Restrict access to certain zones

One potential solution for this could come through a third party product or app that leverages the new connected home API. I can picture a dedicated touch screen or tablet that only provides the features you want guests (or your kids) to have while access to using the regular Sonos app is blocked by utilizing a guest network or other router settings. We don't necessarily need Sonos to provide this feature directly.

This feature would be A-MAZING!

Seriously wonderful. I hope Sonos can prioritize this. I would purchase extra speakers for the guest house if we could add guests restrictions (don't want them to control the main house).

It's now 5 years later and this is STILL not a feature... That's just sad...

I have a seperate VLAN and SSID set up for my sonos, this is all great and dandy. However, I have 5 different rooms with sonos speakers and multiple tablets mounted in-wall throughout house. I would love to have the capability to limit some tablets to only control certain speakers. For example, I want the tablet in pool house to only control speakers by pool and in pool house. I want the kid's game room tablet to only control the speakers in the game room. I also want the tablet in the main living room to be able to cast and control all of the speakers. The idea of creating seperate wifi networks for each speaker zone is stupid. This means you can't have a master controller that can control all zones if each zone is on it's own network. This doesn't really seem that hard to implement. I don't like the fact that people in the pool house can accidentally change song in the main house and the volume there as well. I don't like the fact that the kids can change the volume in the kitchen and living room when they are in the game room. However, I still want to have the capability to control the speakers outside by the pool from the tablet in the main house without having to join a whole new wifi network everytime i want to change a zone.

Even at my work we have a sonos system for use in all of the areas we work in, but in the employee lounge they might want to listen to something different. So I have a tablet in there mounted in the wall where people can choose what to listen to in there. Unfortunately, they accidentally control volume or music in other zones. It'd be nice to be able to lock this controller down to ONLY be able to control the employee's speaker while also still maintaining the ability for the main controller in the supervisor's office to also control the speaker in the employee room.

Why is this STILL not a feature? What does sonos suggest to solve this problem?

Ryan, thanks for the idea.
John, any update on this feature? It would be highly desired

Ryan, thanks for the idea.
Ryan, any update on this feature? It would be highly desired
We discussed this on another thread just a few days ago. Cross-posting onto multiple threads isn't really going to help. Based on your comments on the other thread, I think you should explore dividing your Sonos into two (or more) separate systems/households.

Cross-posting onto multiple threads isn't really going to help.
Based on your comments on the other thread, I think you should explore dividing your Sonos into two (or more) separate systems/households.

I'm not sure how this is cross posting. If you believe these threads are duplicate and should be merged, then sure, have them merged. I am not a mod, nor have control on either of the threads.

I am a little curious, what brings you to have such a strong opinion against this feature? I can see why not everyone uses every feature, but all we are talking about here are optional features, where the user can opt-in/out.

Also, your suggestion is not a solution. Here's a quick overview of a common situation (quote from a user who posted earlier in this thread):


I have 5 different rooms with sonos speakers and multiple tablets mounted in-wall throughout house. I would love to have the capability to limit some tablets to only control certain speakers.
For example, I want the tablet in pool house to only control speakers by pool and in pool house. I also want the tablet in the main living room to be able to cast and control all of the speakers.

The idea of creating seperate wifi networks for each speaker zone is stupid. This means you can't have a master controller that can control all zones if each zone is on it's own network.
I don't like the fact that the kids can accidentally change the volume in the kitchen and living room when they are in the game room. However, I still want to have the capability to control the speakers outside by the pool from the tablet in the main house without having to join a whole new wifi network every time i want to change a zone. [...]

I would be open to any alternative solutions that can restrict the zones to control. But a separate network does not solve it.

I am a little curious, what brings you to have such a strong opinion against this feature?

I don't have a strong opinion either way, other than the fact that introducing such locks would take Sonos development resources away from other feature development. As has been noted elsewhere many times, Sonos rather focuses their business on making music easier to play, not harder.

I would be open to any alternative solutions that can restrict the zones to control. But a separate network does not solve it.

I didn't say you had to set up a new network. I suggested splitting the Sonos kit into separate systems. You can run multiple systems on the same network. The only slight downside, depending on how you look at it, is that controllers need to be dedicated to the systems they control, and players can't be grouped between systems.

Sonos rather focuses their business on making music easier to play, not harder.
I guess it's a glass half-full/half-empty debate. In my mind, adding this feature would make it easier to play.
This feature would be optional, and if activated, a user could for example mount tablets on the wall of each room with each of them controlling a single room/zone.
Think about the recent volume limit PIN-protected feature. If anything, it makes it easier for people to play music since your max volume is now your ideal volume.

The only slight downside is that [...] players/zones can't be grouped between networks.
Yes, exactly. This is the major downside ChasBoy and a few other cited in this thread.
I really don't think a separate network is what people are looking for.

Introducing such locks would take Sonos development resources away from other feature development
The idea here is that the feature is a simple (optional) login in the Sonos app. Or a pin protection of zones.
I would be surprised if either solution would take more than a few hours of development time.

I really don't think a separate network is what people are looking for.To reinforce the point: it's not a separate network. You'd simply be setting up more than one Sonos system on the same network.

I would be surprised if either solution would take more than a few hours of development time.

Oh, I thought this was a serious discussion. The moment I see the "it's surely only a few lines of code" argument I tend to check out.

I really don't think a separate network is what people are looking for.To reinforce the point: it's not a separate network. You'd simply be setting up more than one Sonos system on the same network.
Got it. Never realized we could install multiple Sonos systems on the same network.
Anyway, multiple systems or networks would defeat the main purpose I use Sonos for: multi-room audio.

I would be surprised if either solution would take more than a few hours of development time.

Oh, I thought this was a serious discussion. The moment I see the "it's surely only a few lines of code" argument I tend to check out.
Point taken. This wasn't meant to be taken literally, I shouldn't have mentioned a time-unit.
More of a thought that a lot of the existing architecture could probably be re-used. There's of course a lot of different ways to implement something like that, I'm not sure which one Sonos would chose. A couple thoughts that come to mind:
1) if each zone is PIN-based, Sonos could implement the feature similarly to the PIN-protection of the max volume they introduced in October 2018.
2) if the Sonos access becomes account based, it may require more development resources. But might lead to a better user interface.
Each user could chose to use to use the app without logging in (as it is currently), or log in with his sonos.com account.
Each Sonos System would have an owner. The owner can give rights to each user/group separately. Rights such as
- guests user can control the living room. Useful to anyone that has the WiFi password. No risk of waking up the baby
- user1@myemail.com can control the kids bedroom. This could be useful for a wall-mounted tablet in the kids bedroom.
- user2@myemail.com can control the whole house. Useful for the parents.
The user account credentials can be saved by the Sonos app to avoid the need to login more than once.
The same user account could be used on different Sonos Systems/networks.

Solution 2) would definitely require a lot more development resources. This is probably what you were thinking.
One nice thing is that it could also pave the way for future features, such as remote-management (which is off topic for this thread)