Exciting new Sonos Development

by Joe Brennan

We have developed a new way to use the Brennan with Sonos speakers.

Now you can send music on your Brennan to Sonos speakers in other rooms as simply as playing through the wired speakers.

What’s more - people in different rooms can play different music simultaneously - so it's like have having a Brennan in every room.

It was always possible to play the music on a Brennan with the Sonos app - but that required NAS and managing libraries - so it was a bit of a chore.

Now you just pick the Sonos loudspeaker and click on some music.

What you can do

This is a new development and we plan to add more capabilities after your feedback.

  • Pick a speaker - either Brennan speakers or one of your Sonos speakers
  • Send track, album, artist, playlist or radio to the chosen speaker
  • Adjust the volume, start and stop, next and previous* (see notes)
  • See whats playing on the Brennan Web UI and Sonos App

How it works

  • Upgrade to the latest software - 3rd December 2020
  • Open the original web UI. Wait for your Sonos speakers to announce themselves - and a Sonos button will appear. This can take a couple of minutes but the Brennan will remember for next time so it's only the first time.
  • Click on the Sonos button and choose loudspeakers to send music to
  • Click on the play button next to a track it will play that track immediately
  • Click on the play button for an album and it queues the album on the speaker and starts playing the first track. It replaces any previous queue.
  • Click on the play button in a Playlist and it queues the playlist (from that point) - again it deletes any previous queue.
  • The volume and transport buttons work as you expect - except that if you play a single track there is no next or previous.
  • You can switch back to another speaker and the music will continue
  • You can play to a group of speakers or zone by grouping them in the Sonos App
  • Also works on BB1
  • There is a new reset button in the settings panel to “forget”

Notes and limitations

  • The Sonos speakers must have been previously installed using the Sonos app and connected to the same network as the Brennan
  • DLNA must be turned off. Settings->Maintenance->DLNA
  • It will not play videos at present
  • Discovery is slow - we are working on a faster scan process for a future release
  • There is a 1000 track limit on playists and artists
  • There is no way to see or edit the queue
  • Other web UI (mobile and V3) to follow
  • Square brackets [] in filenames cause commands to be ignored - fix coming
  • Let us know what you think - any problems or suggestions - on the forum or by email
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