Hospitality VLAN

No, there is no way to filter access to individual speakers with the regular apps: access to the network gives you access to every speaker on that network.

Thanks @jishi

So to confirm, you are saying that it in fact CAN be done. With the right IT equipment and know-how.

So if we had a VLANx that had access to all of the other VLANs, they would see+control all devices.

And each of the other VLANs (local access only), would only see the device on their VLAN.

Is this what you're saying?

No, I'm saying you can restrict Control of individual players on a network basis. The players are aware of each other and discovery will always return all players. The actual status of the players is a bit unknown how it would behave by such a restriction, I have never tried it in practice.

The vlan access isn't just the ability to allow traffic between VLANs, but also requires forwarding/relaying of multicast and broadcast traffic. That's the tricky part.

I do think it might be somewhat of a poor experience all in all, if I'm comparing what you want to achieve and what the outcome would be.

The other option would be to run them as individual systems. The app can be "bound" to multiple systems but that is primarily used for multi-site use, not multiple systems on the same network, because you can't switch between systems on the potential reception app. Then in the end it might just be easier to buy 24 cheap phones for the reception.

Thanks @jishi

Our goal is to have a Sonos device per room of a hotel, for guests to use. Isolated to avoid cross-control.

The owner wants to be able to turn music on from reception, so that guests are welcomed with music in their room on check-in.

Do you you think this is possible? Maybe there’s a way that I didn’t think of.

In all honesty, I don't think a sonos system is very intuitive to use for random guests like this. A Bluetooth/airplay speaker is probably much better suited for something like this,especially since most people use streaming services nowadays and you normally want your own account used to access your playlists and stuff.

I agree with jishi, SONOS is not the right hardware for this application. Even if one worked through the VLAN setup and quirks, unless a dedicated controller device (phone/pad) is installed in each room, the guests would need to install and learn to use a SONOS controller on their personal phone/pad. Even with a dedicated device in each room, guests would still need to learn to use the SONOS controller. This would be a support nightmare for your staff.

In any case it would not be very practical for the front desk to start music during check-in, but I suppose that housekeeping could do this as a standard part of room setup since they would be in the room at the time.

Thank you very much.

I agree. It seems like I'd be designing a head-ache with this plan :-)

I really appreciate the input.