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Sonos external integration for Gladys Assistant

Sonos integration for Gladys Assistant

Control Sonos speakers locally, including VLAN setups, and play any content URI.

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Control your Sonos speakers directly over your local network: play, pause, previous/next track, volume, and play any content URI (a Spotify playlist or track, a radio stream...) sent to it - typically from a Gladys scene.

Why this integration, alongside Gladys' native Sonos service​

  • VLAN-safe discovery. The native Sonos service only finds speakers through SSDP multicast (239.255.255.250:1900), which most routers do not forward across VLANs/subnets - a live, unresolved limitation as of this writing. This integration adds a Known IPs field: one reachable Sonos speaker's IP is enough, because Sonos speakers already know every room in the household and share that layout with whichever one you ask.
  • Play any content URI. Each device gets a "Play URI" feature: send it a URI (e.g. spotify:playlist:...) and it starts playing there. Combine it with an integration that lists content (playlists, recently played tracks...) through a Gladys scene: read the selected value, write it to "Play URI".
  • Play Notification. Each device also gets a "Play Notification" feature, for a scene's "talk on a speaker" action: it briefly interrupts what is playing to announce a URI (a generated TTS file, a notification sound...), then reverts - see the Limitations section for how this differs from the native Sonos service.

Configuration​

  1. Open the integration's Configuration tab.
  2. If your Sonos speakers are reachable from Gladys without any special network setup, leave Known IPs empty and run a scan - automatic (SSDP) discovery is enough.
  3. If Gladys and your Sonos speakers are on different VLANs/subnets, fill in one speaker's IP address in Known IPs, save, then run a scan (the Scan for Sonos speakers action, or the Discovery tab). That single IP is enough to recover every room.

Bridging content from another integration​

A device's "Play URI" feature accepts any string value through its normal text command - no special wiring needed. In a Gladys scene: read the state of the content-listing feature you want to play from (its trigger condition), then add an action that sets this device's "Play URI" feature to that same value.

Limitations​

  • Local network control only: no cloud account, nothing works if the speaker is unreachable at the IP address Gladys currently has for it.
  • No real-time push updates (playing/paused, volume): state is polled periodically, so the dashboard can lag a few seconds behind reality.
  • Group/stereo-pair topology is read once per scan; a device grouped after the last scan is controlled directly rather than through its group's coordinator.
  • Playing a URI (spotify:..., etc.) requires the target speaker to already support that content source natively (e.g. Spotify linked as a service inside the Sonos app) - this integration does not manage that account link, it only sends the URI over the local network.
  • A "Play Notification" always runs for a fixed duration (~20s) before reverting to whatever was playing before, even if the announcement itself is shorter. Gladys' native Sonos service can revert as soon as the speaker reports the announcement finished playing; this integration runs in its own container, which a Sonos speaker's local network can never reach to deliver that same signal, so it always waits out the fixed duration instead.

Configuration settings​

These are the settings Sonos asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.

SettingTypeRequiredDescription
Sonos, controlled locallysectionNoThis integration controls your Sonos speakers directly over your local network - no cloud account, no Sonos app login. It discovers them automatically (SSDP). If your Sonos speakers are on a different VLAN/subnet than Gladys, automatic discovery will not find them: fill in one known IP below instead, it is enough to recover the whole household.
Known IPs (VLAN fix)stringNoOne Sonos speaker IP is enough: this integration then asks it for your whole household's layout. Separate multiple entries with a comma or a new line.

How to install Sonos in Gladys​

  1. In Gladys, open Integrations: Sonos appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
  2. Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (ghcr.io/vincentbesseau/gladys-sonos:1.1.0), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration).
  3. Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
  4. You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/vincentBesseau/gladys-sonos.

Sonos requires Gladys >=4.86.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.

Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.

About external integrations​

Sonos is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by vincentBesseau, not by the Gladys core team.

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