SonosController - looking for beta testers

Hi there

You might or might not have heard of SonosController, my very first Amiga program (using Hollywood) I released last autumn for OS4 and MorphOS and a bit later version 1.1 also supporting OS 3.x (with fast CPUs) and WarpOS.

In case you'd like to catch up, here are the links to the news including a list of features:

• Version 1.0: https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-08-00009-EN.html


• Version 1.1: https://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-09-00068-EN.html

Although I didn't exactly got tons of responses to this, I still kept on developing and am now at the brink of releasing version 1.2 with the following key features:

• support for grouping devices


• support for devices that are being turned off or on


• localization incl. a german catalog that can be used as template to create your own catalog file for your preferred language

But before I release this new version 1.2 to the general public, I'm looking for beta testers to make this thing also works outside the (fire)walls of my own little network.

Would anybody please help me out on this?

Download links

• https://mrupp.ch/betas/SonosController_OS4.lha


• https://mrupp.ch/betas/SonosController_OS3.lha


• https://mrupp.ch/betas/SonosController_OS3fpu.lha


• https://mrupp.ch/betas/SonosController_WOS.lha


• https://mrupp.ch/betas/SonosController_MOS.lha

Well, here are two screenshots of the OS4 version to make a first impression, the app looks accordingly on the other platforms:

Grouping devices:



Volume and muting can be set for each grouped device individually:



Change log

• NEW: support for grouping and ungrouping devices. When grouped, volume and muting can either be set for the whole group or for each device individually.


• NEW: support for devices that suddenly appear or disappear from the Sonos system, for example when turned on or off.


• NEW: timeout for devices to respond can be configured in the Preferences. On slower Amigas it might be necessary to increase the timeout (default is 5s).


• NEW: implemented localization


• NEW: german catalog: feel free to use it as a template to create catalog files for other languages.


• NEW: if no devices can be found by the network scan, it's now enough to add just one single device by its IP address. This one will then be queried to return all the others.


• NEW: added a "Cancel" button to the requester that pops up if the network scan couldn't find anything (requested by Steve Harrison).


• NEW: added a version check of reqtools.library where needed (on AmigaOS 3.x and MorphOS) when adding devices manually and letting the user know, if the version installed is not sufficient (v39 or higher is needed). After confirming with "OK", the URL of the download page on Aminet is automatically opened.


• NEW: displaying the loading's progress when browsing the music library incl. the possibility to cancel it by pressing the [<] button.


• IMPROVED: quicker network scan because now it's enough to find one single device to connect to.


• FIXED: nasty networking bug that caused SonosController to freeze after a while, especially on AmigaOS 3.x.


• FIXED: possible crash when searching something without results, searching some more and going back again.


• FIXED: switching between "Pause" and "Play" sometimes made the button move a pixel.

Important note

• Please note that the OS 3.x version really needs a fast CPU, 060 or a Vampire is recommended. In the Preferences (menu or shortcut RAmiga-P) you can deactivate the loading of the queue and/or album covers to gain some performance.


• Please have look at the requirements as mentioned in the AmigaGuide included in the archives.

Well then, happy testing, please post any reports (bugs, but also if it DOES work for you) here in this thread.

Cheers,
Michael

@mrupp
Your application looks amazing. I'd love to test it but unfortunately, I do not have any Sonos speakers. Maybe that's the reason you haven't got a ton of responses for your app. Maybe people do not possess compatible speakers, and this is a barrier to using SonosController.

Please, do not let this demotivate you though. Keep up making the app as good as possible.

@mrupp

I would love to test but like Walkero, i dont have any Sonos equipment running. I am using Google Home / Nest audio speakers mainly... and Philips HUE (and compatible) stuff...

I must say, your program looks really nice, and hope people with Sonos stuff will enjoy it.

Keep up the good work!!

Will it work with Amazon Echo smart speakers ?

@BillE I don't know these, but if they're compatible with Sonos, they should work. Why not try it out and report back here? I'm curious...

@mrupp

I don't have Sonos, to test..But maybe you may support Volumio players if possible (You can build one with RaspberryPi or Asus Tinkerboard)

https://volumio.github.io/docs/API/WebSocket_APIs.html

https://volumio.com/en/get-started/

@SinanSam460 I'm afraid this won't be possible as my app communicates with the Sonos system through its internal API. It's really Sonos-only, sorry...

Not a Sonos owner, however just by playing a bit with the interface i've found a little bug when moving the audio slider

Table m_currentzonegroup{} not found!
File: SonosController.hws (current line 1361 - In function: <<unnamed>>)

@mrupp

I've translated it in italian, here the file fell free to include it :)

https://easyupload.io/6t3qmb

Just noted that any italian special chars in translation (like "è") are not handled correctly in program.. please fix!

@mrupp

I'm always happy to test stuff on OS4 & OS3 with my real hardware but I unfortunately don't have any Sonos speakers to test with

Sorry. Spotify Connect here.

@samo79

Thanks for the report, will be fixed.

And thanks a lot for the italian translation, I'm happy to include it in the release. The special characters will display correctly if the file is saved in UTF-8 format. But that's easy, I'll convert it!

@mrupp

Ah yep you are right about UTF-8, i was completely forgot to try that!

About the crashing i noticed that the crashes are a bit all over the program just by trying to use it a bit (opening windows etc..)

Most probably this is due to the fact that it
does not find the necessary Sonos hardware to proceed, so in end i think you should need to add some checks in the code to prevent them

@mrupp

I have access to SONOS speakers at work, so i tested your v1.1 around the time you released that version.

With my first test, SonosController had trouble to discover all speakers. So i added them one by one via there IP address. That somehow resulted in my colleagues haven't no access to the speakers via the Sonos app. Thus they wanted the control back, and we had a hard time to tell the original Sonos app, again about we speakers. We had to reset them etc, until access was possible. So i didn't use SonosController any further, until now.

I started v1.1 again and, whatever chnanged, now the speakers are automatically discovered. I can control them and my colleagues haven't yet a clue that i do it on my amiga. Maybe the cause was a issue on the company network? So works nice and great.

Next i started v1.2 and works as nice as v1.1, and even the groups are correctly discovered.

I did following tests:

a) On the original Sonos app, i split a group. SonosController did automatically update itself to reflect the change. Nice.

b) Rejoined the group with SonsoController. Was performed and the Sonos app did update itself to reflect the change.

If you want to have something specific tested, let me know. For now i stopped any testing, in the case something goes wrong, so that my colleagues don't get upset on me

@MigthyMax

You have an Amiga at WORK? Wow, this is beyond cool!

Can't really think of a way how SonosController could possibly kill off Sonos devices, that's really strange. It does nothing what the original Sonos app wouldn't do, too (I checked using WireShark, that's how I reverse engineered some of the functionality). It should be perfectly save to use my app.

Auto discovering the Sonos devices: that's a known limitation of most of the Amiga TCP/IP stacks. With my testing, this only seems to work with Roadshow. But with v1.2 it's now enough to manually add only 1 device and this one will be queried to report all others.

Thanks for the test. There's nothing specific I'd like you to test, just... well... everything the app is capable of doing. Simply use the thing as often as possible, that would be great!

Which platform version are you using and on what kind of hardware?

Thanks!
Michael

@mrupp

Well the killing of the Sonos device only happened with my first run with SonosController. Now that i wanted to verify it before posting, it didn't happen again. And even Auto discovering works really fine.
At work i only use Sonos(Controller) to mute and change radio station, and that works without any troubles, even with v1.2 version. But most of the day the app is just idling.

Oh, i have a Micro AmigaOne with OS4.1 with latest update. No enhancer stuff, because i (A-Eon) don't get my account working. Having 512Mb of RAM.

New beta 2 uploaded (same links, see above) with the following changes:

• NEW: italian catalog by Samir Hawamdeh. Thanks for this!


• FIXED: MUI 5 column widths in the Music Library browser listview.


• FIXED: as long a no Sonos devices are found, all controls are disabled by default, avoiding possible crashes.


• FIXED: Control menu items are now disabled according to the corresponding buttons.


• FIXED: display of room's names with MUI 4.0

Thanks for your reports and help! Please keep testing...

@mrupp

Looks lovely, thanks for your work on this!

Alright, the new version 1.2 is out! Here's the link to Aminet:
http://aminet.net/search?query=SonosController

Should also be available through OS4Depot and MorphOS-Storage soon.

Thank you all for your help and encouraging words.

Cheers,
Michael