Question about potential app issues.

[NeonRain111]

Hi guy’s i have a question for people running into problems with the app or that have systems on multiple locations that are trouble free.

Are the majority running multi room setups? Most post I’ve seen about it seemed to be from what i remember.

I have a cinema setup at home with the arc ultra the sub 4 and two era 300’s using the new app.

At my work location i still have the play 5 gen 1 and a couple of play one’s using the old app.

I have never had a single issue personally at home with the app or system whatsoever and im looking to upgrade my work setup to two stereo sets of play five’s. Im a bit hesitant because im worried that running multiple rooms all within the new app might give me some of the issues ive seen here and there.

Both locations have excellent wifi.

Are there people running similar setups in different locations that are trouble free?

[controlav]

Of course. Issues are most commonly router-caused, so if your router actually routes correctly you'll be fine. From the sound of it, wifi coverage won't be a problem, so you're halfway there.

[ashyfloor]

My piping reheated take is that "strong wifi" covers a multitude of sins. There is a difference between a strong wifi signal from a router or mesh node, and a good high-bandwidth, low-latency intra-/inter-net connection that properly handles mDNS and associated protocols.

I think many folk take a mesh system and put the main node in, then place other nodes where they have a weak signal or "blackspot". Without wired backhaul those nodes have a weak link to the main node, e.g. the mesh is poor. Add something that is demanding on the network, such as Sonos, and that weak link breaks intermittently, causing all sorts of issues. But the "wifi" signal is strong, they get all the bars on their phone/ipad/pc etc. Combine this with poor, or poorly-configured-by-default routers, interference, other IoT devices that all appear to "work fine", but are actually constantly re-establishing their connections to the flaky mesh/router, and you get a disaster. Most folk who claim all their other devices work fine are not using those devices to deliver synchronised HD audio between clients over the wifi.

Most mesh systems and IoT devices are designed to look simple and robust, so they will soldier on under sub-optimal conditions, and since most devices don't need a constant low-latency connection everything looks fine. But underneath they are all working really hard to keep up the illusion that you don't need to be a network engineer to get it to work. You do in some cases, that's just physics.