Sonos, the leader in multi-room speaker systems, is working on a feature it’s users have been requesting for a long time. The ability to set a volume limit per Sonos.
For example, if you have a Sonos in your garden as well as your living room, the last thing you want to do is accidently loudly play music in your garden in the evening. Currently users can easily do this by incorrect grouping or selecting the wrong speaker.
Likewise it’s easy to accidentally increase the volume when trying to make a small adjustment.
This feature would mean you can set a conservative limit on any speaker, ensuring if you did accidently group it or use it, volume would be much less of a problem.
We exclusively discovered this information as Sonos has had a patent granted and we found it!
Sonos’s patent defines how the volume limit will work:
“An example playback device may store an active volume state variable in memory, where the active volume state variable corresponds to a current playback volume. The playback device may also store a volume limit state variable in memory, where the volume limit state variable corresponds to a playback volume limit of the playback device.“
Sonos go on to give a flow diagram of the process:
Copyright Sonos, via Patent application
Also giving an example of how it would work:
“The playback device may determine that the proposed playback volume is greater than the maximum volume state variable. In this case, the determined active volume state variable corresponding to the current playback volume is the maximum playback volume.”
This development is good news for every Sonos owner, preventing possible headaches and arguments with neighbours.
If you fancy a geeky read, you can read the full patent here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9940095B2/en
When is the Sonos Volume Limit feature being released?
When this feature will be released is unsure. However as they have been recently issued the patent we are optimistic it will be soon.
We have asked Sonos for a comment and will update if we receive one.
For more information on Sonos read our Sonos Review.