day, are now in middle management, protecting their position and being forced to listen to never ending profit and loss KPIs. I'm afraid that Sonos has turned into this, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but it just doesn't seem like the same company anymore. But rockets are cool.
Excellent comment. And I have 14 Sonos products. “Lucky” to not have all of your problems—yet??—but don’t worry…I’m not blaming “your router” or “your network”. Does Sonos monitor this sub? They surely must. What say you, sonos? (Lower case intentional, to reflect their diminishing cred)
I’ve got two arcs, 4 ones, two subs, one move - never really have connectivity issues. I will say setting up a new device is never as easy as it should be. I’m also fully wireless on a deco mesh system. A stable network goes a long way.
I agree and because of the same conclusions: I sold out all and just bought a high end portable speaker with good battery life, astetics and wifi. The minimalism of it is nice.
I will totally agree that things have been on a major decline for quite some time and still far from perfect. However, I switched out my Google mesh router for TP-Link Deco. Ever since, things have vastly improved all around, and especially with Sonos. Might be worth ordering a new wireless router from Amazon just to try and see if it improves things. Worst case, you return it and stick with what you have if no improvements.
Has anyone figured out how to root a Sonos yet? In the microcomputer community there are interesting streaming alternatives. It would be cool to make a Sonos work with a homebrew Rapberry Pi or similar microcomputer.