Sonos Wireless Question

[grumbas]

I've been tasked with setting up a home network at my bosses house which is being renovated at present.

The sparky is installing a Sonos system throughout, and has told me I can piggy-back the wireless network created by the system for normal network access.

However, looking at the Sonos site it would appear it creates a private network that can only be accessed by the kit in the audio system, but the information on their website is far from clear.

Does anyone know whether I'll be able to utilise it or whether I'll have to put a second network in for web browsing etc?

[tuskkev]

Hi
yes it is possible to use the sonos wireless to surf the web etc.
I have a zone bridge plugged into my router in the front room and a ZP80 plugged into my main computer in the dining room and use the sonos connection to surf the web. Don't know how you set it up, as it just seemed to work for me when I plugged it all in!(main computer was originally plugged directly into the router before I got the Zone bridge)
Don't know what speeds I am getting, not got round to checking but I would say it's not far off wireless n speeds.
hope this helps.

[tuskkev]

just re-read your post and not sure whether the answer I gave is what your after.
If you have a zone player plugged into the computer you want to surf the internet on then there isn't a problem but say you have a wireless web book and want to wirelessly access the sonos network then I don't think thats possible, but I may be wrong.

[VEX]

If the house is being renovated, get the electrician to hardwire it in.

We always recommend hardwires over wireless if you have the chance to get it put in it will always out perform.

V.

[grumbas]

All the Sonos stuff is being wired back to the rack via cat 5. As I understand it the Sonos kit also makes a wireless mesh network - I assume for the controllers and anything you haven't hard-wired.

What I'm trying to find out, and isn't made clear on their site is whether it's possible to connect a laptop/iphone/whatever to this mesh network to connect to the home lan, or whether another wireless network will need to run alongside?

[ukwill]

grumbas said:

All the Sonos stuff is being wired back to the rack via cat 5. As I understand it the Sonos kit also makes a wireless mesh network - I assume for the controllers and anything you haven't hard-wired.

What I'm trying to find out, and isn't made clear on their site is whether it's possible to connect a laptop/iphone/whatever to this mesh network to connect to the home lan, or whether another wireless network will need to run alongside?

You can plug a wired device (eg. laptop) into one of the sonos devices's ethernet ports and it will get an IP address from your LAN. As for connecting wireless devices, well you'd just have them connect directly to your LAN rather than to the SONOS mesh - obviously for your LAN router you'd spec one with wifi (eg. DG834 or somesuch).

The Sonos Mesh is a private network. You will not be able to wirelessly connect any non-sonos devices to it.

[neilsfishing]

VEX said:

If the house is being renovated, get the electrician to hardwire it in.

We always recommend hardwires over wireless if you have the chance to get it put in it will always out perform.

V.

I had wireless then had to go with copper

[grumbas]

ukwill said:

grumbas said:

All the Sonos stuff is being wired back to the rack via cat 5. As I understand it the Sonos kit also makes a wireless mesh network - I assume for the controllers and anything you haven't hard-wired.

What I'm trying to find out, and isn't made clear on their site is whether it's possible to connect a laptop/iphone/whatever to this mesh network to connect to the home lan, or whether another wireless network will need to run alongside?

You can plug a wired device (eg. laptop) into one of the sonos devices's ethernet ports and it will get an IP address from your LAN. As for connecting wireless devices, well you'd just have them connect directly to your LAN rather than to the SONOS mesh - obviously for your LAN router you'd spec one with wifi (eg. DG834 or somesuch).

The Sonos Mesh is a private network. You will not be able to wirelessly connect any non-sonos devices to it.

Thanks for clairifying that, was really hoping it wasn't the case!

Unfortunately it's not as straight-forward as just getting a wireless router, as for various reasons it will only cover about 15% of the house!

[ukwill]

grumbas said:

ukwill said:

grumbas said:

All the Sonos stuff is being wired back to the rack via cat 5. As I understand it the Sonos kit also makes a wireless mesh network - I assume for the controllers and anything you haven't hard-wired.

What I'm trying to find out, and isn't made clear on their site is whether it's possible to connect a laptop/iphone/whatever to this mesh network to connect to the home lan, or whether another wireless network will need to run alongside?

You can plug a wired device (eg. laptop) into one of the sonos devices's ethernet ports and it will get an IP address from your LAN. As for connecting wireless devices, well you'd just have them connect directly to your LAN rather than to the SONOS mesh - obviously for your LAN router you'd spec one with wifi (eg. DG834 or somesuch).

The Sonos Mesh is a private network. You will not be able to wirelessly connect any non-sonos devices to it.

Thanks for clairifying that, was really hoping it wasn't the case!

Unfortunately it's not as straight-forward as just getting a wireless router, as for various reasons it will only cover about 15% of the house!

Get a rangemax dsl router (eg netgear dg834n) and/or use homeplugs