Skip to main content
Answered

Ongoing Alarm Function Issue

  • August 9, 2025
  • 8 replies
  • 171 views
M

I am experiencing an ongoing issue that has now persisted for over a year. One of the primary reasons we invested in the Sonos system was its ability to set alarms to play specific playlists — a feature we used daily. For the past year, however, the alarm function has been essentially unusable.

 

Here are the consistent issues we experience:

  • I cannot set alarms from my phone at all.
  • My husband can set alarms from his phone, but only with the chime sound — no playlists will play.
  • No matter what we try, the playlist option simply does not work.

I have:

  • Contacted your support team multiple times via phone and chat.
  • Been told repeatedly that the issue “needs to be escalated” — but without receiving any follow-up or resolution.
  • Double-checked every possible setting and update on our end.

I would like a direct and specific response on:

  1. What is causing this issue?
  2. Whether Sonos intends to fix it — and if so, the expected timeline.

 

Best answer by Sotiris C.

Hello ​@Masters, welcome to the Sonos Community!

I am sorry to hear you are experiencing issues getting your Sonos Alarms to work properly in your Sonos system.

Here are the consistent issues we experience:

  • I cannot set alarms from my phone at all.
  • My husband can set alarms from his phone, but only with the chime sound — no playlists will play.

What is the make and model of your phone that you are unable to set alarms in the Sonos App and is it different than your husband’s? What is your experience, in a sense of, are you not able to select the Alarm option within the Sonos App?

Just before replying here, I tried to reproduce your issue but was unsuccessful. I was able to create a couple Sonos Alarms with Playlists from Spotify and YouTube Music, which I’ve got saved as Sonos Favorites Playlists.

When the alarms hit, the corresponding playlist started playing. What is the music source for the playlists you are trying to add? Have you tried re-creating a playlist, saving it as a Sonos Favorite Playlist and set it as Music for the Sonos Alarm?

I have:

  • Contacted your support team multiple times via phone and chat.
  • Been told repeatedly that the issue “needs to be escalated” — but without receiving any follow-up or resolution.

If you would like to provide me your Case number in a private message, I can have a look in regard to the escalation and lack of follow-up from our behalf.

Let me know and I hope this helps.

8 replies

Sotiris C.
Forum|alt.badge.img+16
  • Sotiris C.
  • Sonos Staff
  • Answer
  • August 11, 2025

Hello ​@Masters, welcome to the Sonos Community!

I am sorry to hear you are experiencing issues getting your Sonos Alarms to work properly in your Sonos system.

Here are the consistent issues we experience:

  • I cannot set alarms from my phone at all.
  • My husband can set alarms from his phone, but only with the chime sound — no playlists will play.

What is the make and model of your phone that you are unable to set alarms in the Sonos App and is it different than your husband’s? What is your experience, in a sense of, are you not able to select the Alarm option within the Sonos App?

Just before replying here, I tried to reproduce your issue but was unsuccessful. I was able to create a couple Sonos Alarms with Playlists from Spotify and YouTube Music, which I’ve got saved as Sonos Favorites Playlists.

When the alarms hit, the corresponding playlist started playing. What is the music source for the playlists you are trying to add? Have you tried re-creating a playlist, saving it as a Sonos Favorite Playlist and set it as Music for the Sonos Alarm?

I have:

  • Contacted your support team multiple times via phone and chat.
  • Been told repeatedly that the issue “needs to be escalated” — but without receiving any follow-up or resolution.

If you would like to provide me your Case number in a private message, I can have a look in regard to the escalation and lack of follow-up from our behalf.

Let me know and I hope this helps.

Leaving a like and marking Best Answer might make someone's day. Who knows, that someone might be you.
    J
    Forum|alt.badge.img+2
    • jay house
    • Avid Contributor III
    • November 2, 2025

    I too have this issue since the new app. Unable to create alarms on my phone ( iPhone 17 pro but didn’t work on my old phone either). They just disappear as soon as I create them. What’s the resolution?

    Airgetlam
    • Airgetlam
    • November 2, 2025

    If you’ve rebooted both your router, and your Sonos devices, your best bet would be to submit a system diagnostic within 10 minutes of experiencing this problem, and call Sonos Support to discuss it. Don’t post the resulting diagnostic number here, they get sensitive about GDPR.

    There may be information included in the diagnostic that will help Sonos pinpoint the issue and help you find a solution.

    When you speak directly to the Support staff, they have tools at their disposal that will allow them to give you advice specific to your network and Sonos system.

    Bruce
    P
    • Procter
    • Lyricist I
    • December 23, 2025

    I have a Sonos system set up in a industrial environment streaming 24 seven it’s a Sonos Port connected to a sonance amplifier and I’ve had ongoing issue for the last two years and the technical department at Sonos has been unable to rectify the daily alarm that turns on every day at 5 PM and turns the music off. I have to physically go up and reset the system and reconnect the input port daily to keep music playing I have sent updated diagnostics and screenshots of the issue to the team no less than 10 times and get zero resolution. an additional issue we have is that an industrial environment like this we do not have routers to connect to so the only viable solution to get Data to the Sonos port is via Verizon hotspot, which may or may not be part of the issue but every morning I come in and the music is not playing. There is a Sonos alarm that went off at 5 PM the previous night

    Corry P
    Forum|alt.badge.img+19
    • Corry P
    • Sonos Staff
    • December 23, 2025

    Hi ​@Procter 

    I’m sorry to hear of this experience you have had - it sounds less than ideal! And unusually persistent! To add to that the fact that you have had to make so many attempts to have us resolve this for you, and still have not yet come to a fix, I am very sorry to hear you have been let down thus far. We aim to do better, and I will start right… 40 minutes ago.

    I just investigated a little, and found out a couple of things:

    You had numerous cases related to this, which is indeed unfortunate. In the future, though, I recommend always quoting your existing case number (if it’s a related issue to your previous contact) at the start of a support call - that way, your case history is immediately far more apparent to the agents you speak to, and your case will be escalated to someone who is more qualified to dig deeper into this problem you are having in a more timely - and therefore agreeable to you - manner, if they are unable to do so. Please don’t take this as me blaming you in any way; I’m going to provide some internal feedback of my own regarding case numbers.

    I can also see that you have successfully factory reset your Port (twice) since the last support call - if your alarm issue has persisted after that, considering the fact that the Port is your only Sonos device, this is not only very strange and entirely unexpected, but possibly also serendipitously illuminating on an extant alarm-related software bug.

    For now, I hope it will be enough to take a diagnostic as evidence to feed back to the right people and then perform some steps that will get you rolling again.

    Please wait for the alarm to interfere with your intended playback once more and submit a diagnostic immediately afterward, while the alarm is still playing. Once done, feel free to change the music. Please let me know here that you have set the diagnostic, but please don’t post the given number here in a public place.

    Once that is done (or once you’re able) please factory reset the Port once more. This time, however, before setting up the Port again, please reset the Sonos app, then uninstall it from your device. Reinstall the app from your device’s app store, then go through the setup procedure entirely from scratch. I apologise that you need to go through this process yet again, but I hope this really will be the last time you need to do it. If, however, this is the same process you went through last time, I can only recommend that you get back in touch with our technical support team once more (quoting your case number - if you don’t know it, please PM me (click on my name to the left) and I’ll be happy to tell you what it is there) and make this particular fact abundantly clear from the start of the call.

    Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, and I really hope this helps.

    If the alarm comes back after all of that, all I can suggest is repeating and using a different (new) Sonos account, and a different device for the Sonos app, if possible - please update me here if this turns out to be the case.

    Happy Holidays!

    "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
      Airgetlam
      • Airgetlam
      • December 23, 2025

      I wouldn’t rule out (not having access to the call records or diagnostic data) an alarm set by an outside influence, such as HomeKit or a Google Home setting. But that’s just a guess, the procedures outlined by ​@Corry P would absolutely help define that. 

      Bruce
      P
      • Procter
      • Lyricist I
      • December 23, 2025

      I have never had anything, but the controlling iPad connected to the system so there’s no way there is an outside alarm from another device

      Corry P
      Forum|alt.badge.img+19
      • Corry P
      • Sonos Staff
      • December 24, 2025

      Hi ​@Procter 

      Thank you for the diagnostics - I just shared them with a colleague.

      As there are indeed no alarms set, we’d like to confirm/ask a few things:

      • Please confirm what the Port is physically connected to at Line-Out
      • Please confirm that nothing is connected to Line-In
      • Are there any third-party control systems in place, such as Google Assistant, Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Control4, or any other automation system? This includes on other networked devices, such as your iPad, Google Nest devices, Alexa Echos, etc.
      • Whether or not there are any router features or scheduled network events that might be causing such events? Such as reboots, QoS, parental controls or Smart Wi-Fi rules that may coincide with 5pm?

      We could not see any events happening at 5pm specifically - how close to exactly 5pm are these events, typically? As no alarms are set (or happening), it seems likely that the Port is being affected by an outside event on the network, possibly caused by a scheduled event somewhere.

      Could you please submit one more diagnostic at 5pm as soon as one of these events happen? Thanks.

       

      "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein
        Terms & ConditionsCookie settingsAccessibility statement