Question

Super Groups?

  • 3 September 2013
  • 40 replies
  • 3908 views

Userlevel 2
I have a set up in my house with 10 Sonos speakers. I tend to group them in the various rooms..... Kitchen (3 Speakers) Living Room (4 Speakers) Kids Bedrooms (3 Speakers) Master Bedroom/Bathroom (4 Speakers via Connect & Connect Amp) I change the Groups depending on the set up the house at any time. Watching movies etc...... Is there any way to get the system to remember 'Groups' so i can just click on a PreSet say 'Movies' and it will link the appropriate speakers together. I know you can create stereo pairs but i want to create 'super groups'. Many thanks

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40 replies

Userlevel 1
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Why is this so hard to do?

They keep implementing changes I don't need, and refuse to do the one that so many people keep asking for.

The lack of permanent groups is my main issue with Sonos, and has been for ages. Having to constantly set up a group every time I want to use Sonos is the item that consistently pisses me off about Sonos....

Dave
Badge +1
Bump for saving group settings please.
Bump for saving group settings please.
Can someone (anyone?) from Sonos explain why this repeatedly requested feature has neither come to pass nor been addressed in any of the numerous threads requesting it? Searching for "permanent groups" in these forums yields a dozen or so threads all requesting the same feature. Why no answers nor feature?
Userlevel 7
Badge +17
Sonos never say what they are going to do, so you will never get answers to future changes they are or are not working on.
Chromecast does it with a nice graphics screen just for permanent groups, so I guess it would be a major edit to sonos software. Maybe this would effect legacy hardware or controllers.
Seems strange they have not done it, as multi-room and hence grouping is one of their main selling points.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
As Paulw123 says Sonos will likely only ever acknowledge a suggestion and confirm it has been passed to their developers (I expect if you are lucky you'll find where a Sonos rep has done just that). Sonos won't come on here and confirm a feature will be implemented.

From my point of view the grouping of rooms is so trivially quick and easy that it seems most unlikely that Sonos will see it as a priority.

Please this video I took of the process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiHHz6WKJoc

Others may, naturally, have a different opinion to me and that's fine too

But, obviously, I'm right!!
Also it might not be a priority for Sonos because there are a lot of 3rd party options to accomplish this. I often use Homeseer to set different zone groupings based on time of day or in response to a button push on a wall switch. I think if you search the forum you can also find where people have suggested various 3rd party apps that can do it as well.
I don't get it. Google Audio Cast is practically brand new, yet it lets me bind each of my speakers into multiple groups. Works OK for my Play:5 since it has audio-in, but I'm starting to feel that I have to sell them all so I can use Google Audio Cast instead. I am growing tired of grouping/ungrouping my Sonos speakers every weekend.

Is this feature still really not on the roadmap?
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
I don't get it. Google Audio Cast is practically brand new, yet it lets me bind each of my speakers into multiple groups. Works OK for my Play:5 since it has audio-in, but I'm starting to feel that I have to sell them all so I can use Google Audio Cast instead. I am growing tired of grouping/ungrouping my Sonos speakers every weekend.

Is this feature still really not on the roadmap?


You're seriously telling us that you are "tired of grouping your speakers every weekend"? And as a result you're going to sell your Sonos system. Sonos may or Sonos may not have plans re groups. We don't know and they won't tell us. In the meantime keep grouping, it really is very easy to do.
I am mostly dismayed that it has been a feature years in the asking. And the speakers are nice, but I'm not super-keen on the annoyance of "oh, i shouldn't play music in the bedroom and wake up the girlfriend" :regroup regroup regroup: "oh she's awake and now music can be everywhere" :regroup regroup regroup:. I've really got better things to do in life and didn't know other systems actually solved the problem. I may be far from some Sonos-style power-user however.

I actually bought a bunch of Google Audio casts, and they work beautifully. But sadly none of my Sonos:1's even have an audio-input jack, which sort of leads to lots of suckitude.

If you are looking for some Sonos:1's I'm happy to help you out 😛
I am looking for something I believe is conceptually similar - but not exactly since grouping and ungrouping would solve my requirement which includes trueplay a great feature. t here needs to be an ability to selectively take sonos speakers from multiple groups thereby creating an additional group - without disrupting the tone balancing of the original groups. For example it would be great to select the sub from my TV Room group and 1 play 1 from the TV Room group and another play 1 from the Kitchen group to create a new "hallway" group that can be trueplay balanced....while not affecting any properties of either the TV Room or Kitchen groups. Is this possible
in grouping ungrouping "would NOT solve my requirement......
I am mostly dismayed that it has been a feature years in the asking. And the speakers are nice, but I'm not super-keen on the annoyance of "oh, i shouldn't play music in the bedroom and wake up the girlfriend" :regroup regroup regroup: "oh she's awake and now music can be everywhere" :regroup regroup regroup:. I've really got better things to do in life and didn't know other systems actually solved the problem. I may be far from some Sonos-style power-user however.

I actually bought a bunch of Google Audio casts, and they work beautifully. But sadly none of my Sonos:1's even have an audio-input jack, which sort of leads to lots of suckitude.

If you are looking for some Sonos:1's I'm happy to help you out :P


I started on the Sonos bandwagon but also came up against some of the software's limitations. The attraction of Sonos is the software. If asking for more features/flexibility in the software makes posts (small "t") troll-worthy then the writting is on the wall. I think it is unfortunate that the manufacturer rarely provides feedback to the comments even though they read them all. The people who will most proselytize the product are those for whom the product has eliminated the most pain as they best understand the many different pressure points the product addresses (or should).

In the meantime I will look into some of these third party solutions suggested by experienced WHA installers in this group and see if anything makes sense.

If people have been asking for what I deem to be an entirely reasonable feature request that marries perfectly with the intentinded use of the product for 3 years without it materializing, nor the company responding as to why or when, that speaks volumes to me.

Ironically I came on the site tonight looking to purchase a couple of Play 1's to add to my existing Sonos family but the snarky responses to people's legitimate feature requests and the response from Sonos to one post and their silence on most others have left me very concerned about continuing to buy into this boutique ecosystem.

If I thought that the featureset would continue to grow I would bear with it while they improved/expanded it. If I thought it wouldn't and there were other cheaper or better (or both) options on the horizon I would be likely to wait it out.

I will wait it out for now. If anyone has any additional feedback on creating multiple concurrent groups, playing Youtube content, using third party products to improve the experience etc. I'd be thrilled to hear about it.
Copied from my reply in another thread:

Putting in my vote for this feature, as it is sorely needed.

My situation - I do A/V installs for higher end clients who have large homes, vacation properties, etc. and they like to have zone controls, but each zone requires 2+ Connect:Amps and we want a way to bond multiple Connect:Amps so they don't have to fuss with Grouping every time.

Another scenario that I'm sure many would like this feature for is using multiple Connect:Amps for their surround sound systems. Scenario - receiver gets HDMI audio from each device, then separates it out into line outputs for each surround channel. Each line output is sent to a Connect:Amp input which are then balanced for volume between their inputs and, finally, bonded so that the user has 1 volume control that raises the volume for the bonded units relative to it's set volume.

In any case, this kind of functionality is a dream come true and certainly would get my clients to purchase more units.


+1