macronos

  • 28 January 2015
  • 3 replies
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Hello,

just a question ... does anyone uses macronos on his android device ? It seems that this little app can easily do what sonos doesn't want to implement i.e. stream to sonos directly the music you play on your phone (spotify, youtube, ...).

Another question does anybody tried to install macronos on a mac with a virtual box or other solution.

Thank you and sorry for my English

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3 replies

Userlevel 3
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Never heard of it until now. Looks interesting
Userlevel 1
Macronos works great. Here's how I use it. I've set up my Sonos system so that one Sonos Connect feeds audio into my Receiver/Amp with speakers in 2 rooms, and a transmitter which sends audio wirelessly at 900 MHz to 6 Recoton type speakers throughout the rest of my house. I also have Sonos Play1 speakers. which need to be grouped with the main Sonos Connect so that all audio is in sync.

When I want to listen to something on Sonos, I choose the input to the main Sonos connect, group it with my Play1 speakers, and set the volume levels for everything. This was tedious before I discovered Macronos. Macronos lets me easily set up macros that do all these steps automatically. For each source of sound, Macronos gives me an icon on my Android home screen that I just have to tap. That sets the audio source, groups the Sonos players, and sets the volumes of everything and the music starts playing.

I have many Macronos icons. They do the following:

1. Feed my main TV audio into my system.
2. Feed the audio from my bedroom TV into Sonos
3. Feed audio from my Windows PC into Sonos
4. Play saved Sonos playlists that use tracks on my RAID NAS drive
5. Play Sonos favorites from various online sources. I use Deezer, Spotify, Songza, Stitcher, Slacker, and may more.
6 Play audio from my Google TV (bedroom) and Google TV (home theatre) and Android TV.
7 Play audio books from Audible.

For Songza, I have a folder of Macronos icons. Each icon plays one of my favorite Songza playlists.
For Live365, I have a folder of Macronos icons, which play my favorite Live365 stations.
...
I have folders for each of my many online sources of music. I have a folder of Audible audio books.

Macronos works with another android app called Tasker. Using Tasker, you can set up a schedule where Tasker runs a Macronos macro at a certain time, and then another macro at another time.

Tasker can responds to all different kinds of events. So you can make Tasker play something on Sonos when something happens.

You can create a macro which sets the volume of all your Sonos speakers to zero. I use such a macro to turn off all the sound at night. In the morning Tasker can run another macro which turns up the volume on all the speakers. Hence you can automate your home so music plays all day but your home is silent at night.

I purchased a very cheap Galaxy Tab 3 ($100 at Costco) which I use as a remote control for my home. Macronos and Tasker work great on this cheap device, even thought it is running Jelly Bean (Android 4.2).

Macronos automatically backs up your macros to Google Drive. I have a number of Android devices which run Macronos. I can create a macro on one of them, and then the same macro appears on all of them. I can edit a macro on one device, and the modifications appear on all my android devices.

My Home Automation system uses Insteon to control about 70 devices. I'm using an ISY 994i/IR Pro computer to control all my Insteon devices. On my Android devices I use MobiLinc Pro, which communicates with my ISY over the internet. This gives me complete control over my home automation from anywhere in the world using MobiLinc Pro

Tasker can communicate with MobiLinc Pro. I would like to do something like the following:

Someone walks up to my front porch. An Insteon motion detector sees them and my ISY responds to this event my turning on the porch light and causing a digital dog to bark. This much is working. But I'd also like MobiLinc Pro to see this event, and make it trigger a Tasker macro, which could produce a response from Sonos. I'd love to play spooky sounds at Halloween when kids came to my door.

The part I haven't yet got working is to make an event in MobiLinc trigger Tasker. However, it is possible to go the other way. That is, Tasker can cause MobiLinc to make my Insteon devices do something.

The reason Tasker works with Macronos is because there is a Macronos plugin for Tasker. Tasker has plugins for lots of android apps. These plugins allow various android apps to control Tasker or vice versa. So by using the Macronos Tasker Plugin, you can make Sonos respond to android apps and make android apps invoke Sonos.

I've only been using Macronos and Tasker a few weeks, but I think they are absolutely indispensable. 
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Great review Bruce, thanks!