I'm new to the Sonos world - having waited for Google Play integration (thanks!) - and am generally very impressed, as it's a joy to use such well designed products. However, I've been surprised that Groups functionality is so weak compared to what I'd expected...
I have a large living room that has an LR Pair of Play:1s in it and a single Play:5. When playing music in that room, all three are *always* used together, but this has exposed design shortcomings of the current Groups functionality.
I'd anticipated being able to configure all the speakers in my living room (ie. all those speakers that are *always* used simultaneously) to form a "permanent" grouping, not too dissimilar to how you can "permanently" create LR pairs. Currently, Groups are what I'd term "soft", and this leads to the following shortcomings:
- THE PHYSICAL VOLUME BUTTONS HAVE BEEN RENDERED USELESS, SINCE THEY DO NOT CONTROL GROUP VOLUME. For example, despite my three speakers always being used together in a single Group, the volume control on the Play:1s only changes the volume on the Play:1 LR pair, and the volume control on the Play:5 only adjusts its own volume. This means that the carefully balanced volume levels I've achieved between the speakers in the Group are immediately messed up if I use the physical volume buttons, since the buttons change individual (or LR pair) volumes, not Group volume. Therefore, I cannot use the physical buttons, which is a real shame, and have to always resort to the App to change volume levels. I am really surprised at this shortcoming!
- GROUP CONFIGURATIONS (INC. RELATIVE VOLUMES) ARE LOST ACROSS POWER CYCLES SO NEED REGULARLY RECREATING. I try to operate as green a home as possible, so if I'm going to be away from home for a few days I power down pretty much everything in the house. That includes router and will include my new Sonos gear. It seems that LR Pairing and EQ data is retained across power cycles, but all Group data is lost. From my perspective, the three-speaker Group I have in my Living Room is a permanent group - I expected to configure this once (akin to how I configured the Play:1 LR Pair), and then have the system remember that - forever (across power cycles) - until I unconfigured that grouping. As it is, I'll keep having to establish that Group again, and keep having to set the relative volume levels in the Group, which will become pretty tedious after the Nth time!
I appreciate that the current "soft" Groups functionality will work well for speakers in a home that are only ever informally grouped together, such as for a party, or other occasion when you want different rooms playing the same music. But, there is currently no support that I can see for my use case: that of having a "permanent" Group of speakers that are always used simultaneously. Is my use case so unusual? I'm suprised if so.
Thanks for listening!
"Permanently" Grouping Speakers that are Always Used Together (Beyond LR Pairs...)
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I would love a group feature. Sonos please listen to your customers. Customer pay your rent, your vacation, your food, your car, your kids education.....your everything
Userlevel 7
+22
That they do. But I sure as hell wouldn't want them designing and building my Sonos hardware, firmware and software!
I won't comment on software requirements or complexity.... But some sort of default grouping is sorely needed. A key feature of songs not being fully leveraged
Two day sonos customer, need a permenent groupimg feature already, please make it happen, thank you!
+100........please make it happen
With the announced integration with the Amazon Echo, a permanent grouping option would be a very good addition. The Macronos app shows that it can be done, so why not Sonos ?
Sonos hardware is good but to stay ahead of the game they really need to up their game on the UI of the control software.
The Echo announcement was a good move as the Echo is an important "aggregator” or “service broker platform”. The Sonos software needs to respond to and exploit it's capabilities rather than just bolt it on. If they don't, others will quickly overtake them.
Sonos hardware is good but to stay ahead of the game they really need to up their game on the UI of the control software.
The Echo announcement was a good move as the Echo is an important "aggregator” or “service broker platform”. The Sonos software needs to respond to and exploit it's capabilities rather than just bolt it on. If they don't, others will quickly overtake them.
Userlevel 7
+17
They will have like for like Alexa intergration up against Denon as well. So timelines will be very public, with humiliation for failure or who comes seriously last. The race is on!!!
Denon is on its second redesign in three years, each unit averages well under 100 reviews on Amazon (compared to thousands for Sonos) and have never even dented the top 20 in multi-room audio sales. They aren't even a factor, despite copying Sonos almost unit for unit to the point of bringing a lawsuit into the picture. The Denon threat is about as valid as the nail's threat to the hammer.
I suspect that Amazon, Google and Bose are the more likely competition.....
Amazon has no multi-room speaker, and they just partnered with Sonos. Bose is probably closest, but they are on their THIRD redesign in three years, having had to scrap their Airplay implementation because they could never get it to work. Google? Maybe, but a dongle for existing speakers is all they are right now. We'll see when they come out with their actual speaker line . . . their last attempt (Nexus Q) was one of their biggest failures ever.
Userlevel 7
+17
The race to bring Alex first was all I was saying, nothing to do with who sells the most, is best etc etc. Competition is good for progress right?, even you rockstars can see that 😛
Competition is great. Denon just hasn't shown themselves to be much competition, despite having copied Sonos to the point of patent infringement. It's a shame really, because Denon used to be one of my very favorite brands until the quality slipped. I owned two Denon receivers that were tanks, the last one I bought was shoddy and for the money I paid you could get a much better receiver from other brands. Like being a mod on the former boards, it only serves as a nit some small minds like to pick
And PS - Can we knock it off with the Rock Star crap? We didn't ask for that stupid title, and I only got it because I've been a member for going on 9 years and they prorate posts from back then. That's an average of around 3 posts a day, a rate I'm sure other non "Rock Stars" dwarf when they get going on a rant. Believe me, I'd have no rating whatsoever if given a choice. Just like being a mod on the former boards, it only serves as a nit for small minds to pick.
Userlevel 7
+17
Well it kind of groups the 3 or 4 of you up.
Makes me wonder why you have stayed around so long, maybe an employee in disguise, the beauty is we will never know 😉
Makes me wonder why you have stayed around so long, maybe an employee in disguise, the beauty is we will never know 😉
Makes me wonder why you have stayed around so long, maybe an employee in disguise, the beauty is we will never know ;)
An employee in disguise? If I am, I'm doing a piss poor job of it in the 4.6 Tap to Play discussions. If your tin-foil hat conspiraciy theory is true, there's a couple "Rock Stars" in that thread who are going to be out of a job. Or maybe we are just fans of the product, have our own opinions, and like to help people out. Nawwww, what fun would that be? :rolleyes
It's posts like these that make me long for the old ignore feature.
Userlevel 7
+22
Makes me wonder why you have stayed around so long, maybe an employee in disguise, the beauty is we will never know ;)
You do realise the more of these petty and childish posts you make the sooner you'll be a Rock Star right? You're well on the way to being a Rising Star, puffs chest, just like me!
You won't be able to stay down and dirty with the kids anymore then will you? The noobs will think you're a plant!
Apple working on Amazon Echo-like device to control your home through Siri
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/138936-apple-working-on-amazon-echo-like-device-to-control-your-home-through-siri
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/138936-apple-working-on-amazon-echo-like-device-to-control-your-home-through-siri
I agree with trying to develop this concept. I like to listen to my TV while showering, so having my play:1 (in bathroom) linked to my playbar/sub/2 play:'s (in living room) would be ideal... messing around in the app every morning 'grouping' things together is a pain. Even a group until 'ungrouped' would be helpful. Thoughts?
It is that way today if you leave the units powered on as they are designed to be.
It is pretty simple these days to use an automation controller to set up a routine that changes the Sonos player groupings back to a known state each day at a certain time. If you set this for 3 AM each morning it would be all ready for you when you got up. Probably not worth waiting for Sonos to provide a native option when you can already accomplish the same thing now.
Userlevel 5
+10
... and I'd love a new thread that actually taught me how to do that! 'Cause I'm interested in toying with things like that if I can find a decent primer to get me started... But I'm thinking that may not be the solution for the typical not-computer-technical user... Now... thinking of it for a moment, I'd guess automation solutions will be rapidly developing anyway... so they may evolve to be mainstream....
PLAYBAR defaults to 'ungroup on Autoplay' for TV sources. You need to disable this setting to preserve the group.
... and I'd love a new thread that actually taught me how to do that! 'Cause I'm interested in toying with things like that if I can find a decent primer to get me started... But I'm thinking that may not be the solution for the typical not-computer-technical user... Now... thinking of it for a moment, I'd guess automation solutions will be rapidly developing anyway... so they may evolve to be mainstream....
In my opinion within 3 years the first question the average user is going to ask when they buy a new piece of audio gear is not "will it work with my favorite streaming service?" but rather "will it work with my homes device ecosystem?". Technologies like Smart things, Hue, Nest, Wink, and so on (or their successors in some cases) will be considered simple, pervasive, and even necessary to the regular "non-techie" user who will view music listening as part of their integrated home tech experience.
For a preview just note how many car commercials emphasize the tech features in a new vehicle more than they do performance and handling. Home tech is on a trajectory to assume a similar dominance.
+1
that is a great idea! I recently purchased a playbar and my #1 gripe is that my 3 Play 1 speakers will not stay grouped with it. I have to manually re-group them 10-12 times a day which has gotten really old.
Go into the PLAYBAR's room settings and disable "Ungroup on Autoplay".
This has got to be the craziest missing feature in the Sonos system. If I were implementing it, I would allow arbitrary groups of speakers to be named, and then treated as a single virtual speaker. List them along with the room speaker names (give them a little "group" indicator icon) and allow them to be selected and volume controlled together, just like any speaker. Why isn't this available? The current primitive controller setup makes my 8-speaker Sonos system frustratingly fiddly.
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