WiFi · Networking
SonosNet Root
Also known as: Sonos Root, Wired Root
The Sonos speaker that's wired to your network and bridges the SonosNet mesh to the rest of your infrastructure. Every wireless Sonos meshes back to it.
In a SonosNet setup, at least one Sonos speaker must be wired to your network with its wireless radio enabled. This unit becomes the root of the SonosNet mesh — the bridge between the speakers' proprietary wireless network and the rest of your infrastructure. Every wireless speaker meshes back through the root to reach the network and the internet.
This leads to a simple way to configure each speaker:
- Wired and serving as the root for nearby wireless speakers: wired, wireless on.
- Wired and standalone, with no speakers depending on it to mesh: wired, wireless off — which removes unnecessary 2.4GHz noise.
- Can't be wired: wireless on, meshing over SonosNet to a wired root.
The practical rule: wire as many units as possible with wireless disabled, and make sure at least one wired unit keeps its wireless enabled to anchor the mesh for anything that has to be wireless. A SonosNet mesh with no solid wired root is where reliability problems begin.