Difference between PlayAlarmPlaylist and PlayPlaylist function?

Hi again, I precise that I'm trying to use Sonos as Doorbell.

After doing several tries, this is what I concluded:

On a Sonos Roam: the "PlayAlarmPlaylist" function adds the tracks from the playlist to the current playlist, and plays the first track of fresh new added tracks.
Ultimately that would suit me, but it works erratically on my ARC (coupled with SUB + 2 x One), and on my Five:
- Sometimes it works

- Either nothing happens
- Either it adds the (or tracks), but it goes to the next one (so it doesn't play my playlist)

... Please help :)

Hello,

thanks you for reporting this question, we will take a closer look. This alarm function is not working 100 percent at the moment. As for your request for using Sonos as Doorbell, you can try using program task as it is shown in the picture below.

Currently in the office we have a similar task for Doorbell:

 - when someone rings the bell 

 - we run function RememberNowPlaying which remembers currently station or song playing on Sonos

 - then we run function PlayFavourite(where doorbell sound is located)

 - we set delay how long the doorbell you want to ring

 - and then run Resume function which will resume the music we played before

Best regards

Hello Comfort CLick Team, is this still working? We have a customer that want to use Sonos as doorbell. It have to work 100%.

The only 100% reliable doorbell is the old-school mechanical doorbell. Next in line are traditional wired doorbells that operate on mains voltages. All other options have certain weaknesses. For instance, they may not function if they lose internet connectivity or if a system update is pending. Additionally, using in-app sounds or push notifications with smart doorbells has its limitations. When the app(bOS or other brands) is not in the foreground, it may not produce a custom sound, and push notifications can experience random delays or be limited by the number of times they can be triggered before reaching a quota.

PlayAlarmPlaylist also hangs my bOS server when I run it, gives an error calling function error. Playing favorites didnt remove my old playlist but it didnt resume it either when the doorbell playlist/favorite was done playing. So yeah it's not 100% reliable at this point. 

Hello,

I'm afraid that it's still not working as expected.

I used to use the Sonos as doorbell, but since I own a Nest Doorbell I actually stopped using the Sonos doorbell.

Today I've conducted a test according to the previous post, and in my case it doesn't remember now playing. It also clears the current playlist.

I've changed a little bit the task, to first check if there's something playing, otherwise it doesn't make sense to resume after the doorbell (if something is paused, I don't want it to resume after playing the doorbell).

Anyway, what happens  in my case is:

• It doesn't remember the "now playing"
• It clears the current music queue
• It adds the doorbell playlist
• And after stopping it doesn't recover the previous playlist (I think that should the purpose of the RememberNowPlaying)

So I've decided to test with PlayFileUrl instead of Sonos Favourite or Sonos Playlist:

• It still doesn't remember the "now playing"
• But at least it doesn't clear my music queue which is good
• It doesn't resume the music that was playing, it stops. But I'm good with that. If the doorbell is ringing, probably I would stop the music anyway, so that's fine for now

The bad thing, you need some web server to host the doorbell file. In my setup, I have a QNAP NAS with a local web server with the file. And then I use the PlayFileUrl and point the url to http://192.168.1.250/sonos/doorbell.mp3

I also uploaded the doorbell file to the Jigsaw, to see if I can use the PlayFileUrl with a local file (under the General / Sounds / doorbell.mp3), but I'm not getting there, don't know if it's possible. I believe that's probably possible, it's just a matter of finding the correct url for the file.

Hopefully the CC team will have a look at it.

Btw, if I try to add the doorbell playing as PlayAlarmPlaylist, the Jigsaw crashes and reboots (or at least the software).

Best regards

Hello,

PlayAlarmPlaylist will be removed with the new update. Until then, do not run it. Use the PlayPlaylist function.

The whole process of doorbell via Sonos isn't perfect at this point. With our tests, it works 90% of the times. In some cases, the doorbell just doesn't start.

Remember playing and some functions bOS has aren't supported by Sonos and since sonos has a ton of variability (playing songs, listening to radio, spotify)  so we can't say doorbell feature is 100%. Like Jürgen mentioned, you can use an old school doorbell, or you can also have z-wave doorbel (aeotec is quite nice) and you can integrate into bOS to get notifications if you're away and more.

Best regards.