Can SONOS Alarms start the same group every morning?

  • 24 January 2020
  • 8 replies
  • 604 views
C

Hi Folks,

I have been using SONOS for a number of years.  We have players in several rooms.  We use SONOS as our alarm clock. We want the same selected group of speakers to play the same radio show (so they will be in sync) when the alarm goes off.  

When we set the alarm we check “Include selected Speakers” which I though meant the speakers presently selected and expected SONOS to remember but it does not.  Through the course of the day the groups change and evolve according to user needs,  At the end of the day the day the group is never the same as the one we want in the morning. 

SONOS does not remember what we want, it simply plays any speakers that happen to have been left grouped with the speaker in the master bedroom. 

This leads to the same scenario every morning: the alarm goes off in the master bedroom, I stumble to the kitchen in my pajamas (cursing myself for forgetting to sleep with my cell phone), I stumble around trying to find my eye glasses and then look for the cellphone.  If I cannot find them fast enough, I boot my Windows computer to run SONOS because I can find and operate the PC without wearing eye glasses.  With the SONOS app finally up and running I recreate the group just in time to put the kettle on as my wife calls for her tea cursing me for being a dumb ass who cannot run SONOS.

I frequently just forget about trying to use the SONOS app and turn the Play One on in the kitchen by pressing the button on top of it.  Now I can hear the program I want as I assemble breakfast but it is not synced to the player in the bedroom  … so we enjoy a delightful echo effect.

Yes, Alexa has not been set up.  That is deliberate.  We are concerned about spyware, among other things, if we get into a domestic, Alexa will send the police …. but now seriously ….

Is there any way to create a group for an Alarm and make it persistent? 

 

Thanks,

Cyclobiker

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8 replies

jgatie

Not at this time, unless you physically group them before hand. 

Also, the proper way to sync a device with another already playing device/group is to long press the stop/play button on top.  That will sync it to a already playing device/group, with no echo.  Long press again to switch to another playing group, or to ungroup if there are no others.

Back to the main request: With some of memory constraints being dealt with (no comments please, it’s just a statement of fact), perhaps this is something the newer devices can handle but it was held back by those memory limits.  We shall see. 

C

jgatie:  Thanks.  Seems like an odd feature to be missing.  Too bad we cannot create macros in the SONOS app that would be run by the cellphone CPU and memory or set up as a windows task.  Come to think of it, I might be able to get AutoHotKey to do just that: It simulates keys strokes and can automate nearly any Windows program.

But before trying that … I will try your long press suggestion and endeavour to educate my wife on how to use that feature.  She is always knocking the groups apart.  Once again … Thanks.

jgatie

jgatie:  Thanks.  Seems like an odd feature to be missing.  Too bad we cannot create macros in the SONOS app that would be run by the cellphone CPU and memory or set up as a windows task.  Come to think of it, I might be able to get AutoHotKey to do just that: It simulates keys strokes and can automate nearly any Windows program.

But before trying that … I will try your long press suggestion and endeavour to educate my wife on how to use that feature.  She is always knocking the groups apart.  Once again … Thanks.

 

I believe you can use IFTTT to group rooms, but I’ve never fooled around with it.  

IFTTT - If This Then That integration with Sonos

C

jgatie:  Thanks for the tip on IFTTT.  It looks as if it can do the job, and a few more.  It might be easier to set up than lower direct programming in Windows or Android.  

jgatie

jgatie:  Thanks for the tip on IFTTT.  It looks as if it can do the job, and a few more.  It might be easier to set up than lower direct programming in Windows or Android.  

 

Glad to help.  There are others here who can help you if you need it.  Me, I program for a living.  I actually don’t want to do it when I get home, lol.  Never thought I say that, and maybe I’ll feel differently when I retire. 

S
Badge

The alarm ‘feature’ is an absolute mess and has been unchanged for years.

There are multiple threads on here but Sonos are just not interested. From grouping speakers to volume settings the alarm just doesn’t work for a lot of people.

I want to set a specific group of speakers to play an alarm around the house, but the speaker in the bedroom I want set so i’m not blasted with music at a ridiculous volume. This makes the speaker in the kitchen pretty much silent. And it won’t play if the speaker has been ungrouped from the bedroom for any reason prior to the alarm. 

It’s really not difficult to have an alarm that plays out to a specified group of speakers, that allows you to set the volume on each speaker, and then perhaps an option to revert to volume and groupings that were set pre alarm when the alarm expires. Literally a few hours of work to implement.

There are threads 6+ years old still talking about these issues. 

jgatie

The alarm ‘feature’ is an absolute mess and has been unchanged for years.

There are multiple threads on here but Sonos are just not interested. From grouping speakers to volume settings the alarm just doesn’t work for a lot of people.

I want to set a specific group of speakers to play an alarm around the house, but the speaker in the bedroom I want set so i’m not blasted with music at a ridiculous volume. This makes the speaker in the kitchen pretty much silent. And it won’t play if the speaker has been ungrouped from the bedroom for any reason prior to the alarm. 

It’s really not difficult to have an alarm that plays out to a specified group of speakers, that allows you to set the volume on each speaker, and then perhaps an option to revert to volume and groupings that were set pre alarm when the alarm expires. Literally a few hours of work to implement.

There are threads 6+ years old still talking about these issues. 

 

Maybe because Sonos had to deal with fitting their application and data into a 32 MB space, these types of features were not possible when you are counting every byte.  It could be that the retirement of the 32 MB legacy devices may open the modern devices up to new features like this.  

B

Please let Sonos alarms  pick the latest podcast in a group of podcasts.

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