Comment by CamperBob2
6 years ago
Honestly, it sounds like you have some kind of local 2.4 GHz interference problem. Try unplugging unnecessary wireless devices or moving them well out of range while troubleshooting, don't run microwave ovens until you've ruled them out, and keep your phones and other gadgets well away from the affected hardware. See if you can make friends with someone who owns a spectrum analyzer.
Before when I said I had spent hours trying to debug this, I did exactly that. Turned off every single wifi device in the house, turning off every printer, phone, and the ring doorbell. I tried bringing up one sonos device at a time to figure to figure out if one of them was causing problems.
Also, I used wifiman on my android phone to sniff out other networks. Finally, I am lucky enough to live on 3.5 acres so there aren't any nearby wifi access points.
Anyway, another comment has pointed me to the apparent solution: the sonos bridge device apparently is not essential -- just connecting one of the speakers via a wired connection makes it the bridge for the sonos network.