Hi @robin24 

Thank you for posting this feedback - we take all feedback seriously and yours is, in particular, very important from an accessibility point of view. As I write this, your feedback is being relayed back to the relevant teams for consideration.

The Sonos Port and Sonos Amp are the only two products in our line-up that need a PIN for setup, due to a combination of the product’s design age and a lack of internal speakers. They have both been around for long enough to have secure PIN setup but are not young enough to have NFC, and their lack of internal speakers mean Chirps cannot be relied upon. Only products that are too old to have a PIN can be added with a button press. Please be assured that if you purchase any other Sonos products in the future, you will not experience the same issue of having to visually inspect the product to be able to set it up.

We now include differently-abled people in our test groups to ensure this kind of thing no longer happens.

Thank you again for sharing your feedback, we genuinely appreciate it.

Hey @Corry P,

Thanks so much for the prompt and very detailed response, this does provide some great context that makes me feel much better about the whole thing.

In particular, I’m very relieved to hear that PIN authentication will no longer be used in newer products, NFC sounds like a much better alternative and I totally understand that this can only be made available for newer devices.

The fact that Sonos doesn’t want to rely on externally connected speakers for audio chirps is also understandable, although I still wish this was available as an alternative option for individuals who are unable to read the PIN code printed on the device.

A QR code may have been a good alternative as well, those still require the user to hold the phone over the device at the correct angle so that the QR code can be captured, but in my opinion this tends to work really well in the majority of cases.

As a side note, I did try scanning the back of the Sonos Port using an OCR app on my phone trying to capture the PIN, however even after many attempts this unfortunately did not work - perhaps the font is too small or of a style that the app I used was unable to recognize.

Thanks again for the kind response and the details you provided, very greatly appreciated!

Robin

Hi @robin24 

The PIN codes are often either in black ink on quite a dark grey sticker, or are etched by laser right onto the casing itself, also dark. The lack of contrast in these situations probably would prevent OCR from reading it effectively under various light conditions. I’m sure this could be considered too.

I think providing the option of using Chirps for those users with the outputs already connected would be a good idea, with caveats included, of course (speakers physically in a different room etc).

QR codes are a good idea too, though presumably only for stickers and not etching.

Thank you again - this can be a difficult situation for sighted people to fully appreciate and consider, so your feedback is very valuable.

Hi @robin24 

Our product team has been in touch and would love to know more about your setup experience with Sonos products. In particular, the following points:

1. Which OCR app do you use, if any?
2. How you would go about reading a QR code on your phone/tablet - via an Android setting, the camera app, or a third-party app?
3. If you use a third-party QR app, which one?
4. Which device (phone/tablet) do you use?

Any details you can provide would be extremely helpful in our consideration of issues you’ve encountered when setting up any of your Sonos products - not just the Port. If you can recall back to any other setup problems you’ve encountered, we’d love to hear about them too.

Again, thank you very much for your time.

Hey @Corry P,

Sorry for the delayed response - unfortunately, I never received an Email notification letting me know that you had replied to the thread.

Thanks a lot for your additional questions which I’m happy to answer below:

1. 1. Which OCR app do you use, if any?
2.  

I personally mostly use the Seeing AI app by Microsoft for this purpose, https://apps.apple.com/de/app/seeing-ai/id999062298.

However, there are plenty of similar apps out there such as VoiceDream Scanner that people might use to do this.

2. How you would go about reading a QR code on your phone/tablet - via an Android setting, the camera app, or a third-party app?

Generally speaking, I actually would use either the iOS Camera app, or the Scan QR Code Control Center widget in order to accomplish this.

I don’t use Android so unfortunately I’m not sure at all how it works there, however I’m sure there’s a similar process in place on that platform as well.

In regards to using a QR code when pairing a piece of Sonos hardware, however, I feel this is something which should be built directly into the Sonos app.

For instance, during the pairing process the app would prompt the user to scan the QR code on the bottom of the device, and once the code was successfully scanned pairing would resume.

3. Which device (phone/tablet) do you use?

I’m currently using an iPhone 13 Pro.

Again sorry for the delayed response, please do let me know if you have any further questions.

Robin

Hi @robin24 

Many thanks for your response - I’ve forwarded it to our product team.

As for you not getting an email to let you know I had replied - I’ve suspected that this was occasionally happening and we’ll get an investigation started.

Hi @robin24 

I’ve contacted Insided (who host our forum) and they have replied back saying that a notification email was sent to you, but that your registered email doesn’t exist, which is why you didn’t receive it.

They checked using this tool: https://email-checker.net/

Could you please double-check that your email is correct? Thanks.

Edit: your email here matches the email you registered your Sonos system with, so it seems unlikely to be incorrect.

In your reply you said that the Port and Amos are the only two products that require a pin but I just purchased a Sonos Move and it definitely requires it.  I had to get a flashlight and magnifying glass to get it and then was told in setup the pin didn’t match. I then used my phone to take a micro shot and confirmed the pin is correct and it still didn’t work. 

I am a new customer and this is beyond infuriating. Why would you put required setup information in microfont on a black surface with gray writing.  I won’t bring up the whole you have the wrong PIN as that’s obviously a whole other level of problem.  Moving on.

Hi @kspies007 

Your Move will have attempted to “chirp” the PIN code to your phone - only if this process fails, for whatever reason, will you be asked to enter the PIN code found on the device. As mentioned above, we’re working to make these numbers clearer on our new products.

As for the PIN being wrong, this is highly unusual - I recommend you get in touch with our technical support team, who will verify the issue and replace the unit for you.

I hope this helps.

Well… I’m a person with visual disabilities,  I have the Sonos Roam and I don’t have any issues setting it up, it has a sound code to configure, but I’m wondering Is it integrated in the Sonos Move?   Now here my complain is about the front LED indicator that it has, it’s too small, fortunately, I can see it, but more visually impaired people maybe not. As these speakers are smart, Why don’t you add a bigger LED ring indicator in stead of a tiny LED? The Bluetooth pairing is ok, but the device doesn’t makes any chime when connected to Wifi, a battery voice indicator in stead of go to the app, or a voice telling you the name of the connected device or Wifi network, these details are very important too, to have a more pleasant experience using our Sonos products         

Hi @Manu84 

I can confirm that Move will also utilise audio chirps for setup - if that’s what you were asking?

As for the LED indicator, this is a design choice that is standard across all of our products - perhaps there would be more complaints if we did change it to a large ring? We appreciate your feedback, however.

Having a chime play every time a speaker connected to WiFi would, in cases where a speaker has an intermittent connection through no fault of it’s own, be very annoying. I suppose having the feature and the ability to turn it off would be an option, but I think a chime would generate so many complaints that it would not be worth the effort. Again, we appreciate your feedback, and this is just my opinion.

You can currently ask Sonos Voice Controller what the battery level of your Roam currently is - “Hey Sonos, what’s the battery level?”. I hope this helps.