I wanted an easy way to turn my Sonos system on and off as well as issue some basic Sonos controls so I wouldn’t have to always pull out my phone to change volume, skip tracks, and turn the system on and off.
Here’s my setup:
My house has wired speakers so I use a Sonos Connect which I always leave on. My amp is plugged into a z-wave on/off module so I can save power when the sonos is not in use. The reason why I don’t switch the Sonos on and off remotely is because it takes up to 30 seconds to boot up, load content, etc.
I’m using a Vera Edge controller and at the time of this post, it’s running firmware version 1.7.1320.
I installed the Sonos Controller App/Plugin (version 1.3 at the time of this post).
Why VRCZ4?
I think the Leviton VRCZ4 series zone controllers are good for this type of application because despite the product name being “4 button zone controller,” it actually has 8 buttons, unlike the related VRCS4 series, each button has a left and a right toggle that can be independently programmed to activate different scenes (see photo). The VRCS4 series is just 4 buttons. The looks similar, but you can tell the difference between the two based on the location of the indicator LEDs. The Z4 series has the LEDs on the left of the switch and the S4 series has the LEDs in the middle of the switch.
Setup
Adding the VRCZ4 to the Vera was frustrating, but I figured out that I had to have the Vera controller inches from the VRCZ4 when both pairing AND programming scenes. When I tried to create the scenes with the Vera out of this 6-inch range, UI7 would act as though everything programmed properly, but the VRCZ4 controller wouldn’t control the scenes properly and it generally had spotty and erratic performance for reasons I can’t quite understand.
Using help from users who posted tutorials on how to use the Sonos Controller plugin, I created scenes that control the Sonos. Here’s a summary of how I decided to set up my scenes (see photos):
- Turns on the amp on/off switch, and starts playing Pandora (I just picked a default channel that I like: Bob Marley).
- Stops playing and turns off the on/off amp switch
- Changes the station to a 2nd pre-programmed Pandora station (the Sonos plugin allows you to create a scene for any content you can get through Sonos)
- Changes the station to a 3rd pre-programmed Pandora station.
- Previous Track
- Skip / Next Track
- Volume Down
- Volume Up
I used a label maker for the labels, but if we still like this setup a month from now, I’ll probably spring for the Leviton custom-engraved buttons.
Results
While it’s not a replacement for the songs app, overall, I’m very happy with the functionality. In particular, my wife loves that the music is accessible with the press of a button. The buttons are very responsive. For example a track skip or volume change happens within 100ms of pressing the buttons. I haven’t figured out how to enable press and hold for the volume control, but I just tap it 5 or 6 times if I need to change the volume considerably.
My only complaint is that the mechanical design of the buttons on this device are somewhat flimsy feeling. I wish the rocker switches felt solid like the Enerwave 7-button controller, but I couldn’t get that controller to behave reliably so on balance I think this is a better solution for me.
Still Haven’t Figured Out
The VRCZ4 has two dimmer control buttons at the bottom of the switch. Vera does not expose any functionality to customize them, so they are unused in this setup.
Please post if anyone can get the Press and hold to work for volume control, and better yet, figure out how to utilize the two dimmer control buttons- these would be even better for volume control, freeing up two more buttons for other functions.
Note: There are two controllers in the VRCZ4. One is just a controller and the other is the same controller with a local on/off load control built in. I only had the latter on hand so I just left the load screw unconnected during the install and i don’t use the on/off switch device that Vera detected when I paired the device. I plan on moving this to a location where I need the load control and I’ll replace this install with the VRCZ4-M0Z which doesn’t have the load control.