Picture this: dinner is ready, or you simply cannot be bothered to get up and go find everyone else in the house. You have wanted an easier way to reach the rest of the household. I may have a solution for you.
I have built an iPhone app called Sonos Announcements that lets you send spoken messages to all of your Sonos speakers at once, or to individual ones.
The app finds the speakers already on your Wi-Fi network, so there is no extra account to create and nothing to sign up for. Everything stays local on your own network.
To send a message, you press and hold the send button, speak, and let go. The message goes out when you lift your finger. A short tone plays first so people know an announcement is coming, and the message is heard in your own voice rather than a synthetic one.
By default the app lowers whatever is currently playing, delivers the announcement, and then restores the previous volume. You can change all of that in settings: whether the tone plays beforehand, whether the volume ducks at all, and how far down it should duck. Messages can be up to five minutes long.
The app is completely free and always will be. It is currently in beta testing through TestFlight. I plan to release it on the App Store, but before I do, I would really like feedback from this community so it ends up as good as it can be. Please tell me what works well, what does not, and what features you would like to see added.
If a Mac version would be useful to you, I would like to hear about it.
You can download the beta here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/kYu1Phg7
I hope you will give it a warm welcome, and that it saves your voice a bit of hoarseness along the way.
Comments
Seems to be a different language
Hi there,
Been playing around with this app and it looks really cool for what it does. However, it seems to be in a different language than English. Although I’ve kind of figured out how to use it. I can see great value to this app since I’ve got two Sonos speakers.
Cheers for the app it’s great.
English version is now available
Hi Saj,
Thank you very much for trying the app and for the kind words, and
especially for pointing out the language issue.
You are quite right. The build you got hold of was Danish only. The
English translation was finished, but it had not yet made its way out
to TestFlight testers. It has now, and there is a new build available
that should come up in English.
Please update in TestFlight, and do let me know if anything still shows
up in Danish, or if any of the wording sounds off. I will get it fixed.
New version
Here is a new version of the app I posted about — the one for sending spoken announcements to your Sonos speakers. It is getting close to finished, and I would really like it tried out before I put it on the App Store.
Several of you asked about shortcuts last time. They are here now.
There are two new actions in Shortcuts. "Speak announcement on Sonos" reads out written text using the device's own voice. "Repeat the last announcement on Sonos" sends the most recent message again — including one you recorded yourself, so your own voice can be used in an automation. For both, you can choose specific speakers, the announcement volume, the music volume and the tone before the message. Leave a field empty and the app does what it normally does. There is a button in Settings that opens Shortcuts directly on them.
You can now decide how loudly the announcement comes out. Under Settings, Announcement volume, you can turn off "Use the speaker's own volume" and pick a fixed level between 0 and 100. That way an important message does not disappear because someone turned their speaker all the way down.
The music no longer has to be turned down either. The "Lower the music" switch can be turned off, so the music keeps playing and the announcement comes in on top of it.
The app is now called Sonos Announcements everywhere, including in Danish. It used to have two different names, which made it hard to refer to.
There are also a number of smaller improvements. The confirmation that a message was sent now disappears on its own after ten seconds. The search button cannot be pressed again while it is searching, and afterwards the result is spoken — how many speakers were found, or that there were none. The main screen is simpler, so you go straight from the search button to the speakers and the send button, and the volume has moved to Settings. And if the app cannot find your speakers on its own, you can type the speaker's address under Settings, Network.
All ideas are welcome. I read everything that comes in and take on board as much as I can.
One thing I am curious about: has anyone built an automation with the new shortcuts, and what do you use it for?
I hope you will give it a warm welcome.
If you are already a tester, just update the app in TestFlight. If you are not a tester yet, you can get the app here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/kYu1Phg7