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Somos InControl can build your rooms as well as control them. Press and hold the room diagram on any room page to open the setup sheet for that room: Home Theater Setup on a soundbar, or the Stereo Pair sheet on a single speaker or an existing pair.
Set each speaker up in your Sonos® system first. Speakers already bonded elsewhere or in another group must be released before you assign them. You can choose an existing stereo pair for fronts or surrounds: Somos asks before separating it and uses both speakers together.

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Home Theater Setup (soundbars)

1

Open the sheet

On the soundbar’s page, press and hold the room diagram.
2

Fill the slots you have

The sheet lists six slots: Front Left, Front Right, Surround Left, Surround Right, Subwoofer and Subwoofer 2. Tap a slot and choose from the available speakers or stereo pairs on your network. Sub slots only offer Subs. The picker explains compatibility on an Arc Ultra or Beam Ultra. Older models can appear too; the soundbar decides whether it accepts them. If you choose a stereo pair, confirm Split this stereo pair? before continuing. The flash button beside each candidate pulses that speaker’s status light so you can tell which is which; by default it also plays a short identify tone, which you can turn off with Play a tone when identifying.
3

Mind the front-speaker rule

Fronts must be assigned as a pair — both or neither — and the app checks this when you apply. Surrounds and Subs can be assigned on their own. Tapping × on an assignment clears just that slot.
4

Apply and wait

Tap Apply. When you add separate fronts, Somos temporarily removes the attached speakers, adds the fronts and confirms them, then adds Sub and confirms it, then adds surrounds and confirms them. Without fronts, setup starts with Sub, then surrounds. The progress sheet shows each stage. Leave it open until the room settles; fronts take longer than a single bond.
To take everything off the bar, tap Remove All Speakers, or remove speakers one at a time with × and then Apply. Released speakers reappear as their own rooms (Sonos® can take up to a minute), and the app offers to rename them as they come back.

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Separate front speakers

Somos InControl lets you bond separate front left and right speakers to a soundbar — something the official Sonos® app doesn’t offer. Know the trade-off before you do: the soundbar becomes the centre channel and some of its own drivers go quiet, the fronts receive steered channels rather than their own Atmos feed, and Trueplay becomes unavailable while fronts are bonded. The app shows Before You Add Fronts before you continue. Don’t show this again remembers your choice.
A Beam Ultra accepts the front speakers but keeps its front and height channels, so the added fronts stay silent. The warning explains this before you continue. You can still choose Add Fronts. Its Don’t show this again choice is remembered separately from the general fronts warning, including after you close and reopen setup.
Separate fronts, surrounds, Subs and stereo pairs all work in your chosen room. Only the rooms beyond it, grouping and saved groups are part of Whole Home.
The Home Theater Setup sheet on iPhone: Arc Ultra as the soundbar with Play a tone when identifying on, Front Left and Front Right each with Assign speaker, Era 100 speakers in Surround Left and Surround Right, a Sub (Gen 4) as Subwoofer 1, and Subwoofer 2 with Assign speaker.

Home Theater Setup: the soundbar with Play a tone when identifying, then Front Left, Front Right, Surround Left, Surround Right, Subwoofer 1 and Subwoofer 2. Each filled position has its own remove button and a bulb to identify the speaker; Remove All Speakers is at the bottom.

If a stage fails or you cancel, Somos attempts to restore the previous layout and reports what happened. Check the room diagram afterwards. If recovery does not finish, send Submit diagnostics from Menu → Advanced Settings. Status Light recovery follows your latest choice, including after a pair is split or restored.

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Stereo pairs

On a single speaker’s page, press and hold the diagram. The Stereo Pair page starts with the held speaker and lets you pick a partner from the standalone speakers of the same model on your network. The two appear as cards, marked LEFT and RIGHT — the top card is always the left channel; press and hold a card and drag to swap them. The bulb beside each card flashes that speaker’s light so you can tell which is which. Tap Apply to pair.
The Stereo Pair page with two Era 100 cards, Bedroom marked LEFT on top and Bedroom 2 marked RIGHT below, each with a bulb button and a drag handle, a note that the top speaker is always the left stereo channel, and a Play a tone when identifying switch.

The Stereo Pair page: the top card is LEFT, the bottom card is RIGHT.

The hold does nothing on a single speaker that has no same-model partner available on the network — there’s nothing to pair it with.

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Things to know

  • Trueplay after bonding. Sonos® firmware blocks Trueplay on a bar with separate fronts. Run Trueplay in the official Sonos® app before adding fronts if you want it, and expect it to read Unavailable afterwards.
  • A released speaker doesn’t come back. Sonos® can hold a stale bond until the speaker restarts. Unplug it for 10 seconds and plug it back in.
  • The diagram didn’t update. Pull down on the room page; the app also resyncs every 30 seconds or so.
  • A pair with a Sub is still a music room. Bonding a Sub to a stereo pair or a single speaker adds the Sub’s level, switch, crossover and phase — it does not add TV controls or TV presets. Only a soundbar gets those. See TV rooms and music rooms.
The Home Theater Setup sheet centred over the Living Room page on an iPad: the Arc Ultra as soundbar with Play a tone when identifying, then Front Left and Front Right with Assign speaker, and the surround and Sub positions below.

Home Theater Setup on iPad: the same positions and assignment controls on the larger screen. Identify a speaker before changing the position it fills.