Home Airplay Lags: Normal?

[wayland1985]

I’m looking to expand my outdoor audio setup… But given we live in a climate that’s only conducive to outdoor living for half the year, I’m tempted to invest in wireless speakers instead of hardwired options.

I currently own a few Sonos speakers. 99% of the time I use them with Airplay instead of the Sonos App… but one thing I notice is that responsiveness isn’t great, especially as I add more speakers to a listening session.

It might take 1-2 minutes for all of the speakers to start playing… Volume changing via my phone can take a few seconds, and skipping songs might result in a timeout of a few minutes. I understand that some delay can be expected given the wireless nature, but it is a bit longer than acceptable at times. Heck, even some speakers will time out completely for a song or two.

I have gigabit service broadcast over an older Orbi setup: I’m not sure if the MESH is the problem? Or if this is just an inherent trait of Airplay in general?

 

[pup]

Just as a point of reference, I have ten Sonos, an AppleTV, and an old Airport Express. I airplay to them all simultaneously every day. I don't see anything like what you're saying. If I see a delay in playing, it may be 2-4 seconds.

One big difference in my setup is that, with the exception of a Sonos Roam and Move, everything is hardwired. But even before it was, I didn't see the delays that you're having. I do recommend hardwiring as much as you can, though.

So, yes, I think you're on the right track with the network. One thing to check is that everything is on the same network, and that you don't have some speakers connecting directly to your service provider's router with others connecting through your mesh network. Airplay really doesn't work well like that even though it will try. Solutions to that problem are either turning off the wifi on your provider's router, or setting your mesh network to bridge mode.

Also, if you have a HomePod on your network, unplug it to see if that's what's causing problems.

 

[TonyC28]

If it makes you feel any better I see lag using 2 OG HomePods and two Minis. Takes about 10-15 seconds for everything to get going. Today I couldn’t get it to work at all when I tried starting the music through the HomePod in the Home app. I had to go to Music and then initiate AirPlay.

 

[waw74]

airplay is kinda hit and miss.

for sonos, if you use hardwire ethernet on one speaker in your system, they will form their own mesh network. It seems to work much better than just having them on your house wifi.
Just plug in the one speaker, and they should switch over on their own within a couple minutes. Sonos recommends that you remove your wi-fi password after you've switched over.
If your house is a bit spread out, connecting one on either end of the house probably wouldn't hurt, And it can be any speaker in the system, even a sub or surround, whatever is easy to do.

you can also airplay to one speaker from your phone, and then use Sonos to send to the other speakers in your system. this tends to work a bit better, but you need to use whatever audio app on your phone, and then the Sonos app to connect the other rooms, and adjust individual volumes. so a little clunky. This also will let you send airplay audio to older speakers that don't support airplay natively

 

[wayland1985]

Sounds like I need to use the sonos app itself. Airplay refused to stream to my receiver and my Sonos Speakers this weekend for some reason… They showed up on the stream option, but if you selected one, it would disconnect the others.