Sonos wireless speakers are awesome, but only if they are setup properly. Sonos speakers rely on a good solid WiFi connection. If your Sonos wireless speaker is constantly pausing or stopping playback, WiFi issues are most likely to blame.
Testing Sonos Speaker Connectivity
A good way to determine if your Sonos has a solid WiFi connection to your Wireless router is to do a ping test from the router to the Sonos wireless speaker.
First, we need to determine what your Sonos speaker IP address is, you can find out what your Sonos speaker IP address is by logging into your router DHCP page. Look for your Sonos device and make a note of the IP address.
Next, navigate to the “Diagnostic” page of your WiFi router. Choose the “ping” option and enter the Sonos wireless speaker IP address.
You should get a low and consistent ping without any packet loss.
If you do not get a low and consistent ping or see packet loss to your Sonos speaker, it indicates that the WiFi connection is not adequate. This could be caused by improper setup of the wireless router, WiFi interference or poor wireless range.
Improper setup can be remedied by checking country settings in the setup and making sure that compatible channel bandwidth settings are used. As a rule of thumb broader channel bandwidth settings will give more speed at the expense of distance. Narrow bandwidth will give more distance and less speed. Experiment with these settings to see what works best for you. I’d recommend starting with 20 MHz.
Adjacent wireless routers can cause interference and in most cases a channel change helps. Note that Sonos speakers connect on the 2.4 GHz band. If a channel change does not make a difference try adjusting bandwidth setting to 20 MHz. If adjusting the bandwidth setting doesn’t help you are probably in a high interference area. Move the WiFi router around to see if this helps.
Extending The Range Of Your Wireless Network
What if wireless range is my problem? The best option is to hire a wireless technician that can do an onsite WiFi survey of your wireless network to discover where you have WiFi dead spots.
A wireless site survey will give the WiFi technician an idea of signal distribution throughout your property. The site survey results will determine a course of action.
The answer is simple, if you want your Sonos wireless system to be awesome, you need a strong, jitter free WiFi signal.