Warning when your controller switches to another room, generally caused by a disappearing room

  • 4 June 2018
  • 5 replies
  • 587 views

The scenario is you are working out to your favorite music at 6:00AM while the family is still asleep. You go to switch songs and SONOS presents you with the usual options, from a queue or other source. You hit play but nothing happens that you are aware of. No wait, you just started Highway to Hell in the Master Bedroom and yes in this case the title is very appropriate. When a zone or room drops off, can't the controller have the small amount of artificial intelligence to tell you that you are no longer controlling the same room?

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5 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +26
Hi Frank, the controller can pull up the most recently active room too, but there is something you can do to help with this problem. Go into the Sonos app and under More > Settings > Advanced Settings, select Confirm Location. With this enabled, when you go to play music after a period of inactivity, your controller will ask you which room to play the music in when you select to start playing something.
Thanks for the response Ryan. I do have the "Confirm Location" selected but I noticed that another android controller did not have it selected. Is it a universal setting or associated with each controller? Also, I have been using my system for about 12 years now and I regularly switch rooms with the controller and start new music. I have never seen a message asking to confirm the new location, or maybe I am missing it somehow. Frank
Userlevel 5
Badge +10
Thanks for the response Ryan. I do have the "Confirm Location" selected but I noticed that another android controller did not have it selected. Is it a universal setting or associated with each controller? Also, I have been using my system for about 12 years now and I regularly switch rooms with the controller and start new music. I have never seen a message asking to confirm the new location, or maybe I am missing it somehow. Frank

Some further notes on the "Confirm location before playback" setting:
1. It's an app-specific, not system-wide, setting
2. It's not available on all controllers (iOS has it, desktop doesn't, don't know about Android)
3. Beware the weird intermittent bug where the setting sometimes resets to the default "on" value
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
As Alan said, it's specific to the device you're on, not the whole system. And it's on iOS and Android, not computers.

I believe that it will ask you to pick the room after you've gone 15 minutes without playing anything on any Sonos devices.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
Tried here on my Android and it is going to be handy.