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Djoiner
Contributor I
July 8, 2013

Party Mode is a problem. We need ability to create multiple groups of rooms!

  • July 8, 2013
  • 105 replies
  • 10676 views
We spend a lot of time grouping and ungrouping rooms. The issue is stems from my wife's use of Party Mode. She likes to use Party Mode while she is cooking. I ungroup the outside speakers so as not to offend the neighbors. I ungroup the upstairs when the kids go to bed. I turn everything off and then create a new group to set the morning alarm. In the morning, I create a group in the kitchen and family room to read the paper. There has to be a better way! Why can't we just create groups of rooms and label them something easy to remember like "Cooking", "Kids in bed", "Alarm" or "Morning Coffee"?
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    105 replies

    Ryan E
    Ryan E
    Sonos Employee
    July 8, 2013
    Hello, This is an excellent idea, so I'm going to move this from the Questions forum to the Share an Idea forum. This will allow others to comment and +1 your idea as well.
    Help others find useful content by clicking the like button and selecting the best answer to your question.
      Matt_83
      Lyricist I
      September 22, 2013
      I immediately ran into this problem as well. When you read that 32 different rooms can be configured, you don't assume it means '...with 32 different components', but rather different configurations with existing components. Please fix!
        Klausterman
        Contributor I
        November 4, 2013
        I'm running into the same issue. But simply labeling groups doesn't resolve the bigger issue that a room can only be in one group at a time. A work around is to connect the audio out of an Apple AirPort device to the line in of one of the Sonos components. Then just use AirPlay to play any music from your favorite apps (Pandora, Spotify, iTunes, etc.) to the AirPort device. Any room can then use the line in without the need to destroy any groups you have set up. It effectively just uses Sonos for volume control and AirPlay for audio switching. Not the most elegant but nor is the Sonos groups feature.
        NickNL
        Lyricist III
        November 5, 2013
        Indeed this is a problem for me as well. I'd like to create custom zones and put specific equipment in those zones. And put custom zones in custom zones. For example, create a zone "whole house" that contains the zones "ground floor", "first floor" and "attic", "ground floor" contains "living room", "kitchen" etc.
          TonyS_1
          Lyricist I
          January 14, 2014
          Nick describes it perfectly. The ability to set up and store groups of speakers and then select a particular group to play with one touch would significantly increase the functionality of the system.  If I'm honest, when I bought the system I expected this functionality to already exist, so it was a bit of a disappointment to find out I couldn't do it.  The current grouping method does let the system down a bit. That said, I still love my new Sonos system and will continue to expand it!
            pete_41
            Enthusiast I
            January 14, 2014
            Awesome idea!
            BrianBarnes
            Lyricist II
            January 15, 2014
            This is a great idea. 
            TJRL
            Renowned Enthusiast II
            January 27, 2014
            +1.  This is a much needed feature that I know can be done, as a third party provider created an App a few years ago that works with the HomeSeer home controller software to do just this.

            So all was well in our household, until Sonos introduced the Playbar and stereo pairing of Play units.

            The third party App supplier has unable to spend the required time updating the App for the linking / unlinking of any Zones (rooms) with a stereo pair in it!

            I think Sonos should think about making this idea mainstream and remove the need for third party Apps to create a workaround.
            7x CR100, 2x CR200, 5x SP100, 1x ZP80, 7x ZP100, 1x iPod Dock, 1x Boost, 4x Play 1, 3x Play 3, 2x Play 5, 1x PlayBar & 1x Sub.
            Tess Jones
            Lyricist I
            February 4, 2014
            I thought this would be standard! Having to change the group each time is tedious. i want to be able to just click from a pre set number of groups ive named
              Kevin Wells
              Lyricist I
              February 17, 2014
              +1
              I am a new Sonos owner/user with 6 zones.  It took me about 20 minutes of learning the system to realize that this is a big missing feature.  Please add it.
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