Sonos players and Xlobby

[acemt01]

I would like to use Xlobby to communicate and play music through my sonos players. Has anyone tried this? I have entered the IP addresses of the zoneplayers after starting the server, but it says the are unabel to connect. Does the sonos box have to be running xlobby? Thanks

Mark

[acemt01]

Here's what I posted on the sonos website. Any one with more computer savy than me, that can make this work?

Quote:
Originally Posted by acemt
Thanks Majik, I will check it out. I don't really care about the GUI interface though, Xlobby does that for me. It uses Xnet to look for other network computers. There is a space to enter the networked IP address so you can connect to other computers to send music. I have entered the IP address of the SONOS players from the help screen, and it says it is unable to connect. Would there be something blocking me inside the ZP?

Is there any plans for the future to make this more compatible with a home network on the official side so that it can more closely integrate with other units/systems? I hope so. Thanks again for your reply.

Love the players!

Mark


I'm not sure what you mean by "send network music". Streamed music is almost always a "pull" process. In the case of Sonos, the ZP "pulls" the music from a network share. You can't arbritrarily send a music file or stream to a ZP as it won't be expecting it and won't know what to do with it. Equally, you can't do this to a PC either (unless it is running a specific client to handle it).

I'm not sure what "Xnet" is (there doesn't seem to be much info on the Xlobby page), but I suspect it is a proprietary protocol designed for Xlobby, and hence won't work directly with Sonos or any other (non-PC) music player. The information on the multi-room audio capability on the Xlobby features page indicates that this feature works with PCs. I'm guessing these PC have to have a proprietary Xlobby client installed on them.

I suspect the only way you'll get Xlobby to work with this is:
a) Get a Sonos API plugin for Xlobby
b) have a PC running as an Xnet to Sonos proxy

Both of these will require someone to do some development.

Cheers,

Keith
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[hjackson]

Acemt01, Xnet only works with Xlobby.

hjackson

[rbziggy]

From what I've read about Sonos, I believe that it's pretty much a completely proprietary product (including the network protocol). It sounds that even though it may use wireless networking on the same (802.11 etc) frequencies, it may not actually use an 802 protocol as such. (I understand it runs its own mesh network and doesn't need a d/g access point.)

Thus, its not surprising that you cant connect to it at all.

Given this is a tight product, it may be unlikely that you will be able to interface to Sonos from XL unless they:

- either publish their protocol or develop an API so that an API can be developed in XL
- they provide a web interface which you may be able to hook into from XL.

Shame because its a neat product.