Sonos or Powerbar nukes communications in my bathroom

[to_lighter]

Hi gang,

 

I was vexed by a communications problem. In my master bedroom there are two closets with lights on dimmers, beyond which is the master bathroom. All of these lights would frequently be difficult to control remotely by my ISY 99i, but worked fine if you clicked the switch itself. The rest of the lights in the master bedroom could be controlled fine.

 

In one of the closets I have two Sonos amplifiers (Zoneplayer 120 http://sonos.com/). These are part of a whole house sound system and drive in-ceiling speakers in the bedroom and bathroom. When I unplugged these units, the problematic lights started working with 100% reliability. Plugging an Access Point in to the same circuit helped a bit but did not eliminate the problem.

 

I have a Monster powerbar (not one of their really expensive ones) and tried plugging the Sonos gear into that instead, and again the communication problems came back. Even plugging an Access Point into the power bar did not eliminate the communication problems.

 

Here is the strange part. Even plugging the powerbar into the closet with nothing plugged into it recreated the communication problems! The lights only work reliably when neither the Sonos units nor the empty powerbar are plugged in. I checked the plug with a circuit tester and there are no obvious wiring issues.

 

Obviously, I am going to need to be able to use the Sonos gear. Any idea on how to eliminate their effect (presumably line noise) from my lighting setup?

 

Cheers!

[to_lighter]

I guess not all powerbars are created equal. I grabbed the big Monster powerbar that I have my AV equipment in the Living Room hooked into and tried that instead. This is one of the more expensive models and is from their AV line, not their PC line. It has a bunch of jargon descriptions of all the things that it can do, but one is that it is supposed to suppress AC noise. Sure enough, plugging this bar in by itself did not disrupt communications, and plugging the Sonos gear into this powerbar also did not disrupt communications. Problem solved!

 

Cheers!

[Michel Kohanim]

Hello to_lighter,

 

Thanks so very much for sharing this information. You might also want to get some FilterLincs.

 

With kind regards,

Michel

 

I guess not all powerbars are created equal. I grabbed the big Monster powerbar that I have my AV equipment in the Living Room hooked into and tried that instead. This is one of the more expensive models and is from their AV line, not their PC line. It has a bunch of jargon descriptions of all the things that it can do, but one is that it is supposed to suppress AC noise. Sure enough, plugging this bar in by itself did not disrupt communications, and plugging the Sonos gear into this powerbar also did not disrupt communications. Problem solved!

 

Cheers!

[Algorithm]

Hi to_lighter. What I suspect is happening is that the Sonos is introducing noise onto the line, which disrupts communications. The (first) power bar, like most surge suppressor strips, may be acting as a signal absorber, reducing the INSTEON signal. The better power bar, it seems, both filters the noise, and does not absorb signal.

 

If you want to move your more expensive power bar back to your A/V gear, you could plug the Sonos, via the other power bar, into an INSTEON filter, which may well alleviate the problem.

[bkvargyas]

I have 8 Sonos zones throughout the house, most of them are plugged into a UPS system, and I think the UPS filters any noise the Sonos system geneates, I never did try Sonos plugged in without a UPS. I do have Filterlinc's on all of my UPS's just to be sure as well.

 

Brian