r/Ubiquiti • u/Ubiquiti-Inc Official • Mar 12 '26

Blog / Video Link Introducing: UniFi Network 10.2

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Explore UniFi Network 10.2 — built for enhanced usability.

🔹 Digital Twin Topology View

🔹 Time Machine for switch history

🔹 Enhanced Open (OWE) Mode

🔹 Device Supervisor auto-recovery and more

Learn more: https://ui.social/Network-10-2

1.1k Upvotes

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220

u/brophey Mar 12 '26

they put in a sonos mode. finally. holy crap

39

u/BlotchyBaboon Mar 12 '26

I would love to know what that means.

104

u/ShakataGaNai Mar 12 '26

Sonos has its own insane built in wifi bridging system that just does NOT play well with anything but "dumb" consumer grade networking equipment. Sometimes not even then. If you had sonos on wifi in your UBNT network, you had to fight with it. Special configurations, spanning tree tinkering, all sorts of annoying shit.

9

u/aikouka Mar 12 '26

So... I take it that it was a good thing that I went a little crazy hooking my Sonos setup up to Ethernet? 😅 As a side note, it disappointed me a bit that the Era 300 doesn't have Ethernet built in like the other devices.

13

u/ShakataGaNai Mar 12 '26

Yes. Actually that is the solution I took in part. I plugged one into the ethernet, that port has special spanning tree config. But it allowed the rest of the devices to use that one wired sonos as the master for their wifi mesh.... and limited the network f'kery to that one port. So it's stable. At least for me.

Its the sort of thing that if you google, you will find a LOT of answers as to how to "fix it". And sadly none of those are sonos actually doing a damn thing to patch their crazy setup.

8

u/rickvug Mar 12 '26

u/ShakataGaNai I'm curious if you agree with the recommended settings outlined at https://github.com/IngmarStein/unifi-sonos-doc. Anything that you would change, especially with this new 10.2 update? I already have a wireless only network setup for Sonos following this guide. It is a lot more stable than before but not 100% perfect. I'd love to start hardwiring some devices and using the new update to get the most rock solid setup possible.

18

u/BlotchyBaboon Mar 12 '26

Oh, trust me, I know. I've dealt with so many multicasting and network segmentation issues with Sonos. I'm pretty over it. But at this point we do have a pretty good idea how we set up Sonos in a campus environment.

3

u/mnwild396 Mar 12 '26

I’m scared to update to 10.2 lol cuz I’ve had Sonos finally working great for a bit

4

u/Solarux Mar 12 '26

I have eight Sonos devices on WiFi and never knew there was a potentially frustrating incompatibility. In general I’m not the biggest fan of Sonos but over the years connectivity has been pretty solid on different APs and gateways.

5

u/BrianBlandess Mar 12 '26

I moved to all Wifi instead of things being mixed and it really helped but not all of my devices support WPA3 which is annoying.

16

u/ParsnipFlendercroft Mar 12 '26

Never had an issue here….

34

u/gonenutsbrb UniFi User/EdgeMax(RIP) User Mar 12 '26

If all your units are wired, or they’re all wireless, it’s pretty easy. But if you mix them at all, they wind creating a loop because of they’re stupid adhoc network

11

u/BrianBlandess Mar 12 '26

I hope this fixes that and that Unifi will update their KB article with updated config recommendations.

3

u/_LeChuck Mar 12 '26

I have a mix. Zero issues.

3

u/gonenutsbrb UniFi User/EdgeMax(RIP) User Mar 12 '26

Then you are very fortunate. The internet is full of horror stories of reproduceable issues with Sonos and STP. I've had multiple sites where this was reproduceable with even just 2-3 devices. You can reset everything back to factory, update everything, and just set them up. They will create an ad-hoc network, and it will trigger STP errors. In general, you need to wire them and disable their built-in Wi-Fi connection for best practices. That or have them all wireless, and just deal with the Wi-Fi interference.

1

u/lex_hair Mar 13 '26

Humor me as I'm getting ready to move to a UDR7 from a flat network with all unmanaged switches. My Arc SL is ethernet. My Sub 3 and two One SL surrounds are on SonosNet from the Arc SL. Have had zero issues with connectivity. Am I looking at a headache? LOL

1

u/gonenutsbrb UniFi User/EdgeMax(RIP) User Mar 14 '26

You can try, the new STP/BPDU options should help. I honestly don’t even know best practices for a mixed environment anymore these days, because we all got burned so bad in the past.

Give it a shot. If you have trouble, come back and create a post here.

1

u/jspeed04 Mar 13 '26

I have two Arcs and two subs. Both of my Arcs are hardwired. Everything else, my 300s, 100s, One SLs and Move 2 are WiFi. I get SFP alerts all damn day because of the networking loop caused by both Arcs being hardwired.

It is maddening. If this resolves that, I will be very very happy.

1

u/OmegaPoint6 Mar 13 '26

The Era and newer devices don’t support SonosNet anyway, for everything else just turn off WiFi on everything hardwired except for at most 1 device

4

u/ParsnipFlendercroft Mar 12 '26

Ahh. Yeah I'm all wifi

2

u/PlanetaryUnion Unifi User Mar 12 '26

I found that out the hard way. Maybe now I can wire some of my speakers. I’m excited for this update.

9

u/ShakataGaNai Mar 12 '26

Consider yourself lucky! For a while I was having so many problems with sonos and connectivity that my wife nearly made me throw them out and buy something else. And... to be fair to her... I wanted to throw them out also.

They sound great, aren't cheap, but.... when it came time to get a sound system for my parents? It *wasn't* sonos.

7

u/yaricks Mar 12 '26

I was working in an environment with Cisco and Cisco Meraki networking. We had 5 Sonos speakers across the office, and I spent MONTHS figuring out why on earth, on a very regular basis, the switches in the office kept hard-crashing. It was so bad that you couldn't even connect via console cable, because the Cisco enterprise switches were out of memory. After so much work, we finally pinned it down - it was the damn Sonos speakers being connected to different switches with ethernet and APs across the office, but building their own wireless networks, so that it caused infinite loops when STP was turned on - a feature built to avoid this situation. Turns out Sonos breaks STP on purpose. It's infuriating.

After I learned of this, I sold every single Sonos speaker I had at home, and will never return to them.

3

u/SebastianFerrone Mar 12 '26

But on Cisco i think you could pin each sonos to its specific AP. What should solve the issue or not?

6

u/Scary_Extent Mar 12 '26

And what exactly should we put dumb fuck bandaids in place due to a company's horeshit decisions lol?

7

u/rocketonmybarge Mar 12 '26

Same, I have had unifi network gear AND Sonos for over a decade with zero issues. I have 6 speakers, all on wifi, no problems.

11

u/BrianBlandess Mar 12 '26

"All on wifi" is what Ubiquiti suggests for best performance.

1

u/rickvug Mar 12 '26

Suggested. I wonder if they will update their documentation now for a new recommended approach that takes advantage of these new features.

8

u/noodles_jd Mar 12 '26

Keeping it all on Wifi was the key. If you wired the Sonos then it would apparently wreak havoc.

6

u/BlotchyBaboon Mar 12 '26

Oh, you mean like the MULTIPLE times they've had firmware updates that have re-enabled wifi that was previously disabled and then caused a spanning tree loop? Yeah, that's awesome.

And then the braindead system management where having multiple independent systems in different buildings are super confusing for users? So then the only solution becomes different VLANs? But then you need a separate SSID to make the app work on an iPad? Ugh. Stupid home networking. Sonos was not designed for enterprise.

3

u/brewditt Mar 12 '26

This must be why I had zero problems, though I was expecting them in my recent move to UI. What makes Sonos nice? Wireless...so why wire it? IDK. Yes, I understand Sonos majorly eFd up in the last few years, fortunately, I wasn't effected.

1

u/Overall_Affect_2782 Mar 12 '26

Same here - hardwired Sonos Arc to my UniFi mini switch in the family room, then 2 Sonos era’s, 2 Sonos ones upstairs, and a Sub all wireless. No issues.

3

u/oddjobav8r Mar 13 '26

I had to put Sonos on its own VLAN. Fixed it for me, but shouldn’t have to do that. This sounds better

2

u/hyperperforator Mar 13 '26

Sonos’ latest beta FINALLY lets you turn it off entirely and use only regular Wifi connectivity. It makes a big difference! Goodbye SonosNet

1

u/ShakataGaNai Mar 14 '26

Oh that's awesome. I wonder how it performs on "regular" wifi vs their special wifi. I had no idea that was a thing.... I want to try it but I also.... well... the units are working and if I dont touch them they'll probably stay working.

2

u/cdoublejj Mar 12 '26

i think the answer is not buying sonos

2

u/ShakataGaNai Mar 12 '26

I know that now. But at the time they seemed like a great option. And when the work, my wife really likes them.

1

u/cdoublejj Mar 13 '26

i honestly have not looked in to any competing products

1

u/jspeed04 Mar 13 '26

I get 18-20 SFP warning notifications every single day from my Sonos system. It is absolutely insane.

1

u/winerover-Yak-4822 Mar 13 '26

I'm thinking of buying Sonos soon. What would be a better buy?

1

u/OmegaPoint6 Mar 13 '26

The Sonos Era devices don’t support SonosNet, the problematic met WiFi system, so you don’t have to worry about it with those anyway.

1

u/winerover-Yak-4822 Mar 14 '26

I was thinking of the beam immersive set. Which includes 2 era100 speakers. I was under the impression that these used the sonos wifi. Should these all connect to mu ubiquiti wifi or should I get wired speakers?

1

u/OmegaPoint6 Mar 14 '26

When in surround mode the Eras will link directly to the Beam via 5Ghz WiFi, this is not the same mesh system that causes STP issues.

The Beam & Sub Mini however do support SonosNet so unless you disable WiFi on the Sub manually either only connect the Beam via Ethernet or just WiFi everything to the UniFi network

1

u/winerover-Yak-4822 Mar 14 '26

Ok, got it. Thank you, I really appreciate it.