Control Sonos Remotely (over VPN)
I'd very much would like to control (or at least monitor) my Sonos system over VPN. I can control my lighting and HVAC via Lutron and my IP cameras but it appears that the Sonos iOS app only functions over the device's wireless interface (network). All that is required is a change to allow the Sonos app to use any network, wifi or otherwise. This could be implemented as a enumerated list in the app's settings where the user could enable or disable (on or off slider) each network type and then sort the list to establish a priority. I understand that there would be a delay if for example, my primary network was wifi but I was currently connected remotely via VPN, I would have to wait for discovery via wifi to timeout before the app would begin searching via VPN. This would be acceptable to me. Thanks!
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I often worried that I would leave home forget to turn off my Sonos and the loud sound keep troubling my neighbors. Well that hasn't happened until now, but I do wish Sonos can turn it off when I leave home, my other home appliances can, such as nest, hue, no bug deal for them.
I was woke up from overseas this morning in the mid night by my nest telling me it detects something, I turned on nest then relised that it was 7 o'clock in the morning back home and the music is loud. I did remember to turn off Sonos before I took off to my overseas trip, but I forgot to turn off the alarm.
I love Sonos, but from my previous experience with Sonos community, I found Sonos tend to ignore these comments and refused to make any changes, so I dont post stuff, only watch.
Sonos by now should have Bluetooth ability, a better line-in port and management, support wireless headset, and a remote control over Internet. But hey, they never listen!
I was woke up from overseas this morning in the mid night by my nest telling me it detects something, I turned on nest then relised that it was 7 o'clock in the morning back home and the music is loud. I did remember to turn off Sonos before I took off to my overseas trip, but I forgot to turn off the alarm.
I love Sonos, but from my previous experience with Sonos community, I found Sonos tend to ignore these comments and refused to make any changes, so I dont post stuff, only watch.
Sonos by now should have Bluetooth ability, a better line-in port and management, support wireless headset, and a remote control over Internet. But hey, they never listen!
There uses for remote internet control other than simply turning off the system if you forgot. One of my clients is constantly trying and discarding premium services, and has me add/remove them from his system. In addition, the house is his summer/holiday home and he wants music playing whenever he arrives in town. Right now, all these things require an hour & 15 minute drive for me to do. Remote accessibility would save me considerable time and gas.
Not to mention, the Sonos is the ONLY part of his system that cannot be accessed remotely.
Not to mention, the Sonos is the ONLY part of his system that cannot be accessed remotely.
+22Not to mention, the Sonos is the ONLY part of his system that cannot be accessed remotely.
Mate, our planet does not need this kind of crap.
Tell your client to switch on the Sonos himself when he arrives. Surely he can put up with 30 seconds of silence rather you driving 2 and a half hours. For crying out loud!!
Leave a computer onsite which you can remote into. Or would the client be incapable of turning that on?
he wants music playing whenever he arrives in town.
This is utterly ridiculous. Do you also have a 2.5 hour round trip whenever he wants to change source, or even select a different track?
No offense, but if your client can't remove and add services by himself, or turn the system on, he doesn't deserve the fortune he so obviously has in order to get you to do it for him. A five year old could do either.
As an aside, a remote computer is the obvious answer.
As an aside, a remote computer is the obvious answer.
My use case: I have several 'alarms' set up through different zones that play for a couple of hours at a time. I only turn these alarms on when I leave on vacation as s theft deterrent. It makes it look like there after people inside. Especially effective when you use Pandora comedy radio as s source ;)
Anyway, I usually forget to turn all these on before I leave on vacation and I want a remote way in!!!
Anyway, I usually forget to turn all these on before I leave on vacation and I want a remote way in!!!
+22You realise Sonos is an audio product and won't make anything "look" like something? But hey your course
, your horse.
, your horse.
, your horse.
LOOK LIKE. Its a figure of speech. It's like saying SEEM LIKE. You need to get out more.
Once again, the answer is a remote computer.
I need it because of the following...
My mother who is having memory problems calls me and asks me if I can turn it on for her and put some music for her. When I am home I can do that but not if I am away. It seems simple but it is necessary. I do set it as an alarm clock to play everyday on something that she likes when I am not there but she then has to run it off if she is watching tv or reading. Not a b deal for you and me but for her and her problems it is another phone call and another difficult task for her to perform. I hope Sonos helps...
My mother who is having memory problems calls me and asks me if I can turn it on for her and put some music for her. When I am home I can do that but not if I am away. It seems simple but it is necessary. I do set it as an alarm clock to play everyday on something that she likes when I am not there but she then has to run it off if she is watching tv or reading. Not a b deal for you and me but for her and her problems it is another phone call and another difficult task for her to perform. I hope Sonos helps...
I don't think we needore reasons to justify why we need remote control of Sonos while nest and hue provide this function already.
I hope to see Sonos not only support remote control also support Google cast. You will be left out by the market if you are so afraid and not confident enough to follow the trend of the current market.
I hope to see Sonos not only support remote control also support Google cast. You will be left out by the market if you are so afraid and not confident enough to follow the trend of the current market.
Hi all, I'm in the IT enterprise mobility industry and this is solvable and pretty easily for an apps dev team. All depends on what's the on wish list and how badly customers want that feature.
1. Enable micro-vpn on Sonos mobile app
2. install remote agent on Sonos device
3. Open random (predefined port) on WiFi Router
4. Control Sonos from anywhere using existing Sonos mobile app.
No need for full VPN and RDP type service or even a PC.
C
1. Enable micro-vpn on Sonos mobile app
2. install remote agent on Sonos device
3. Open random (predefined port) on WiFi Router
4. Control Sonos from anywhere using existing Sonos mobile app.
No need for full VPN and RDP type service or even a PC.
C
After playing with it for a little while I made it work with L2TP IKEv2 VPN setup.
The idea is to get it on the same network as your Sonos devices and make multicast and broadcast work.
You can use:
1) raspberry pi or any linux device you're willing to use as a VPN gateway. Raspberry PI is cheap, small and has no fans
2) StrongSwan software on the server side for L2TP VPN connection. Required plugins: dhcp (for getting an IP address from your home router), farp (for proxying ARP to make it look like device is on the same network) , forecast (for broadcast / multicast forwarding)
To save people some time:
1) You don't have to join the same network but having your controller on a separate network will complicate the setup even more. it doable, though.
2) The most obvious setup - OpenVPN with 'tap' device won't fly. Android doesn't support TAP devices. making it work with TUN device is a nightmare.
3) Sonos controller must be connected to a wifi network to function properly, so you'll have to use public / private wifi or wifi hotspot on some other device in conjunction with VPN
Enjoy your music.
The idea is to get it on the same network as your Sonos devices and make multicast and broadcast work.
You can use:
1) raspberry pi or any linux device you're willing to use as a VPN gateway. Raspberry PI is cheap, small and has no fans
2) StrongSwan software on the server side for L2TP VPN connection. Required plugins: dhcp (for getting an IP address from your home router), farp (for proxying ARP to make it look like device is on the same network) , forecast (for broadcast / multicast forwarding)
To save people some time:
1) You don't have to join the same network but having your controller on a separate network will complicate the setup even more. it doable, though.
2) The most obvious setup - OpenVPN with 'tap' device won't fly. Android doesn't support TAP devices. making it work with TUN device is a nightmare.
3) Sonos controller must be connected to a wifi network to function properly, so you'll have to use public / private wifi or wifi hotspot on some other device in conjunction with VPN
Enjoy your music.
To everyone who keeps questioning why do you need this. Besides the obvious that remote access should be there and there is no reason to require WiFi if on network if through a VPN. Here's a simple scenario. I have my Sonos alarms set to go off and blast some loud rock music because I'm hard to wake up. I went away on business out of the country, forgot to turn them off. My alarms went off for 2 days blasting music. I live in an apartment building on the 4th floor. They were complaining on the 1st floor. It's my fuck up. But if I could of accessed it remotely I could of remedied that. Now I have taken measures for when I forget, like I can connect to my router and disconnect the SONOS from accessing the Internet to stream my music for the alarms or use my logitech harmony hub to mute them. But it would be simpler to go into the sonos app and control it like I should be able to. Not rocket science. Sonos has fallen so behind in the smart home market, it's ridiculous.
Here's another scenario where remote access for Sonos is desired. I have a rental property that is used for short term rentals. I thought it would be a nice touch to have music playing when our guests arrive. It would be great if I could turn music on shortly before check-in time and even better if the speakers could be triggered by certain actions in the house through IFTTT. We love our Sonos speakers in our primary home, but probably won't spend the money on Sonos speakers in the rental unless, or until, easy remote access controls are available.
I just ran into this easily fixable problem as well today. I have a little vpn server at my parents house and even when I'm connected to it, the sonos app won't even try the vpn interface to see that there is indeed sonos on my network. It just tries the wifi adaptor and if's down it gives up. If I turn on wifi in my house, the sonos app will start to find the controller at my own home. As others have mentioned, this could easily be fixed. Probably one line of code.
+22Best send it to Sonos
Delighted they will be
Sigh.
If I had a nickel for every time . . .
If I had a nickel for every time . . .
But it's easy! Just one line!
🙂
🙂
I have ordered some Sonos speakers for my small business and have been following posts about this extensively. To everyone who asks about why you would need remote control, as a small business owner, I want my Sonos system to play music for the environment of my shop and continue to play when I leave the store. I know this can be done by having a device that always stays at the store but if I can avoid that extra expense and control it remotely, that would be ideal. I also employ a lot of teenagers and leaving a device at the store that they would be able to control isn't something I'd want. Adding official support for this within the Sonos app would be great, as I'm sure I'm not the only business owner using a Sonos system.
Matt5215,
In the case you seem to be describing, the solution that I would consider would be to put a simple NAS on your office network, and allow the music to play from there. No need to add a controller to your PC, you could control it from your mobile device while in the office, and because the mobile device is a controller only, the music would continue to play from your NAS while you were gone. Sure, you wouldn't be able to change anything or turn it off while you weren't there, but it doesn't sound like that's your priority.
Frankly, I'd put it on a separate wifi system, so no one in the shop had access to that wifi signal, so that they couldn't just download and install their own controllers on their phones and connect to your system, but a separate router/wifi system is only around $100?
I get that if you want to start or stop it while not being connected to the wifi is an issue, but at least this would give you music while not being connected. And in fact, as long as you kept the separate wifi (the obverse of a guest wifi) password private, you could be connected to any source that Sonos has access to, and your phone wouldn't need to be attached in that case, either.
In the case you seem to be describing, the solution that I would consider would be to put a simple NAS on your office network, and allow the music to play from there. No need to add a controller to your PC, you could control it from your mobile device while in the office, and because the mobile device is a controller only, the music would continue to play from your NAS while you were gone. Sure, you wouldn't be able to change anything or turn it off while you weren't there, but it doesn't sound like that's your priority.
Frankly, I'd put it on a separate wifi system, so no one in the shop had access to that wifi signal, so that they couldn't just download and install their own controllers on their phones and connect to your system, but a separate router/wifi system is only around $100?
I get that if you want to start or stop it while not being connected to the wifi is an issue, but at least this would give you music while not being connected. And in fact, as long as you kept the separate wifi (the obverse of a guest wifi) password private, you could be connected to any source that Sonos has access to, and your phone wouldn't need to be attached in that case, either.
+24The new Sonos Cloud API makes this kind of thing (stopping playback remotely) pretty trivial. Starting playback is iffy, but stopping looks simple enough.
For example, I'm out of hose and I want to disable the wakeup alarm......
Since most solutions posted here look to having a remote computer (e.g. Raspberry Pi), I’d consider the most elegant solution to be for the controller to be easily accessed via any browser connecting over the VPN.
This looks like this could be quite an elegant solution to the problem. Might try setting this up in a jail on my FreeNAS box and give it a try...
https://github.com/Villarrealized/sonos-web
This looks like this could be quite an elegant solution to the problem. Might try setting this up in a jail on my FreeNAS box and give it a try...
https://github.com/Villarrealized/sonos-web
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