Sonos doorbell

  • 12 March 2016
  • 32 replies
  • 16614 views

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Hi all.
Tom B an excellent support guy from Sonos suggested I post this here as he knows the tech guys keep an eye on the forums for ideas and problems.

I suggested to him that as I live in a townhouse and have speakers throughout we cannot here our door bell while music is on through our system.
So.............I would like to see a Sonos doorbell that feeds through the speakers when someone presses it, perhaps loweting the volume a little as it does so that the bell is obvious over the underlying music.

What do you think?

regards
Stephen H

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32 replies

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That should obviously say hear not here.
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Look at ring. Com
Stephp38,

Not wishing to put the dampener on your idea... but...

If you introduce speaker-sound-reduction for doorbells, then the next thing is people will likely want the same thing, when the house-phone rings or the alarm on their microwave or cooker sounds... Where would Sonos then draw a line to such things?

Surely the answer is to get the door bell to give give some kind of visual indication that it is ringing ... A flashing light(s) perhaps added into its circuit and located in convenient places where it can be easily seen.

I'm not sure that Sonos (as a company) are really in the best position to easily solve your issue... I think there are perhaps far simpler DIY solutions to the problem.

Sorry 😞 for sounding so negative here ... but that's my initial thoughts on the matter.
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I agree with Ken. It's not really something I think Sonos would get involved in and I think you need to seek out some other 3rd party solution.
Userlevel 1
If Sonos would open of for IFTTT, it would be an easy fix for every user to define what they want to connect to Sonos.
Ring doorbell, Hue Lights, Nest Protect, etc etc
Have to say I don't like the idea either; I'd rather Sonos concentrated on the music.

Could you get a doorbell system with a wireless buzzer you could carry in a pocket to alert you?
Userlevel 4
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Hmm, can you get a doorbell with a line-out? If so, plug that into the line-in on a Sonos device, set to autoplay on all zones and might that just do the job?
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I agree with Ken. It's not really something I think Sonos would get involved in and I think you need to seek out some other 3rd party solution.

#Ring
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I believe you can do this now with SmartThings.
Sonos can set volume levels or pause all players then resume play based on a trigger (door bell button pressed). If you want to play the doorbell sound through Sonos devices then you may be looking at something a bit more challenging as well as glitchy since the entire Sonos system must be parsed, paused, ungrouped, grouped, volume set, file selected and played, ungrouped, regrouped to recorded configuration, volume set back to recorded configuration and resume play to any players previously playing. Add cloud based control to the mix (Smarthings or IFTTT) and you can expect the delay lag to increase. Not to say that I wouldn't like to see a Sonos door bell interface released, I just don't think we will see one soon or at least until major hardware updates are released. Local file storage per device may be the key to this feature.
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I believe you can do this now with SmartThings.

Do you know how to setup SONOS with SmartThings? Or can you point me to instructions on how to achieve it.

SmartThings can apparently control a Bose system.
I have the same issue, would love to integrate My ring doorbell to the speakers.
Userlevel 4
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Maybe a good idea......maybe! Really though, do some people just try to think up some new idea for Sonos? A ringing door bell or knock on the door is hardly a new thing. How do you think we managed when playing our non-Sonos music at home and somebody was at the door?
Hi all.
Tom Burton an excellent support guy from Sonos suggested I post this here as he knows the tech guys keep an eye on the forums for ideas and problems.

I suggested to him that as I live in a townhouse and have speakers throughout we cannot here our door bell while music is on through our system.
So.............I would like to see a Sonos doorbell that feeds through the speakers when someone presses it, perhaps loweting the volume a little as it does so that the bell is obvious over the underlying music.

What do you think?

regards
Stephen Henson
I am a bit surprised in this day and age od IoT (Internet of Things) and Smart cities that Sonos have seemingly shied away from development of additional components including: Door Bell (which is a no brainer, could be a partnership with Ring should be a pretty simple API integration)... In car after market Wifi amp / memory stick (simply expose the wires to the car radio insert them into the small "Sonos Box" including the 12V power. Then send music to the device or connect if via your phone internet connection to your services... There are many others which at least should be going through a lab.

I have worked with a vast number of Mobile Network Operators over the last 10 years on a global basis on creating these types of services.

@Sonos CEO, you have my email address by virtue of my registration and I am also a Beta Tester for you. Ping me if you would like to discuss the business cases associated with some of these devices, capabilities and partnerships.
Does anyone from Sonos HQ monitor this? or are the comments just blowing into the wind?
Does anyone from Sonos HQ monitor this? or are the comments just blowing into the wind?

You expected an answer after 15 minutes?
On the doorbell issue, I'm pretty sure you can do this with smartthings as the common integration point. That is if you have a smartthings hub, sonos speakers, and compatable smart doorbell...like ring. It might be tricky to resume play after a doorbell ring though. Might be interesting to try.

But sonos should absolutely not make their own doorbells though. Let Ring and others do that, and let smarttthings and others be the common integration point. I somewhat see the logic of a direct ring to sonos integration, but why ring and not the others? What if the user really wants the music to stop AND the exterior lights to come on?

As far as the car goes, I like the idea, but I don't know why sonos would want enter a flooded market where their existing tech doesn't have any advantage whatsoever. Your car isn't a multi zone scenario. It's just one zone. And there isn't anything that sonos can stream that you wouldn't be able to stream through your phone + Bluetooth. Sonos won't be able to access your home file system since you are out of home wifi range.

There are cars now that have their own wifi network, but they also tend to have a highly integrated sound system. Meaning that the radio is tied to the AC is to tied the car's PC and related info, is tied to the Bluetooth phone system, etc. Why does sonos want to get involved with that?

If sonos gets involed with cars, I see it more as brand recognition thing than leveraging their tech. And I would think it wouldn't be aftermarket, but I deal with Ford on new cars for example. It makes even more sense if Amazon alexa gets involved. A car with built in wifi, Alexa voice recognition, and sonos speaker system would be amazing.
Does anyone from Sonos HQ monitor this? or are the comments just blowing into the wind?

You expected an answer after 15 minutes?


... the first post on this string is a year old... Just saying.


... the first post on this string is a year old... Just saying.


And there is less than a single page of posts in that year+, fewer than that actually supporting the idea. I'm not sure Sonos is concerned with such a fringe case with so little support. Either way, you are only going to get a canned "We will pass this along to our developers for consideration" anyway. Sonos rarely states they are working on something, unless it is a major partnership like Amazon Alexa or Apple Music.
Fair enough.
Stumbled on this old thread because I was wondering the same thing. We currently have a Niles system (ZR-6) and it has a paging input built in. With the doorbell module it interrupts all music (or turns on the speakers if they were off), plays the doorbell chime, and then resumes all the music. I’m looking into updated the system to use Sonos connect’s, but the loss of the doorbell is an issue. Our house is pretty big, and with the normal doorbell you can’t hear it in half of the house.
Geez guys, what era do you all come from. The 50's...?. Nothing quite like being in my outdoor area listening to music on my Sonos and then not Hear the doorbell. I have a Ring 2 installed and would like to be able to make my Sonos smarter. Next thing you'll all be saying is why have voice activation when we are all purists and believe a speaker is a speaker. Get with the times dudes!
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... the first post on this string is a year old... Just saying.


And there is less than a single page of posts in that year+, fewer than that actually supporting the idea. I'm not sure Sonos is concerned with such a fringe case with so little support. Either way, you are only going to get a canned "We will pass this along to our developers for consideration" anyway. Sonos rarely states they are working on something, unless it is a major partnership like Amazon Alexa or Apple Music.


I'll add my +1 to this idea.
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I have been saying this for years now. The system input can be set to be used as an interrupt, but the music doesn’t resume. Just like in an iPhone, the music should lower to play the chime and then resume. Other products do this already as someone already mentioned in this posting. If we could select the room(s) that this particular scenario would function in and choose the volume to lower to based on a percentage as well as what happens (interrupt, lower, lower for x seconds then resume etc...) it would be great!