We have multiple Port players deployed throughout our building, and some of them are connected using point‑to‑point wireless links.
When we contacted support about scheduling music, we were advised to use the alarm feature and were shown how to configure it. We understand this is currently a workaround and not true scheduling. While it’s not ideal—especially for commercial environments—it does generally work.
However, we recently ran into a serious issue.
One of our point‑to‑point links went down, and during the scheduled time, half of the building began beeping nonstop. This caused a major disruption and understandably upset many users throughout the building.
In an alarm scenario, this behavior makes sense—if there’s no internet, the alarm should still sound to wake someone up. But in a music scheduling context, this becomes a real problem. Instead of a silent failure, it creates noise in public and shared spaces, which is unacceptable in a commercial environment and negatively impacts guests and staff.
If Sonos intends to continue recommending this workaround in place of proper scheduling, there really should be an option such as:
“If the device is offline, should it beep as a fail‑safe?”
- Checked - Behaves like a traditional alarm and beeps if offline
- Unchecked - Plays nothing if there is no internet or online source available
This small option would make a big difference and would prevent disruptions like the one we experienced, while still preserving correct alarm behavior for personal use cases.
