TUTORIAL - Sonos Remote VD (using node-sonos-api)

[Desmo 5]

I've taken a slightly different approach to this now....having one VD to control all speakers.

 

In general use I'd use the proper Sonos app to control speakers around the house, I only want it in HC2 so I can automate a few things when I want to. By using just the one VD I can still control each speaker individually by using a selectable global variable for the speaker name to switch to each speaker. I can do the same for grouping/ungrouping speakers also. This way I still have full automated control for scenes and other VD's as well and just one VD to keep up to date as new ideas and features become available.

 

It may also help me track down my issue.

[AutoFrank 372]

1 hour ago, Desmo said:

I've taken a slightly different approach to this now....having one VD to control all speakers.

 

In general use I'd use the proper Sonos app to control speakers around the house, I only want it in HC2 so I can automate a few things when I want to. By using just the one VD I can still control each speaker individually by using a selectable global variable for the speaker name to switch to each speaker. I can do the same for grouping/ungrouping speakers also. This way I still have full automated control for scenes and other VD's as well and just one VD to keep up to date as new ideas and features become available.

 

It may also help me track down my issue.

 

Hi @Desmo

Sounds like a good approach and will hopefully help expose the issue

I don't really use a VD, apart from the one for all zones to see what is runnning periodically.

my control is mostly for background automation, I find the presets very useful

 

 

[Desmo 5]

And my new VD is......stopping after 17 minutes :/

To the second.

 

I think I'll go for the HC2 upgrade this weekend and see if that sorts it out.

[AutoFrank 372]

2 hours ago, Desmo said:

And my new VD is......stopping after 17 minutes :/

To the second.

 

I think I'll go for the HC2 upgrade this weekend and see if that sorts it out.

 

Hi @Desmo

The exact to 17 minutes is very strange indeed...

I've been racking my brain on this one and have come up with two more possibilities

- the api has logs, not sure which folder but I'm sure you'll find it if you poke around.

- When it stops after 17 mins, if you reboot the Pi without touching the VD, does it start working again.

 

-frank

[Desmo 5]

Good shout... I'll try both of those. 

[Desmo 5]

Can't find anything of note in the logs and the VD doesn't work again after rebooting the Pi....surely it has to be an HC2 problem.

Looks like an update is on the cars for the weekend.

[jimicr 89]

@AutoFrank, The Google TTS wasn't included in the original Rpi image, it became available after updating the api.

Just remove/ rename settings.json to get it to work

[AutoFrank 372]

4 minutes ago, jimicr said:

@AutoFrank, The Google TTS wasn't included in the original Rpi image, it became available after updating the api.

Just remove/ rename settings.json to get it to work

 

HI @jimicr

Good catch .. how does it sound ?

[jimicr 89]

For the dutch TTS it sounds like a female instead of  robotic.

So it's an improvement for us

Now I need to figure out how to make a play/pause button and change your weather scene from page 3 to get it work again.

 

And the hardest job of them all: we have 1 Sonos device now, I need to convince the misses we absolutely need more

[Desmo 5]

Of course you need more 

[Desmo 5]

So I restarted the VD today (still not updated HC2 yet) and it's been running for 45 minutes so far but get a feeling it will stop again soon.

 

Anyhow, thought I'd pop up a pic of where my VD is at right now...

 

Please login or register to see this attachment.

 

Top area for information, L K B N are to select Lounge, Kitchen, Bedroom or Nursery for controlling them.

Control and volume buttons are there, followed by some favourites scrolled with the "Next" button and chosen with "Select".

Finally I have a section to Group/Ungroup players. Again, I can select the speaker using L K B N and then group or ungroup it.

[AutoFrank 372]

13 hours ago, jimicr said:

For the dutch TTS it sounds like a female instead of  robotic.

So it's an improvement for us

Now I need to figure out how to make a play/pause button and change your weather scene from page 3 to get it work again.

 

And the hardest job of them all: we have 1 Sonos device now, I need to convince the misses we absolutely need more

 

@jimicr

 

Yes, yes.. you definitely need more

I bought our first one (ZP100) in the US in 2006 and it is still working...

Since then our sonos family has grown to 14 (mix or play1,3,5, zp80, zp90 ) and my original ZP100 is still working well. Not sure I can say that for many other 'devices' i have bought down through the years..

 

The play/pause should be okay as there is a playpause command in the api - /room/playpause

There is also separate play and pause commands

 

Is this what you were looking for

[AutoFrank 372]

10 minutes ago, Desmo said:

So I restarted the VD today (still not updated HC2 yet) and it's been running for 45 minutes so far but get a feeling it will stop again soon.

 

Anyhow, thought I'd pop up a pic of where my VD is at right now...

 

Please login or register to see this attachment.

 

Top area for information, L K B N are to select Lounge, Kitchen, Bedroom or Nursery for controlling them.

Control and volume buttons are there, followed by some favourites scrolled with the "Next" button and chosen with "Select".

Finally I have a section to Group/Ungroup players. Again, I can select the speaker using L K B N and then group or ungroup it.

 

@Desmo

That's looking very well

This is one of the things I really like about the api, lots of options and you can really customise a VD to suit your needs and system

.. no stopping you now... assuming that that upgrade solves the 'stopping issue'

 

if you happy to do at some time, it might be worth exporting the VD to this or another post with a brief explanation....

 

[Desmo 5]

2 hours ago, AutoFrank said:

if you happy to do at some time, it might be worth exporting the VD to this or another post with a brief explanation....

I'll do that maybe once I've got this problem sorted

 

So my VD ran for 52 minutes this morning before stopping so I've put a sleep command in the main loop to slow down the updates and so far it's been going for over 2 hours. I was just wondering if the amount of information was creating some kind of overload. If it keeps on running I'll slowly reduce the main loop delay until it remains stable.

[AutoFrank 372]

3 minutes ago, Desmo said:

I'll do that maybe once I've got this problem sorted

 

So my VD ran for 52 minutes this morning before stopping so I've put a sleep command in the main loop to slow down the updates and so far it's been going for over 2 hours. I was just wondering if the amount of information was creating some kind of overload. If it keeps on running I'll slowly reduce the main loop delay until it remains stable.

 

@Desmo

How is the HC2 memory and CPU during all of this ?

I've had several of these running concurrently with no issue

[Desmo 5]

I don't think they're particularly stressed to be honest....RAM is at a constant 46% and CPU is between 0-30% with the odd spike to 50-60% and very occasional spike to 80%.

 

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[AutoFrank 372]

1 minute ago, Desmo said:

I don't think they're particularly stressed to be honest....RAM is at a constant 46% and CPU is between 0-30% with the odd spike to 50-60% and very occasional spike to 80%.

 

Please login or register to see this attachment.

 

@Desmo

That's ruled that out .... 

You could easily do a sleep up to 2 seconds.

How is your network activity  ?

.. running out of ideas here  hopefully the 4.11 upgrade will work

 

BTW - I had a bit of a HC2 crash this morning (first in nearly 2 years) ..

.. lucky I had good backups and a copy of all my source code in Zerobraine

might worth making sure you're covered before the upgrade..

[Desmo 5]

It's a shame there's not an easy way to export code for all scenes and VD's.

 

edit.....VD stopped after 2.5 hours. Going to increase the sleep time and see if it runs longer.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Desmo

[AutoFrank 372]

10 minutes ago, Desmo said:

It's a shame there's not an easy way to export code for all scenes and VD's.

 

edit.....VD stopped after 2.5 hours. Going to increase the sleep time and see if it runs longer.

 

hi @Desmo

 

I believe you can with Krikroff's HC2 Tookit application but I have never tried the export.

Details can be found here 

Please login or register to see this link.

[Desmo 5]

I've seen the toolkit about but never used it before. Just installed it and it's pretty good, got all my stuff backed up now so should anything catastrophic happen I've got some form of external backup