One speaker: Multiple groups

A Sonos 'room' can only be a member of one group. It would be illogical for it to be otherwise: a speaker can only play one source at a time.

Ad hoc groups can be created and destroyed with a few taps/clicks.

There's no concept of 'group presets', but it's a feature that's been requested quite often.

A Sonos 'room' can only be a member of one group. It would be illogical for it to be otherwise: a speaker can only play one source at a time.

Ad hoc groups can be created and destroyed with a few taps/clicks.

There's no concept of 'group presets', but it's a feature that's been requested quite often.

Just set up my Sonos play bar and Play 1s. Went straight to setup my groups and am dumb founded this cannot be done. Makes so much sense to me. Select what to play, then where to play it. My WeMo works this way. Turn on a light or a room or rooms or the whole darn house. Doing it Ad Hoc is clumsy at best. IMHO.
Please Sonos respond with a commitment to add this feature (with a date). And to those who think I'm nuts and are comfortable the way it is, you don't have to use the new feature 🙂.

My WeMo works this way. Turn on a light or a room or rooms or the whole darn house.
You're equating the supply of electricity to a collection of lamps to the synchronised play -- to within less than 1ms -- of streamed network audio by a group of computers (for that is what Sonos is)?! Enough said.

My WeMo works this way. Turn on a light or a room or rooms or the whole darn house.
You're equating the supply of electricity to a collection of lamps to the synchronised play -- to within less than 1ms -- of streamed network audio by a group of computers (for that is what Sonos is)?! Enough said.

I don't believe this is what I am doing. I am suggesting a logical grouping of devices for ease of assignment. Simple as that. Happy Holidays!

My WeMo works this way. Turn on a light or a room or rooms or the whole darn house.
You're equating the supply of electricity to a collection of lamps to the synchronised play -- to within less than 1ms -- of streamed network audio by a group of computers (for that is what Sonos is)?! Enough said.

I don't believe this is what I am doing. I am suggesting a logical grouping of devices for ease of assignment. Simple as that. Happy Holidays!
Well I think you did actually. And they're quite different engineering problems. Anyway, compliments of the season.

A Sonos 'room' can only be a member of one group. It would be illogical for it to be otherwise: a speaker can only play one source at a time.

Ad hoc groups can be created and destroyed with a few taps/clicks.

There's no concept of 'group presets', but it's a feature that's been requested quite often.

Just set up my Sonos play bar and Play 1s. Went straight to setup my groups and am dumb founded this cannot be done. Makes so much sense to me. Select what to play, then where to play it. My WeMo works this way. Turn on a light or a room or rooms or the whole darn house. Doing it Ad Hoc is clumsy at best. IMHO.
Please Sonos respond with a commitment to add this feature (with a date). And to those who think I'm nuts and are comfortable the way it is, you don't have to use the new feature 🙂.

So I happen to have both Sonos gear and multiple Chromecast Audio devices. (I actually had the Chromecasts before getting any Sonos gear.) I prefer the Sonos approach to grouping. Partly that's a personal preference, but I think it also has to do with your use case - how many zones and how many people (e.g. family members) are independently using the system. Also, I don't know that you could easily combine the static Chromecast group approach with the dynamic Sonos approach.

There are several issues I've found with Chromecast grouping in my situation (several rooms, wife, and 2 kids). Since every multiroom group is treated as a separate "device", you potentially end up with a large number of multiroom setups. No big deal if you have just 2 or 3 CAs and maybe 1 or two groups, but just with 3 CAs and wanting a group for every possible combination, and now there are 7 Chromecast "devices" as options to cast to (3 real and 4 groups). Add more and the possible combinations increases exponentially. That may sound ridiculous, but my family and I tend to change up grouping quite a bit, and with 5 Chromecast, the list was getting ridiculous, and we certainly hadn't reached every possible combination.

Another issue, related to the first, is that if I'm listening to music over the Chromecast on one device (or group) and want to switch to a multiroom setup, I need to stop casting, and then start casting to the multiroom group, which interrupts the flow of the music. First world problem, sure, but the way Sonos can smoothly and dynamically switch from a single speaker playing to multiple is really nice.

One last issue I'll mention (and again, this is really more of problem for a house with many zones and family members playing music) is that if you have several Chromecast Audio groups it can be difficult to keep track of when starting music playing on one group may "step on" music playing in another group. In other words, just which speakers get turned on selecting a group; casting to a speaker that's already playing as part of a CA multiroom group stops music playing to all members of that group in my experience.

Smurph, all good points. But because there is the possibility to create too many groups or combinations, should we not have the option at all? Let each user learn the ins and outs of the option on their own.
I again ask Sonos to provide the option to place devices in multiple groups.

Smurph, all good points. But because there is the possibility to create too many groups or combinations, should we not have the option at all? Let each user learn the ins and outs of the option on their own.
I again ask Sonos to provide the option to place devices in multiple groups.

Have you ever listened to the Car Talk guys? If so, you'll understand this: let me give an answer (actually several answers) "without the encumbrance of the thought process.....":

OK, not really.....but I come at this from the point of view of a (meatspace, not software) engineer, and the Sonos engineers may have a very different perspective...

There is an argument - absolutely - for saying, but if we only allowed 1 (or 2 or 3 or....) static groups, then that would meet "my" needs. And 100%, I agree. And yet, I also have a contradictory response: no matter how many, there will always be someone who asks for "just one more...." Just one more group, just one more "whatever". Look at the posts from people who want just one more - OK, not really one more, but lots more - music files on their local storage.....

As an engineer, at some point, you have to define a breaking point.....

I'm not saying your don't' have justifiable reason for asking for what you're asking for. What I'm saying is that it's a good thing to try to understand why things are as they are, question how thing are as they are, and yet to - not necessarily accept them as they are - but understand that there may be complex and even conflicting reasons for how they are.

smurph, Click and clack. love those guys. Listen to Public radio all the time. Your answer is deep man. Believe it or not, I am an engineer (IT infrastructure Architect) so I understand the limits of a good solution do not equal the limits of what could be done. I have said many time "some group of people sat around a table and said this is what we'll do" and the rest of us scratch our heads as to why they made that choice. Money, internal politics, technology are the main reasons teams end up where they end up.
I appreciate the perspective. still on the side of devices being allowed in multiple groups. build in a limit of 3 if they like, that will keep the chaos down to a minimum. This isn't a question if it can be done, its seems to be philosophic.
Can anyone make a solid point as to why this is a bad idea?

Nothing wrong with the idea of group presets. The idea of having a player simultaneously being a member of several groups, and potentially receiving a network audio stream from all of them makes no sense whatsoever.