How to use IFTTT With Sonos

Sonos is one of the most popular manufacturers of high-end audio devices. The company’s PLAY:5 speaker is widely considered to be one of the best home speakers in its class. The products are well designed and provide amazing performance. In this article we’ve described how to use IFTTT with Sonos.

Item Sonos Play:3 - Mid-Sized Wireless Smart Home Speaker for Streaming Music, Amazon Certified and Works with Alexa. (Black) Sonos Play: 5 - Ultimate Wireless Smart Speaker - Black Sonos Play: 1 - Compact Wireless Smart Speaker - Black (Discontinued by manufacturer) Picture Price from $599.99 from $673.65 from $269.99 Buy Now Buy on Amazon Buy on Amazon Buy on Amazon Item Sonos Play:3 - Mid-Sized Wireless Smart Home Speaker for Streaming Music, Amazon Certified and Works with Alexa. (Black) Picture Price from $599.99 Buy Now Buy on Amazon Item Sonos Play: 5 - Ultimate Wireless Smart Speaker - Black Picture Price from $673.65 Buy Now Buy on Amazon Item Sonos Play: 1 - Compact Wireless Smart Speaker - Black (Discontinued by manufacturer) Picture Price from $269.99 Buy Now Buy on Amazon

But for the smart home user who wants to invest in a Sonos device, there’s a problem––Sonos products don’t have many smart home integrations. They work with Lutron, but they don’t directly integrate with popular smart home devices like the Amazon Echo or Google Home.

That’s where IFTTT comes in. IFTTT (short for If This Then That) is a service that allows you to automate device actions using series of commands called recipes. For example, you can use IFTTT to get a phone notification when your Amazon Alexa alarm goes off.

IFTTT is by far one of the most popular smart home resources, and conveniently, you can hack it to use Sonos devices with your smart home. You will need additional devices and/or apps, but if you want to turn your Sonos speakers into smart speakers, it’s well worth it.

Here’s how to use IFTTT with Sonos and what you’ll need to get started.

Option #1: Samsung SmartThings

Samsung hit it out of the park with its SmartThings system, which currently has 142 integrations with various smart home products.

The goal of SmartThings is to allow you to integrate multiple smart devices across brands. It’s easy to use, and you’ll find tons of uses for it.

You’ll need:

1. Fully set up your Sonos device using the Sonos mobile app and Sonos.com.

2. In the SmartThings mobile app, add the Sonos as a device by going to My Home > Things > Add a thing.

You can read the full instructions here. Samsung notes that in order for this to work, your Sonos device(s) and your SmartThings hub must be on the same local network.

Once you’ve set up the device, there are a couple of features you can use.

Speaker Control pauses the music coming from your Sonos speakers when certain things happen. For example, you can set it up so that any music stops playing when you get a call.

Speaker Mood Music is another cool feature that plays a certain song or station when certain things happen. The sky’s the limit with this feature, and it adds a fun edge to controlling your Sonos with IFTTT.

Samsung has provided a series of guides that show how to use the SmartThings hub with Sonos. You can view the guides on this page.

Once you’ve set up Sonos devices with SmartThings, you can use IFTTT to control your SmartThings hub and by extension your Sonos products.

You can view the SmartThings IFTTT recipe page here. You’ll probably have to create some custom recipes to get the most out of your Sonos speakers, but the result will be a high quality integration with all of your devices.

This is perhaps the best option for using IFTTT with Sonos products, and if you already own a SmartThings hub, definitely try this option first. You can use IFTTT with Sonos and get fairly close to perfect integration.





Option #2: Connecting Sonos and IFTTT with Amazon Alexa

If you have an Amazon Echo device, you have a couple of options for integrating Sonos with your smart home.

First, you can use Alexa to connect IFTTT with Sonos. One user in the Sonos online community has figured out how to make it happen. You can read their solution here, but we’ll summarize it for you.

There are a few IFTTT recipes that allow you to use Alexa and Sonos together, like this recipe for turning on your Sonos speaker via an Alexa voice command. You can build on these and create your own.

The user noted that there is some lag when you use this method, so consider that before trying it out. Here’s a full list of IFTTT recipes that work with Sonos.

Another option is using the Yonomi app with Alexa to control Sonos. You don’t use IFTTT in this case, but Yonomi is similar, so it’s another option if you prefer it.

Neither of these options are extremely flexible, but like the SmartThings method, these techniques get you close to seamless integration. Until Sonos rolls out full smart home integration, either SmartThings or IFTTT/Yonomi is your best bet.





Option #3: Dropbox

If you’re comfortable with dabbling with some code (specifically Python), you can actually leverage Dropbox to use IFTTT with Sonos.

It sounds strange. After all, Dropbox is file storage software––how can it help to control a speaker?

Essentially, this hack turns Dropbox into an IFTTT trigger that will affect Sonos devices. You have to mess with the Python scripts a bit, but you can tweak existing recipes like this one and make your own.

We only recommend this approach if you’re tech-savvy and don’t own either a SmartThings Hub or a device with Alexa. It’s a moderately difficult way to use IFTTT with Sonos, and the first two methods are much easier.

Conclusion

Sonos is in no rush to integrate its devices with smart home systems. The company is working on Alexa integration, but there’s no telling when it might happen. It’s been projected for the end of 2017, but Sonos has kept relatively quiet about a date.

So for now, if you want to use Sonos with your smart home, your best bet is to use IFTTT with Sonos to create the best integration possible. We recommend using the Samsung SmartThings Hub if you can, as it’s the most direct option and the most user friendly. Feel free to also see how to integrate IFTTT with Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

If you don’t already use IFTTT, it’s super easy to learn, and it will come in handy for almost every smart home, no matter what system you’re using. Until Sonos devices get official integrations, these three options are your best bets. If you’re not a fan of IFTTT, there are also some alternatives that you can take a look at.

Are you going to use any of these integrations? Have you found any others? Let us know in the comments!

If you are interested in checking out other cool smart home items feel free to check out things such as smart showers, smart garage door openers, or smart blinds. Alternatively the z wave setup is very cool and integrates with IFTTT

There are other areas of Smart home tech, such as Xiaomi that may be of interest — that aren’t related to these. Feel free to check out the Xiaomi Aqara Setup, Xiaomi Smart Home Kit, or even accessories such as the best lamps for Philips Hue.