Finally!!!: Home Automation -> Auto lights ON and (sonos) music ON when you het home

Hi Dani & Keith,
Although I sympathise with jgatie's point of view, I do have a project in mind that you may just have helped me greatly with...
Have you / can I - use sonos as the doorbell ?
I have a door bell that generates a push event that I intend to capture, but then I want to briefly interrupt what is played on some of my sonos players and play a "ding dong" file, then let the sonos players resume - Can that be achieved?
I intend to research this in detail but your point of view would be very much appreciated, thanks
Thomas

Hi Dani & Keith,
I do have a project in mind that you may just have helped me greatly with...
Have you / can I - use sonos as the doorbell ?


It's not impossible, but it could require a lot of integration to make it work properly. A lot of the challenges around HA are about integration. Things like IFTTT and Yonomi can help with this, but aren't always capable of achieving what you desire.

For instance, IME IFTTT recipes tend to have a bit of a lag, which is fine for some apps (turn a light on at sunset) but not for other. I feel IFTTT would be unsuitable for a doorbell application as you want the doorbell to ring almost as soon as the button is pressed. I'm not familiar with Yonomi but I suspect a similar lag issue might present itself.

The other thing to bear in mind is that Sonos is a complex system. If you have multiple players, you could have them grouped in all manner of different ways playing content. Depending on your requirements you might need to:
- Discover and store the grouping and sources for each group
- Re-group the players in the way you want for the door chime (possibly one big group)
- Find the chime file on a NAS or other file share and push the URL to the group to get it to play
- Restore the original grouping and sources

At each step multiple things can go wrong and, if you do it right, you will have logic to handle those error conditions. It requires interaction with Sonos at quite a deep level, and I'm really not sure if any of the current HA "glue" solutions like Yonami can do this.

Even if you developed this on a standalone system (such as a Raspberry Pi) talking directly to the Sonos players using SoCo (https://github.com/SoCo/SoCo) or similar, I suspect there would be occasions where you suffer a few seconds delay before the music stops and the doorbell chime sounds, and occasions when it doesn't work at all.

It sounds like a fun project if you have the time and inclination, but given the challenges, I'm not sure it's that practical.

Cheers,

Keith

Hi Keith,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I appreciate it is complicated hence I am looking to see if someone else has started slicing the elephant..

My intention is indeed to build a little stand alone solution on RPi, to capture the doorbell event from the "DoorBird" device.
You have a good point about the Sonos player grouping issue, because it is not the fastest process and therefore not compatible with the concept of urgency.

Keeping things simple, I may initially dedicate one player to play a particular sound file pushed direct from the Pi. I haven't looked into the time it takes for a player to respond in such a situation, given it may be doing something else at the time...
Maybe I can use the player groups as configured at any point in time?

As mentioned, I will research and try to figure this out. Thank you very much for your point of view and if you have more great comments, please let me know.

Best Regards,
Thomas

Hi Dani & Keith,
Have you / can I - use sonos as the doorbell ?
I have a door bell that generates a push event that I intend to capture, but then I want to briefly interrupt what is played on some of my sonos players and play a "ding dong" file, then let the sonos players resume - Can that be achieved?
I intend to research this in detail but your point of view would be very much appreciated, thanks
Thomas
This could be a solution that works with Yonomi. Mount this http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F7C030/ instead the door bell button, and you can trigger whatever routine you want, including "a ding dong" file.
Bellow you have a routine example with what you want and further...

I just tried out Yonomi. It doesn't seem to support grouping.

It also took nearly ten seconds to play something from the point I triggered it on the app. I don't consider this fast enough for a doorbell. Factoring in reaction time and getting to the door, the typical Parcelfarce delivery person will have put a card through to door and be halfway down the road before I got to the door.

YMMV.

Cheers,

Keith

I just tried out Yonomi. It doesn't seem to support grouping.
Keith
It does. But Sonos, not Yonomi. I grouped the speakers in Sonos app (Living + Kitchen) then I play Sonos Kitchen speaker (into a Yonomi routine) and it does play along with the Sonos Living speaker simultaneously (because they are already grouped in Sonos app).

Thanks Dani, but I meant it doesn't support the ability to perform grouping/ungrouping, which seems to be a potential requirement for this application (of course, depending on how it's put together).

Cheers,

Keith

Hi Dani & Keith,

I took a quick look at Yonomi and it may be possible for me to use to test the concept. My immediate issue is that my doorbell needs to be reliable (and quick) and not be dependent on a particular phone with a loaded app being home and online. I will continue looking to ultimately build a stand alone solution based on a RPi type platform.

To use Yonomi with my existing kit, I first need to integrate to capture the door bell event and make Yonomi 'aware'.
Thank you both for your helpful comments, I will update you when I make some progress

Regards, Thomas

This may be of interest: https://en.community.sonos.com/advanced-setups-229000/there-any-doorbell-out-there-that-can-work-as-sonos-doorbell-6677084/index2.html

Cheers,

Keith

Thanks Keith,
The swiss have cracked it, by the looks of it - including the player group issue.

Assuming the Swiss has made it work with an acceptable propagation delay, means it is technically possible. They only want CFH555 (£450) https://shop.egger-enertech.ch/product/lextend-d-i6/
Or it may even be possible with their cheaper model (CHF500) https://shop.egger-enertech.ch/product/lextend-d-net/

Well, problem solved or challenge set to do it cheaper, depending on the way you look at it :-)

Thanks for the link

Rgds, Thomas