AliceSonos has announced a new partnership with Crestron, enabling the Sonos App to be seamlessly integrated with Crestron home automation systems.
The new collaboration makes it easy for integrators to offer Sonos as part of a complete Crestron home system ; now homeowners can search and stream all of their favourite music on their Sonos home sound system right from Crestron touch screens, handheld remotes, keypads and from the Crestron app on popular mobile devices.
Sonos and Crestron will be demonstrating the new integrated solution at CEDIA EXPO 2016 in Dallas, on booth 4721.
Now, in addition to lights, shades, thermostats, theatre systems, security and much more, homeowners can control Sonos products from Crestron touch screens, remotes and keypads.
They can view all of their Sonos favourites, play/pause the music, adjust the volume, view now playing information with artwork and add or remove zones as they move about the house.
What’s more, the Sonos home sound can be integrated into personalised Crestron scenes, such as ‘Welcome Home,’ whereby a single tap of a touch screen, keypad or personal device disarms the security system, turns on the kitchen and family room lights, adjusts the temperature to 72 degrees, and starts playing great music.
“Our new collaboration with Sonos is a big win for Crestron dealers and the upscale homeowners they serve,” says John Clancy, VP of Residential Systems at Crestron. “It is now easy to integrate Sonos on any scale, from a single room to an entire estate, into a custom Crestron home automation system. This includes all Sonos meta-data, artwork, control options, and the real-time feedback Crestron programmers need to ensure a spectacular user experience in every room.”
“Our goal at Sonos is to make it as easy as possible to enjoy all of your favourite music out loud,” adds Andrew Vloyanetes, Sonos global business development manager. “Collaborating with Crestron allows us to work with true innovators in home automation to ensure Sonos works seamlessly as part of the ultimate smart home lifestyle.”
Mass Home Automation Integration
And Sonos didn’t stop with the Crestron announcement, as it was revealed that Control4, Lutron, Savant iPort and Deutsche Telekom’s QIVICON are Sonos’ first sanctioned partners.
Paul Williams, VP Solutions for Control4 says that the home automation company has been working with Sonos on the new API for quite some time and an official driver will ship within 30 days.
Control4 and the other partners (although not Deutsche Telekom) will be showcasing the driver at CEDIA 2016 but the integrations will look pretty much like they always have.
At present it seems that users can’t do anything special with the home-control systems that they couldn’t do before – transports, lists of favourites to select and feedback for ‘now playing’ are all still there. For almost everything else, the user still has to go back to the Sonos App itself, with Crestron being the exception.
Control4, Savant and QIVICON (Deutsche Telekom’s smart-home platform) already integrated with Sonos.
A Sonos spokesperson tells CE Pro: “Sonos has a long track record of being as inclusive and agnostic as possible while also being uncompromising on experience – it is un-Sonos like to deliberately give people a bad experience. We’ve never had a partner program or endorsed integrations until now, so right now nothing that is out there is supported. Creating endorsed integrations is intended to provide the best possible customer experiences. We currently have no plans to deliberately impact existing solutions that are not supported, but the key is that they’re currently not supported.”
At CEDIA, Lutron will also show Sonos integration with all of its lighting-control and automation products, including Caséta, RadioRA 2 and HomeWorks QS.
In addition, Lutron will introduce a $49 Pico Remote for Audio, a simple wireless remote like the ones used to control Lutron’s motorised shades and lighting systems. The new Audio remote can be used with Sonos to play, pause, skip songs, and adjust volume.
Consumers can also use any Lutron keypad and App to incorporate Sonos into customised lighting scenes.
Lutron’s geofencing feature allows scheduling of immersive sound and lighting scenes to have speakers and lights automatically turn on/off once an owner is within a set distance of home.
Also new to Sonos is iPort, the division of Dana Innovations that makes iPad mounts and controls. At CEDIA, iPort will launch the xPress Audio Keypad, which talks directly to Sonos over the home’s Wi-Fi network. Unlike Lutron and the others, iPort does not require a hub for controlling Sonos.
The $100 Decora-style Keypad is wireless, so it can sit right next to same-style light switches on the wall. The xPress Magnetic Wall Adapters allow users to grab a Keypad off the wall for use as a hand-held remote.
It seems that Crestron is doing its Sonos integration different from the others. From within the Crestron environment, users have full access to the Sonos App itself.
While the other Sonos partners can deliver just the fundamental Sonos controls, Crestron will allow users to browse song lists, create presets and do everything else Sonos itself can do.
While Crestron does not have a booth this year at CEDIA, the company will have a room within the Sonos booth with full-time personnel on hand.