SonosKeyController

Deprecation Notice

The code in this repository is now deprecated, as everything can be more easily achieved with SoCo-CLI. See the documentation for single keystroke mode and aliases in the SoCo-CLI interactive shell.

Aliases are very flexible, support a huge set of SoCo-CLI actions, and allow for multi-action sequences, etc.

Brief Instructions:

After installing SoCo-CLI

1. Set up the required single keystroke aliases, either directly in the interactive shell using the alias command, or by importing aliases from a file using the sonos --load_aliases command.
2. Start SoCo-CLI in single keystroke mode: sonos --sk --interactive <speaker_name>.

SoCo-CLI will then respond to single keystrokes by invoking the relevant aliased command. Usage has been tested on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

The documentation below for automatic startup (etc.) of SoCo-CLI under Linux still applies.

Documentation

This is a small Python script that waits for keyboard input at the console. Keyboard inputs trigger commands to a selected Sonos speaker using SoCo [1], a Python library for controlling Sonos systems.

The script is especially useful with a FLIRC [2], a USB dongle that is programmed to recognise infrared (IR) codes from arbitrary IR remotes, and then translate them into keyboard key-presses. Using the script with a FLIRC enables IR control of Sonos systems.

The script can also be used with anything else that presents as a keyboard connected directly to the computer on which the script is running. Note that since the script runs as a console program, it's only really suitable for running on headless hosts. I run it on a Raspberry Pi near the Sonos Port that it controls.

Requirements

A working Python 3.5+ environment running on a suitable host, with the soco package installed (use PyPi).

The script is intended to run as a console program in order to accept keyboard input from a directly attached keyboard, FLIRC, etc.

The script is tested on Linux but includes untested support for Windows.

Usage

The file config.py needs to be edited for your needs. See the steps within the file. The script is run using python sonoskeycontroller.py.

Automatic Startup (Linux)

In order to start the program automatically on reboot, it's useful to:

1. Log in a special user automatically at the console. Note: for security reasons, this should not be any of the normal users, but a user specifically created for Sonos control purposes.

2. Have the console session detected, in order to start the program in the console case only, and avoid it being started during (e.g.) normal SSH sessions.

Logging in automatically

For systemd based systems: create the following file if it doesn't exist:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/getty@.service.d
sudo touch /etc/systemd/system/getty@.service.d/customexec.conf

Then edit the file to add the following section (replace 'sonos_user' with your required user name):

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --noclear --autologin sonos_user %I $TERM

This will automatically login 'sonos_user' at the console on every reboot.

Starting sonoskeycontroller for the console sesssion only

In .bashrc for the 'sonos_user' (or the equivalent for your shell if you're not using bash), add the following at the end.

case $(tty) in /dev/tty[0-9]*)
    echo "Console Detected"
    python sonoskeycontroller.py
esac

Adjust the python command to suit your installation.

Support

Just raise a GitHub issue if you'd like help with anything. I'll respond as promptly as I can.

Links

[1] https://github.com/SoCo/SoCo
[2] https://flirc.tv/more/flirc-usb