Google Nest WiFi Pro with Sonos Era 100 Speakers

[12PercentPhil]

Hi everyone, hoping someone may be able to help.

I am looking to upgrade my WiFi to a mesh system and investigating the Nest WiFi Pro, but I am also looking to upgrade my sound system with 2 Sonos Era 100 speakers. I am intending to primarily drive the audio for the speakers through a 3rd-gen iPad Pro using the WiFi connection to the speakers rather than bluetooth.

My concern is about the inability to split down the WiFi bands on the Nest WiFi Pro - as the Sonos speakers are WiFi 6-enabled but the iPad isn't, I'm worried about the two constantly being connected to different WiFi bands and struggling to connect.

Does anyone else have a similar setup and if so, how does it work for you?

[MichaelP]

Hello @12PercentPhil 

With the caveat that I don't have this combination of products myself, I can provide some technical background that may help.

First, the Sonos Era 100 support version 6 of the WiFi standards (aka "WiFi 6"). They do not support WiFi version 6E, which adds support for the 6GHz band on top of the existing WiFi 6 specifications.

Nest WiFi Pro supports WiFi 6E, so it also supports WiFi 6 in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, in addition to the 6GHz band. However, it is backwards compatible with earlier WiFi standards.

In typical WiFi networks, each device only talks directly to an access point. If that device is actually trying to send data to another device, that will go through at least one access point.  So, a device that supports WiFi version 5 talking to a nearby access point via the 2.4GHz band can send data to another device that is connected to any access point and using WiFi version 6 in the 5GHz band (for example).

Basically, all of the different bands are bridged together at each access point, and the wireless links between each access point and each device uses whatever version of WiFi standards that client device supports.

In short, I would expect those products to work just fine. I can't guarantee they will, but if they don't, it shouldn't be an issue of WiFi versions / bands.