🎥 Sonos IP Driver Overview

featuring ARC from a TV to AVR

The perfect remote for a Sonos system, AVA Cinema Remote is now "Works with Sonos" certified. This video shows how it works.

Transcript

Opening

Sonos on an AVA Cinema Remote is fantastic, thanks to The Works with Sonos integration for AVA OS.

Intro to AVA + Sonos

When you pick up the remote in your Living Room and start Sonos…

…you see your Favorites right there

...and when you tap one of them

it starts playing in right the Living Room…

…no need to select which speaker.

The Cinema Remote’s patented Dynamic Keypad gives you buttons for fast actions like volume control…

…and mute…pause and play…

…and skipping to the next track.

On the remote’s touchscreen, tap the current track at bottom to see cover art in detail and access options for the session.

At the top, tap the group icon to add another Sonos speaker.

At the bottom, tap next to the master volume slider to control the volume of individual speakers.

Drop the track view, and a tab switch at the bottom shows a system-wide view of what’s playing in other parts of the home.

A quick swipe gets you back to the home screen

where a mini player always shows what’s playing

and lets you pause the session, or turn off the player in the room you’re in.

Your installer can even add an icon for playing a Sonos favorite

this one plays not just in the Living Room.

With a tap we can see it’s also playing in the Cabana.

And when you want to find something new to play, switch the tab to Search and it opens the Sonos app right on the remote.

No need to find your phone…a complete Sonos experience is right on your Cinema Remote.

Setup a Room

Before combining AVA OS with a Sonos system, set up the AVA project.

And set up the complete Sonos system without AVA.

Then, adding it to AVA OS for control is easy.

From a room like Living Room, go to Settings, then Devices and then Add Device.

Keep the Main Brain selected and tap Next.

Search for Sonos, and the IP driver is top of the list.

AVA OS has to be authenticated to the owner’s Sonos account to proceed.

But you only have to enter the credentials once

Then AVA OS auto-discovers each player on the network.

So, pick a player and assign it to a room in the project.

And just like that, one of the Sonos speakers is already available for control.

And you can already see all the players in the project.

But you want to add a speaker for each Sonos speaker in the system to a room in the AVA project.

Doing so make each Sonos speaker the default for that room.

So, when you’re in the Kitchen and you start Sonos, AVA starts it in your Kitchen.

Play Content & Speaker Groups

A Flow icon on the home screen makes it easy to play a Sonos favorite.

From the menu, go to Settings and then Flows.

Tap Add Flow.

Select the option for Icon is Pressed, then tap Next.

Select Flow Without State, then tap Next.

Tap Add Step and then select Play Content and tap Next again.

Select a Sonos speaker group to play from.

These are groups, not speakers, so add a group if you don’t see what you need here.

You can pick just one, but here I am picking the two rooms in the downstairs.

Scroll down and then tap Add.

The speaker group gets added to AVA OS as a new Device.

So, you assign it to a Room and tap Next.

With the new group added, we’re back to the list where we select the group.

Next you pick from this list of Sonos Favorites.

These have to be set up in the Sonos app, even if it’s from a service like Spotify.

And consider carefully: an icon that plays a Favorite album can get stale quickly.

Radio stations by Sonos or an external service like Spotify will provide some variety.

Then select the best Sonos play mode for the Favorite.

The Flow’s logic is ready, so tap Next.

And, assign a name to the Flow.

And, pick an appropriate icon.

Now you have an icon that starts a Sonos favorite.

But you’re not really done!

Since you created a new speaker group, go back to the main menu and tap Devices.

The new speaker group has default name that could be a little bit more intuitive.

So, tap the group and then tap Rename.

Assign a name so that you’ll recognize for which areas it covers.

You’ll thank yourself later.

Automation

Finally, you can even use AVA OS to automate devices that support a Sonos system.

For example, the Kitchen uses a Sonos Port attached to an AV Receiver.

The Receiver has to turn on, so we need some automation.

Later videos cover this in more depth, but here’s a quick peek at what is possible

From Settings…and then Flows, you can see that I have this Flow.

Tap it and then tap Edit…

…and you can see that it triggers by a sensor.

When the “Downstairs” speaker group turns on…

…it then…powers on this Marantz receiver,

and switches to the input that the Sonos Port is connected to.

There are more how-to videos on things like this up ahead.

Summary

But for now, that’s the AVA OS integration for Sonos.