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Contributor I
Aug 19, 2019 3:11 PM UTC

Alarm speaker grouping

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.
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    29 replies

    Sep 9, 2020 2:45 PM UTC

    I’ll throw in my 2 cents as I too have wanted this feature for years.  

    I have many Sonos components throughout my house, outside on patios, in garage workshop, etc.   In the morning I have an alarm to start background music through out my house;  in my office, the garage workshop, and outside patio.   Can you set individual component volumes 4A Grouped Alarm?  Of course not!  Looking at past threads this has been asked for 6+ years... My office background volume should be low 10-15%, the outside patio volume needs to be a little louder 25-30% to be heard due to the nature of being outside, my garage workshop uses a Connect to an old Sony Amp so it needs fixed volume.  I just added two Sonos One SL's to my network, one for the kitchen and one for the Pantry.  I want to add these to the group alarm for background music but those speakers are so efficient they need a volume level similar to my office 10% or .    AND then I hate if you accidentally ungroup your background speakers the next day the alarm only works in a limited number of rooms.  I like the idea others have suggested to recreate the group as part of the alarm definition! 
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    Scott D
    Contributor II
    Oct 15, 2020 11:31 AM UTC

    I have three Amazon Echo speakers dotted around the house and they are very useful as a daily alarm as they can be grouped so Spotify plays everywhere each morning, for a duration of my choosing. Better still, I can add other things to the morning routine, so I get news, weather, etc, before the music starts playing.

    We enjoy the feature so much we thought about upgrading from Echo speakers to Sonos throughout the house in order to experience the better sound quality. Thought I’d check first to see if similar alarm functionality is available, and I’m amazed to find that it isn’t. Sadly, that alone rules out a Sonos purchase for us as the daily alarm in multiple rooms is a must-have feature.

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    Lyricist I
    Oct 20, 2020 2:28 PM UTC

    Another +1 requesting this feature. No idea why it isn’t already available, seems like a no-brainer.

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    R3SKT
    Avid Contributor I
    Nov 11, 2020 3:39 PM UTC

    At the risk of being a “me too” …. ME TOO! Really don’t want to have to be thinking about which 3rd party app can help me, group, ungroup, mute, set a volume etc. Just want to be able to control the SonoS from the one app please.

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    Stevie T. - 7 Play1, 3 Play5, 2 Playbase, 1 Move and 1 Mothership of a SUB!
    Lyricist III
    Jan 20, 2021 10:36 PM UTC

    please.  bought the newer hardware and gave away the older stuff, hoping s2 would support this..  please.

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    Contributor II
    Mar 13, 2021 6:36 AM UTC

    So I take it the alarm functionality still hasn’t been fixed? Even after the numerous requests on this forum? Amazing how such basic functionality isn’t available for a product which USP is having sound everywhere / multiple rooms / zones etc.

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    Trending Lyricist I
    Mar 13, 2021 10:53 PM UTC

    Nope. Nothing changed. It annoys me enormously that every morning it’s a crapshoot which rooms are still grouped with the room with the alarm.

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    controlav
    Lead Maestro
    Mar 14, 2021 12:53 AM UTC

    You can read an ex-Sonos employees thoughts on many things, including the process to add the original Alarm feature, here: https://morganlinton.medium.com/three-things-i-learned-about-product-during-the-early-days-of-sonos-bdc37975bab8

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    Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
    Contributor II
    Mar 14, 2021 6:21 AM UTC

    You can read an ex-Sonos employees thoughts on many things, including the process to add the original Alarm feature, here: https://morganlinton.medium.com/three-things-i-learned-about-product-during-the-early-days-of-sonos-bdc37975bab8

    Thanks for sharing this. The article itself doesn’t really give any new insights into the “alarm” functionality other then that they are struggling with this for a long time. Shame they can’t (or rather, won’t) solve this properly, especially given all the thought they put in other aspects of the product (e.g. packaging).

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