Sonos is one of the ultimate Smart Home speakers, allowing you to connect your entire home and play almost unlimited music sources.  In this How To we are looking at how to connect the Smart Speakers to IFTTT, the home automation service.

If you are now aware of IFTTT it connects any integrated tech together in appletts, using the principle of If This Then Do That. This becomes very useful the more Smart Tech you have, for example If someone presses your Ring doorbell, mute your Sonos music.

How to connect Sonos to IFTTT

(Required: IFTTT account, Sonos Speaker)

Step 1. Make sure you Sonos system is up to date, to do this open the app and select:

More > Settings > Online Updates

Step 2.  Check your Sonos system is signed into your account, open the app and check:

More > Settings > Account Settings

If you are signed in it will show as Logged in and your username. Make a note of the username and password as it is required later.

Step 3. Visit the IFTTT dedicated Sonos page:  https://ifttt.com/sonos once there click connect.

Step 4. Sign into Sonos – don’t worry you are not giving IFTTT your Sonos credentials, just giving it limited access to the functionality.  If you look at the URL you will see the login is done with “API.Sonos.com” not IFTTT.

Step 5.  Confirm you give permission, this is so it can send commands to your speakers and system.Step 6. IFTTT is now connected to Sonos. You can now choose one of the 28 pre-made appletts or make your own.

Here is selection of our favourite pre-made appletts:

• Reduce the volume when someone rings my Ring doorbell 
• Stop all music if a Nest Protect smoke alarm emergency
• Stop my music when my Uber arrives

Step 7. To make your own applett, click ‘New Applett’. You will now see an empty applett. Click plus to add any trigger, currently Sonos cannot be a trigger only an action.

Here are some ideas we had:

How to connect Ring to Sonos

In this example we are going to make an applett that plays a doorbell sound over Sonos if someone presses our Ring doorbell.Now click + and select Sonos and choose the action:
For this example click Play Favourite.

Step 8. Open the Sonos app and search songs for ‘Doorbell sound effect‘. We found a good selection on Spotify.
Choose the song you select and select ‘Add Song to My Songs’.

Step 9. Refresh the IFTTT page and in the drop down you will now see the Doorbell sound. Select the speaker to play on and press Create action.
Now when anyone presses your Ring doorbell a doorbell sound will sound over your Sonos speaker!

Other ideas we had:

Connect Next Protect to Sonos

In this example we connect Sonos to Nest Protect, in the event of an emergency an alarm is played over Sonos.  To do this simply select Nest Protect as the trigger, selecting Emergency.

Then as above but this time choose an alarm sound and add it to your My Sonos.

Good luck creating your own appletts, let us know what you created in the comments!

For more helpful hints tips and Smart Home news don’t forget to like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

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Sonos is finally opening up its closed network via a newly announced Sonos Sound Platform

This allows approved services to directly integrate into the smart speaker network. The first to integrate with the program is automation service IFTTT.

IFTTT is a automation platform that connects smart home tech. Using a rule base system If This Then That.

The service is currently live in beta with limited functionality. Currently supporting:

• Basic playback
• Volume – up / down / mute / unmute
• Play a set song / album / playlist

However there are a selection of default applets to give ideas on what the integration can do.

We have put together a guide on how to connect Sonos to IFFF.

You see the integration here: https://ifttt.com/sonos

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Sonos yesterday announced a new product, Sonos Beam.

Sonos Beam is a living room speaker, smaller than traditional sound bars.

The speaker is one of the first we have seen to smoothly support multiple voice assistants.

Apple’s Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google coming later in the year – sorry Microsoft no mention of Cortana.

At the launch event, in California USA, Sonos demonstrated the voice functionality. Asking Siri to play a song and then asking Alexa what song was playing.

Sonos Beam can also control your TV, allowing you to use your chosen voice assistant to change channel or increase the volume – this is done via the HDMI connection to the TV. If you have an Amazon FireTV it can also connect with Alexa and turn on your favourite program.

This is not Sonos’s first move into TV audio. They released their Playbar in 2013 followed by their flat version, Playbase in 2017. Beam will cost less than half and support Dolby 5.1.

As with the rest of the Sonos range it can be grouped with other speakers creating whole home audio. Alternatively it can work independently playing different music to allow multi-room audio.

Sonos are rumoured to be floating later in the year. This is yet more to show potential investors they can also take a share of the lucrative Smart Home market!

Sonos Bean will be available in black and white and will be released on 17th July, costing £399. Pre-sale orders can be placed today.

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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.

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Sonos one the latest addition to the Sonos range is getting a colourful makeover.

From September 2018 Sonos One will be available in red, yellow and green. This is thanks to a partnership with Danish design company HAY. The range is limited edition and aptly called ‘HAY for Sonos Limited Edition collection’.

Sonos One is Sonos’s smart speaker with integrated Alexa voice assistant. The new limited edition One will also feature this smart functionality.

Sonos commented the new speaker will also be compatible with Air Play 2. This will allow users to easily stream music from any Apple device to their Sonos speaker or any grouped Sonos speaker.

The price for the new colourful Sonos One will be £229, compared to the standard price of £199. It will be available at its flagship store in London as well as online on Sonos.com

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IKEA is already making impressive moves with Smart Home tech with its Trådfri Smart Lighting Solution as well as its furniture integrated Qi charging.

Today IKEA announced an official partnership, we did not see coming, with SONOS to bring sound to the entire home.

IKEA’s head of Smart Home Björn Block commented:

“At IKEA we strive to make solutions for life at home by integrating technology into our home furnishing offer that are easy to use and affordable, thereby making smart home technology accessible to the many people. Together with Sonos we want to democratize music and sound in the home, and we want to create products designed for how people listen together at home. By teaming up with Sonos we want to combine IKEA home furnishing knowledge with Sonos’ expertise within great home sound.”

In true SONOS style this does not give us too much information.  What we can assume is they will sell SONOS products and potentially design furniture that works with SONOS.

SONOS always patent their products and nothing new has been registered so we assume no new actual SONOS products will be developed we assume the development will be with IKEA.

For example, shelves that SONOS can attach too, in a similar way to how they have integrated Qi chargers into lamps.

An interesting development would be an official integration between Trådfri and SONOS allowing light and sound to work together without any 3^rd party tech required.

Whatever is released this is pretty exciting and scary for Philips Hue and Flexson, the biggest seller of SONOS accessories.

We have asked IKEA for a comment and will update you.

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Flipp by SYNT the unofficial, crowd funded, Sonos remote has hit a hurdle.

Flipp launched an exciting campaign on Kickstarter promising to revolutionise how we interact with Sonos. Making it “Beautiful and simple”. They raised 335,650 DK from 356 backers.

The idea sounded pretty exciting and very different to how Sonos users at that time interacted with their Sonos. No longer requiring phone unlocking or opening apps.

Flipp was supposed to start delivery in November 2017.

Fast forward to today and Sonos is now supported by Alexa allowing easy voice control, as is widgets allowing quick easy access to music on IOS. Sadly it seems Flipp’s niche might have been filled or at the least got a lot smaller.

Flipp commented to their supporters via Kickstarter:

It is with a lot of regret we are informing you that at this stage we will not be able to meet our goal of bringing the Flipp Remote to market within the promised timeline. Despite the fact that you have been very patient and supportive of our efforts we have encountered a number of extraordinary challenges, and can no longer keep our original delivery timeline and are uncertain at this point exactly when we will start shipping. We have encountered several major setbacks in terms of production and procurement and even though we are certain we can find a solution it means significant delays for the entire project.

However they do still plan on eventually releasing Flipp adding further comment:

As a company we will strive to do everything we can to make sure Flipp is released.
It’s important you understand at this point we have no set date for the delivery of the product.

We will follow their development and keep you informed of how it develops.

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Apple is not having much luck with timely product releases.  For the first time in Apple’s history they announced their new iPhone X allowing orders at a much later date, not the usual next day. Once released they have had issues fulfilling orders.
Yesterday the technology giant announced their new Apple HomePod has been delayed from the announced release date of December 2017 to ‘early 2018’.

The HomePod, announced in June 2017, was Apple’s first entry into voice controlled speakers and allows users to interact with Siri and control their smart home. In a similar way to Amazon Echo, Google Home and the recently released Sonos One. Apple’s speaker will connect to Apple Music as well as Apple HomeKit. It is not clear if ti will support third party services like Spotify or Tune In.

Apple commented to press:

We need a little more time before it’s ready for our customers. We’ll start shipping in the U.S. UK and Australia in early 2018

We suspect this has been done to allow for product upgrades and to release a product that will dominate rather than compete it the fast-moving smart home speaker space.

One thing is for sure Sonos and Amazon will be grateful there is one less product competing at Christmas in an already busy space.

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Sonos, the speaker experts, are about to open their first new store outside USA and yes you guessed it right its coming to London!!

The store is going to be located in Covent Garden, just 5 minutes’ walk from the hugely popular Apple shop.

(Map showing exactly where the shop is in relation to the Apple Store)

The store opens just in time for Christmas, 16 November 2017.

It is 2,500 Square meters and boasts two ‘listening rooms’ where the public can take the speakers for a test drive. This is a tried and tested concept and something competitor Bang & Olufsen have been doing for a while with their stores. The concept is simple, make a room with an optimal acoustic and tech setup to immersive the potential customer in the amazing sound and solution. Something normally impossible in a busy retail environment.

Sonos have commented in interviews the store is designed to be “minimalistic” and really allow the public to discover and experience Sonos.

This is a very important time for Sonos with more and more companies trying to muscle in on the speaker market. For example, Amazon with its whole house audio Alexa solution.
Recently Sonos released Sonos One with an integrated Amazon Alexa assistant. The speaker allows you to control it via your voice as well as the normal application or remote.

This is probably the product they will be trying to push the most with its new retail store and the vast growth in voice controlled tech.

We will visit the store soon and let you all know what it is like and if it it is worth a special trip!
For more information on Sonos, read our Sonos Review.

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You can now control your Sonos via your Amazon Alexa. If this is news to you read our other guide (How to connect Sonos to Alexa).

One of the biggest frustrations of Alexa is you need to know exactly what to ask to make it work, for example using ‘play’ not ‘listen’.

This is because no matter how smart Alexa is it is just a program and needs clear commands to work out exactly what you want to do.

Sonos One – Voice Controlled Smart Speaker with Amazon Alexa Built In

Amazon Echo Dot (2nd Gen) – Smart Speaker with Alexa

Luckily, we have put together the ultimate Sonos Alexa Commands list!

At present Alexa and Sonos only works with:

• Amazon Music
• Pandora
• iHeartRadio
• TuneIn Radio
• SiriusXM

*Spotify is coming soon

One other important point is Alexa needs your device names to be unique, for example if Bedroom is a Sonos and a Hue bulb it will cause issues. To resolve this just check in Alexa > Smart Home that names are unique.

Master Commands

These work with all providers. In our example, we use Kitchen but this can be any room.

Alexa, turn it up/down in the KITCHEN
Alexa, louder/quieter in the KITCHEN
Alexa, set the volume to 5 (50%) in the KITCHEN [0-10 volume levels]
Alexa, softer in the KITCHEN
Alexa, mute the KITCHEN
Alexa, unmute the KITCHEN

Alexa, pause/stop/resume in the KITCHEN
Alexa, pause/stop/resume the music in the KITCHEN
Alexa, skip/next in the KITCHEN
Alexa, play the next/previous song/track in the KITCHEN
Alexa, pause
Alexa, resume on KITCHEN
Alexa, next song/track
Alexa, previous song/track
Alexa, stop
Alexa, skip
Alexa, skip song/track
Alexa, what’s playing in KITCHEN?

TuneIn (Radio) commands

Alexa, play (TuneIn station/radio call sign) in the KITCHEN

For example: Alexa, play Radio One in the KITCHEN

Alexa, put on (TuneIn station/radio call sign) in the KITCHEN
Alexa, start playing (TuneIn station/radio call sign) in the KITCHEN

Amazon Music specific commands

Alexa, play music in the KITCHEN (Alexa will select music)
Alexa, play (artist) in the KITCHEN

For example: Alexa, play Queen in the KITCHEN

Alexa, play (song name) by (artist) in the KITCHEN
Alexa, play the album (album name) by (artist) in the KITCHEN
Alexa, play (activity) music in the KITCHEN

Make sure to like us on Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter for updates as more commands are released.

PS. You can buy Sonos speakers and Amazon Echo at Amazon.

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