Sonos Notify with sound missing

SmartApps & Automations
22

HI, this is an app like sonos notify with sound but withmore features.

23

So I’m a few days away from “probably” getting a SONOS and I’m wondering just an update on what you guys have been using to get custom messages playing through your SONOS. For instance, if the “Home Day” routine is triggered the speaker could state a custom message like “Now triggering Home Daytime” or if a water sensor detects water it would trigger “Water has been detected”. Or if someone has arrived then it would state they have arrived noting that I’m not interested in playing a music track I’m interested solely in playing custom messages only.

A lot of the alternatives or options from searching around seem to be


  • Using the old code for the “Sonos Notify with Sound” app that SmartThings has since removed due to “perhaps” multiple bugs/issues but it seems some of you guys are still using it in your system just fine!
  • Using the “Speaker Control” app which after looking it doesn’t seem to support any type of custom messages and just plays music which is useless to me for my use case
  • Using @SergioDJ approach which uses the “Speaker Notify with Sound” template to create a new app which you can then use. This seems like the latest and greatest approach to take but makes me slightly curious as to why it’s not provided as an actual app from SmartThings almost like they aren’t 100% sure it’s ready yet hmmm.
  • Using the app that @ule created in his link in the post above although it seems more focused on music and I’m just interested in custom messages only
24

Hey, sorry for the delay. Were you able to get it working?
I’m not sure about your error but I would try everything from the beginning, also make sure that the template selected is the one on the the code field.

Thanks

25

You need the big talker app. The only current issue is ST related that new custom TTS phrases may not work. But if you are using generic phrases you might get lucky because they cached phrases. If you happen to name all your sensors the same as me and name your presence tag Greg I bet you will get a lot of phrases to work! lol

26

Ahh ok and by the Big Talker app are you referring to the following thread?

If that’s the thread then it seems from initial lookover that there is no support for routines being triggered and just modes where I’d think routines are far more important than modes because they might perform the actual turning of devices on/off throughout the house.

And by “generic phrases” as an example, are you referring to the ones on the OP where he states “voice phrases support the following variables” (aka “Greg has arrived”)? Whereas a custom phrase would of course be “Welcome King Greg to your Home” haha or whatever.

Also, I didn’t read over the whole thread since it’s huge but you currently use the app and is working with your SONOS right as some of the last posts show otherwise where SONOS isn’t working anymore?

27

Ditto to Big Talker. Have it hooked up to two Sonos Play 5s in the house. Re-configured it yesterday without any issues as I added the second Sonos in the house.

The only complaint is music won’t auto-resume but hopefully one day, that’ll be fixed.

28

By auto-resume do you mean that if music is currently playing and the SONOS is triggered to state a message based on a ST event that after that message it won’t resume the music that was currently playing? I think that’s an issue that I read.

Also, on a fun note, do any of you guys use custom sounds (like a lightsaber) that the speakers will play? Is that something where you need to host your own sound files on a local server machine to reference via url, or somewhere in the “cloud” on a remote server, etc?

29

Yes that is the thread - You could easily make BT announce a routine by having the routine hit a virtual switch and then BT announce off the switch. Except that new custom phrases aren’t working. see below

By generic I meant if you want BT to announce something like garage door is open - it will work. They are all custom phrases, but phrases that other users created before the caching would work.

Yes it works for me - The only thing that doesn’t work about it is if I want to make a new phrase. I would suggest you just install it and try to get it to say garage door is open, then you will see.

Resuming works really well for me. I’m using the beta version. It’s on his git hub. The only time resuming doesn’t work is if I have 3-4 events come through quickly. Occasionally that breaks it, but it fixes itself once you restart music.

30

No resume for me and I have the latest beta of the smart app installed. It used to show the close door mp3 in the playlist. Now it currently just does this:

2015-12-24.png948×766 139 KB

Would love to know how you got resume working as it’s a pain to re-load music but I’m dealing with it!

31

Sorry, I just compared the version numbers and I might be on a different beta. But just to be clear - resuming for me just means that music begins to play again. 99% of the time I’m just running pandora. If a notification comes through, it does not restart the same song where it was paused. But the same station starts playing after the notification, which is good enough for me. If I remember right, when I tested it with a playlist in the queue - the playlist started from the beginning when resuming.

32

Still quite a delay with these custom messages. Is there any methods available to get instant sound notifications when doors/windows open?

33

So at this point, several days have passed and


  1. I installed/added my new SONOS speakers through the SONOS mobile app
  2. I then added the speakers to ST via the ST mobile app
  3. I finally added the “Big Talker” SmartApp (that @rayzurbock created) in the ST graph api site
  4. In the ST mobile app, I opened the “Big Talker” SmartApp and went to “Configure Events” and setup events for the Presence, Lock, Mode, and Thermostat categories just to start.
  5. Per advice in the multiple threads I read, I also turned on “Enable debug logging” so I can check out what’s going on under the “Live Logging” section in the ST graph api site.

Now at this point I was very excited to try it all out and so I did the following


  • Opened up the “Living Logging” section of the ST graph api site and cleared any existing logs to start fresh

  • I went into the ST app and unlocked the door ( which was linked in the Lock category of Big Talker). After a few seconds the physical door unlocked, ST app updated the device status to state “Unlocked” and nothing else happened. No message from SONOS.

  • I then proceeded to the “Live Logging” section of the ST graph api site to see what was logged. No errors were produced by ST or Big Talker, just a bunch of trace and debug log level messages. In fact one of the debug log messages started with “SOUND” and then proceeded with a url which, when I went to it, played the mp3 message that the “Front Door is now Opened” so it looks like something is there. Prior to that, there was debug log message that states “currentStatus:paused” so I’m guessing the message would never play since my SONOS speaker is somehow paused for some reason? After the “SOUND” log message, it also looks like it’s only interacting with one of the speakers and not both (which is weird) and also attempting to what seems to be resuming a track that wasn’t even playing so very confused.

  • At this point, I decided to try out the next Big Talker category and tried Modes! I have routines called “Home - Day” and “Home - Night” which simply toggle lights and etc on/off then switch the mode to day/night respectively. I clicked on the “Home - Night” routine, lights went on, ST mobile app mentioned the mode is now “Night” but yet nothing from SONOS.

  • I also tried the “Talk Now” section of the “Big Talker” but since those are custom phrases I knew that section wouldn’t work since they are not cached messages (aka already converted to mp3 files) but I tried anyways and got the exception that everyone is talking about.

I’m assuming all these issues are completely due to my lack of knowledge of how to use these devices or how they are integrated or controlled from SmartThings or the SONOS app or whatever.

How do you guys have this working?

34

One thing I had to do was only put one sensor per section - not multiple. Multiple sensors in one section don’t seem to fire for me for whatever reason.

I usually add one, save, exit the smart app, then go back and add the second one. Testing constantly between modifications.

Music has resumed play maybe 3x - so better than the prior release. All I have Big Talker notifying me of is my two doors with sensors.

35

Thanks for the video .

36

Thanks a lot for the video, it was very useful to me.

37

I have been using this setup for several weeks to play a “chime” mp3 each time an external door opens. I have it setup to continue playing current track and everything has been working fine until Sunday. For some reason now even if we are not playing any music on the Sonos it will resume play. I can not figure out what is causing this but it is driving the family crazy
 Nothing like 6:30am my son walks out the door to go to school and the Sonos starts blasting music!!’

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

38

HI @DwayneMccoy, I think the problem is you have set the speaker to play each time the door is open , does not matter if the speaker is playing, the event (door open ) play the track, if your sonos is tuned off ST cant play music , but if its in network stand by , ST can to play the track when the event occurs. in more options you can set the time to play just in some time, it can help.

39

Actually I have it setup to only notify once every 5 minutes.The issue isnt with the notification working when a door is opened. I understand that if the Sonos is actually powered off it will not work. The issue is if there is currently no music being played on the Sonos. If I go open a door the “chime.mp3” track will play as it should but 10 seconds later the Sonos will start playing music from the previously played station. That previously played station could have been from 3 days ago. Point is, the app should only resume playing the previous track if it was actually playing when the trigger happened.

40

Hi @DwayneMccoy, Seems to be a timer problem, sonos device type works in this manner : when a message arrives, the device check the status, if the status is playing, it takes the last track and append it after the message has finished, but to check the status the sonos must to be sending feedback, every time (like 4 or 8 hours I dont remember) a new subscription is launched, Smartthings have problems with timers, the timer just stop working, If no timer no refresh if no refresh no feedback if no feedback no real status. then when a messager arrives the status is playing and append the last track to play. I suggest first, go to sonos device and press refresh button, if you want to avoid this problems use a poll app set in 10hrs to refresh your sonos, try watch dog timer

41

Thank you for the help. I will try watchdog and see what happens