Contributor I

How to “group” two devices

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
December 31, 2023
21 replies
5148 views

People keep asking how to group two devices when the Sonos app only allows creation of groups of 3 or more. If you only have 2 devices on a network, the “group” option is greyed out. Some people suggest clicking “everywhere” but those of us with only 2 devices cannot see that option. Every time someone suggests following the instructions for creating a group of 3 devices, it is chosen as best answer and the question is closed. This was frustrating for me as a new user trying to pair my Beam with a new Roam portable speaker. Beam is set up as Living Room and Roam as Portable. My plan was to play music simultaneously upstairs and downstairs in my house, but could not figure out how to pair speakers within the Sonos app. What I really wanted to know was how to play two devices simultaneously as though they are one group or room. I was not worried about sound quality since the devices would be in separate areas of the house. I had heard it was possible to sync Sonos devices so I was getting frustrated by lack of clear info. Stumbled across the solution on my own.

Solution 1: opened Music app on my iphone and clicked on Airplay. Then it let me choose how many devices to play simultaneously from a list of devices on the network, including other brands. The two Sonos devices paired beautifully.

Solution 2: When I returned to Sonos app and played Sonos radio, it recognized both devices were paired. I was confused how it did that since it had not let me choose pairing options before. That’s when I noticed the airplay icon is present in Sonos radio by clicking on the song that is playing. It appears to have recognized both devices on my network even if group feature does not.

tldr: it’s not necessary to pair 2 devices as a “group” within the Sonos app because Airplay can do the same thing with or without the Sonos app

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dval29

Trending Lyricist I

Those are just group presets. All they do is make a macro which checks/unchecks the right rooms for the group, saving you clicks. The reason it's grayed out for two rooms is because making a preset out of two rooms doesn't save you any clicks.

I don’t follow here. Having a two-room preset for both rooms is exactly what I am looking for, and absolutely would save me clicks.

If I want to play kitchen → tap kitchen (1 click)

If I want to play TV room → Tap ‘tv room” (1 click)

If I want to play both→ Tab ‘tv room’, then tap rectangle thingy, then tap “kitchen”, then tap “Done” (4 clicks)

If there was a way to save both rooms as a grouping, then I could play from that grouping in one click, which is what I’m looking for.

Schlumpf

Virtuoso

@dval29

Please think about it a second time. How should it be done with just one click?

Shortcuts for all different 2 room configs all over the screen…? 😉

The way it’s done currently imo is quite good and simple and number of clicks is exactly the same for two rooms or selecting a shortcut.

Ralf

106rallye

As I said elsewhere, if only one group is possible (when owning two speakers) the square grouping icon could be made two be a “group both speakers” in one press.

Schlumpf

Virtuoso

As I said elsewhere, if only one group is possible (when owning two speakers) the square grouping icon could be made two be a “group both speakers” in one press.

Yes, of course that would be nice and some kind of intelligent functionality option. But as far as I know that’s not what Sonos likes to be philosophy of their ui design. And as part of that I suppose an icon always has to have the same function.

Ralf

jgatie

I don’t follow here. Having a two-room preset for both rooms is exactly what I am looking for, and absolutely would save me clicks.

If I want to play kitchen → tap kitchen (1 click)

If I want to play TV room → Tap ‘tv room” (1 click)

If I want to play both→ Tab ‘tv room’, then tap rectangle thingy, then tap “kitchen”, then tap “Done” (4 clicks)

If there was a way to save both rooms as a grouping, then I could play from that grouping in one click, which is what I’m looking for.

But that’s not how it works, the named groups aren’t accessible until you reach the grouping screen. Right now for named groups (starting from the room that’s playing), you press the Group icon (One click), you press the name of the group at the top of the Group screen (Two clicks) you press Done (Three clicks). For a two room group, You press the Group icon (One click), you press the check mark on the other room (Two clicks) you press Done (Three clicks).

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dval29

Trending Lyricist I

@dval29

Please think about it a second time. How should it be done with just one click?

Shortcuts for all different 2 room configs all over the screen…? 😉

Perhaps since I’m new (and am locked out of “grouping” ability), I am misunderstanding what grouping does.

I would think it allows you to name “rooms” that are groups of speakers. Thus, when selecting a room, I could select “Kitchen” or “TV Room” or “Downstairs” or whatever groupings I created. This would acheive all the goals of simple, one-click listnening and would not create “shortcuts all over the screen” beyond just the standard list of rooms.

jgatie

Perhaps since I’m new (and am locked out of “grouping” ability), I am misunderstanding what grouping does.

I would think it allows you to name “rooms” that are groups of speakers. Thus, when selecting a room, I could select “Kitchen” or “TV Room” or “Downstairs” or whatever groupings I created. This would acheive all the goals of simple, one-click listnening and would not create “shortcuts all over the screen” beyond just the standard list of rooms.

No, that is not how it works. Named group shortcuts are just macros that click the boxes next to the rooms automatically. The rest of the grouping procedure is exactly the same.

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dval29

Trending Lyricist I

But that’s not how it works, the named groups aren’t accessible until you reach the grouping screen. Right now for named groups (starting from the room that’s playing), you press the Group icon (One click), you press the name of the group at the top of the Group screen (Two clicks) you press Done (Three clicks). For a two room group, You press the Group icon (One click), you press the check mark on the other room (Two clicks) you press Done (Three clicks).

Ah, thanks for this. By dint of being new (and locked out of grouping functionality because of having only 2 roomns), I didn’t realize this.

I assumed that grouping would allow you to name new “rooms” in the configuration you want. So I would have 3 rooms displayed: “Kitchen” “TV Room” and “Downstairs” where “Downstairs” woudl be a configured grouping of both kitchen and TV.

This seems way more intuitive and sensical to me, but perhaps the downside is people with many sonos rooms could have too many configs? But overall would far prefer this option myself.

Airgetlam

But you’re not locked out of grouping at all. You can still group the two rooms together.

Bruce

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dval29

Trending Lyricist I

Hmm. It seems like we are talking past each other here.

My desire and expectation would be that I can name and save a group of speakers in a way that I can select them easily and automatically, the way I did for “kitchen.”

Ideally, I would create a virtual “room” called “all Sonos speakers” and assign all my speakers to that virtual “room.” Is that possible? Or can you only assign each speaker to one room max?

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