Control 4 & Sonos – New authorised driver
Changes that are Now Impacting the Customer Experience
Recently, Sonos provided a new version of software and began auto-updating installed Sonos products. These updates include changes to account authentication and music playback interaction required by Spotify and Amazon Music. These changes will disable end user access to Spotify and Amazon Music services through the legacy Control4-Sonos UPnP-based driver. Currently, other music services supported by the legacy driver continue to function; however Control4 cannot predict future operability indefinitely because such support is controlled by Sonos or the music service providers.
The new Control4-Sonos driver, which adheres to the technical and business guidelines from Sonos, enables Spotify and Amazon Music playback as well as many other music services but with a new and comparatively limited user experience through Control4 interfaces. This new authorized driver is available now and recommended for all new Sonos installations and for updating existing installations.
Failure to update the system will possibly result in non-operation of audio with any system using Control4 to control Sonos.
Effective January 1, 2017 the legacy UPnP-based driver will be removed from the Control4 Online Driver Database as future software updates from Sonos may introduce incompatibilities with other music services. The new authorized driver is now the only approved and supported mechanism for integration between Control4 and Sonos.
Use the new Control4-Sonos Authorized Driver (Mandatory)
Benefit:
- Homeowner has access to a large variety of music services through Sonos.
- Homeowner can access their Sonos music Favorites through the Control4 interfaces.
Disadvantage:
- Music playback is limited to pre-created Sonos Favorites.
- Homeowner needs to create and manage their Sonos Favorites from the Sonos mobile app.
The Sonos update that will implement the changes that will affect your system is due to start being rolled out at the end of January, we will start over the next couple of days removing the old Control4 driver and replacing it with the new supported driver into your system. Unfortunately this is something that is out of our control and is going to affect all Control4 systems that have Sonos integrated. There is no work around at the minute, some control systems have lost the ability to integrate Sonos completely. We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by this.