Skip to main content
Contributor I
August 19, 2019

Alarm speaker grouping

  • August 19, 2019
  • 29 replies
  • 1521 views
I can see that this has been requested in the past but then the posts seem to die a death with no sign of the feature being implemented in the app so...again...why can't we set an alarm to play on a specific group of speakers rather than only having the option to "include grouped rooms"?

Use case: I have speakers in a bedroom, kitchen and living room. In the evening I often want to listen to music in the kitchen or bedroom while someone is watching TV in the living room so I ungroup my speakers. In the morning I want my alarm to play a radio station or play list on all speakers throughout the house. As it stands, unless I remember to re-group my speakers before going to sleep for the night the alarm will only play in the bedroom. Why can't I have a set of ticket boxes to select exactly what speakers to play the alarm on?

The only possible reason to not have this feature that I can think of is that it could cause confusion or frustration if an alarm interrupts a speaker that is already playing. For that case, why not have an additional Yes/No box to indicate whether I want my alarm to override a speaker if it's already playing or to ignore the active speaker and only sound on those that don't already have something playing?

Thankfully I have found a workaround to implement this feature myself by using a third party home automation hub but all this does is suggest that the feature can definitely be easily implemented as it's been achieved via reverse engineering and for Sonos not include it in their own app is just either poor design or laziness.
    This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

    29 replies

    Lyricist I
    September 11, 2019
    Exactly what I need and expect from a alarm signal in a multiroom system like Sonos. At the moment I have to set up the same alarm signal in multiple rooms. When I wake up first step is to group the manually or it sounds like I’m waking up in a cathedral... 🤦🏼‍♂️
    So +1 from me!
    Contributor I
    September 25, 2019
    Same here. I have speakers in my bed room and kitchen, and play ambient music in the bedroom at night. In the morning, I have an alarm set to start music in the morning, and I have to manually add the kitchen speaker after it starts. Why can’t I just include two rooms in my alarm?
    Lyricist III
    November 29, 2019

    I just ran into this issue (again) when setting wake up alarms using SiriusXM as a source.  I have been used to the PITA of setting up multiple alarms for several rooms in the morning to achieve the desired result for years now, but I just decided to change the music source to SiriusXM and ran into a huge roadblock: SiriusXM only allows 1 stream per account so when the next room starts up, it shuts off the previous room.  Nice!  what a “feature”.  Now of course I CAN play Sirius in every room in the house as long as they are grouped together and only using one stream.  Boy wouldn’t that be nice?  Of course here we are years later and there is still no way to group rooms together and then start the music.  And just to cut off the apologists: I have written my fair share of code over the years so no, there’s no way I’m going to believe an action that takes 3 or so clicks on a smart phone app is that difficult to code or implement in an alarm.

    Also since I’m on the subject of alarms how about a few more features:

    Please stop burying the alarm setting in the mobile apps!  On desktop, there is a very convenient “Alarms”  tab at the bottom, not three clicks away at the bottom of the “System” settings page.

    Add the ability to ramp music up over the course of a variable time period:
    I want the alarm to come on at say 1% volume.  Then over the course of a settable time period (say 10 minutes) ramp the music up slowly, more or less linearly (to keep the math simple) to 25% volume.

    Also the ability to set up a multi-stage alarm:
    The bedroom comes on at lets say 6 am.  5 minutes later, the bathroom is added to the group.  10 minutes later the kitchen is added to the group.  5 minutes later the office is added to the group.  After an hour, the music is turned off and all players are removed from the group.

    As an alternate to you guys coding all that, just allow the function of adding and removing players to a group in the integration services like IFTTT.

    OK, I’ve said my peace again after waiting several years although I fully don’t expect ANY of this will happen, but at least I tried.

    Collaborator II
    December 2, 2019

    Given that Sonos has completely buried the alarm feature, I suspect it’s dead and will not see any more feature updates. They seem to want to discourage its use.

    Contributor I
    December 3, 2019

    On the latest mobile app version you can access alarms in the top left cover corner of the “rooms” tab, the icon even changes if you have alarms on or not  

     

    That being said, I would trade that in an instant to be able to group rooms with an alarm...

     

    Lyricist III
    December 3, 2019

    Huh.  I just looked on both iOS and Android and I don’t have the alarm bell in the upper right yet.  By the way I chuckled when i saw 93x and GO 96: I live in the Twin Cities too. ;-)

    Collaborator II
    December 3, 2019

    The alarm shortcut in the Rooms page is a test that Sonos is doing, only a small number of users have it. 

    Contributor I
    December 4, 2019

    The alarm shortcut in the Rooms page is a test that Sonos is doing, only a small number of users have it. 

    I had no idea! How do you know that?

    Collaborator II
    December 4, 2019

    https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/alarms-hidden-in-system-settings-with-10-4-6829754/index3.html#post16363541

      

    On the 10.4.1 Android app there is now a bell symbol top left of the rooms screen which takes you directly to alarms.


    We're testing this out with some Sonos controllers, but it's not available on all systems updated to 10.4.1 at this time. Some people will see it show up on their controllers over time as well. Based on use and performance, it may be added to all controllers in the future.

     

    Enthusiast II
    December 4, 2019

    Yup 15-years, and still waiting for this feature!

    Owner since 2006: Legacy System(8.4):3*CR100:1*ZP80:4*ZP100:1*Play 5. - S1 System:1*ZP100:1*Z120. - S2 System:5*Amp:1*Port:2*Five:1*Arc,1*Move:1*Play Bar:1*Subwoofer:5*Play1 : Long live the CR100!