23/10/2015

DisablingtheWiFiLinkonaSonosMusicPlayer

DisablingtheWiFiLinkonaSonosMusicPlayer
All Sonos players attempt to establish a peertopeer wireless mesh network
knownasSonosNetassoonastheyarepoweredup.Whilethisisconvenient,
there are several situations in which turning off this WiFi connection makes
sense:
Youownasingleplayerthatyouconnecteddirectlytoyourhomerouter
withanEthernetcable.Youdon'tneedthebuiltinSonosNet,sowhynot
deactivate it to reduce power consumption and electromagnetic
radiations.
YouliveinaneighborhoodwheremanyWiFinetworksarealreadycrowdingupthespectrum.
You'vehardwiredallyourplayerstomakesurethemusicstreamssmoothly,freeofglitches
andinterruptions.Youdon'twanttocreatenewsourcesofWiFiinterference,makinganalready
badsituationevenworse.
SonosNetreliesonthespanningtreeprotocol(akaSTP)tofunctionproperly,soifyourother
networkequipmentdoesn'tsupportthisfunctionalityyourentirenetworkwillbeoverloadedby
broadcaststormsandfrequentlycrash.Insteadofupgradingyournetworkitismucheasierand
cheapertoeliminatethesourceoftheproblem.
You're worried about WiFiJacking. Why leave a backdoor in your network that can't be
stronglysecured?
ItispossibletoswitchonoroffthewirelessadapterofeachSonosplayerindividually.Here'showin
3simplesteps.

Step1:FindingtheIPaddressofthedevice
From the Sonoscontroller,click on the "aboutmy sonos system"menu. You shouldseesomething
likethis:
PLAY:5:Bedroom
SerialNumber:000E582DB0C3:3
Version:4.2(build24071060)
HardwareVersion:1.16.4.11
IPAddress:192.168.1.27
OTP:1.1.1(1164zp5s0.5)

Intheexampleabove,theaddressis192.168.1.27.We'llrefertoitas<sonos_ip>intherestofthis
article.
If you feel more technically inclined, you can also retrieve the IP address from your DHCP server.
Sonosregistersitsplayersunderthe"SonosZP"clientID.
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23/10/2015

DisablingtheWiFiLinkonaSonosMusicPlayer

Step2:CheckingthestatusoftheWifilink
Sonos provides a little known on the port 1400 of their players that you can access from any web
browseratthefollowingURL:
http://<sonos_ip>:1400/status/ifconfig

Youshouldseesomethinglikethis:

The entrie labeled 'eth0' and 'eth1' correspond to the 2 wired ports. The 'lo' and 'br0' interfaces are
virtualnetworkingdevicesusedinternallybytheLinuxkernel.Theentrywe'reinterestedinislabeled
'ath0',whichstandsforAtherosdevice0.AtherosisthemanufactureroftheembeddedWiFichip.

Step3:Disablingthelink
TodisabletheWiFilinkstartbyissuingthefollowingHTTPrequest:
http://<sonos_ip>:1400/wifictrl?wifi=off

Youshouldgetthefollowinganswer:
wifictrlrequestsucceededHTTP200OK

Youcanalsocheckthatthelinkhasindeedbeendisabledbygoingbacktothestatuspage.The'ath0'
entryshouldnotbepresentanymore.Thesettingisnotpersistent,soifyouhappentobeunableto
connecttoyourplayerafterdisablingtheWiFiyoucanundothechangebypowercyclingtheplayer.
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23/10/2015

DisablingtheWiFiLinkonaSonosMusicPlayer

IfyouwanttodisabletheWiFilinkforgood,simplyissuethefollowinghttprequest:
http://<sonos_ip>:1400/wifictrl?wifi=persistoff

The change will now be preserved even after an upgrade. If you ever need to connect the player
wirelesslyinthefutureyoucanturntheWiFibackonasfollow:
http://<sonos_ip>:1400/wifictrl?wifi=on

Impactonpowerconsumption
Imeasuredthepowerconsumptionofseveralplayerswithawattmeterwhichisaccurateto+/0.5
watt.TurningofftheWiFilinkreducesthepowerconsumptionoftheplayersbyabout2Watts.Here
aretheresultsmeasuredwhentheplayersareidle:
Player

WiFiON WiFiOFF

Play:5

6.5W

4.5W

Connect

4W

2W

Connect:AMP

6.5W

4.5W

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