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If you have a question about Somos InControl, you’re in the right place. These are the questions users ask most often, covering everything from how the app connects to your speakers to what it does (and doesn’t) do with your data. If your question isn’t answered here, head to Troubleshooting for step-by-step fixes, or contact support directly.
No. Somos InControl is an independent, unofficial third-party app. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Sonos, Inc. It uses the publicly documented local control protocol to communicate with Sonos® speakers on your Wi-Fi network.
Somos InControl works with Sonos® speakers that support local control on the network — S2 systems and S1 systems alike. Every room appears in the app — home theater (soundbar) rooms, stereo pairs, single speakers, and portables such as Move and Roam. As a general rule: if your speaker shows up in the official Sonos® app on the same Wi-Fi, it should show up here too.All rooms get volume, bass, treble, loudness, presets, Trueplay, Status Light, Touch Controls and the Music sheet. Home-theater-only controls — TV / Music source, the audio-format badge, Night Sound, Speech Boost, height and surround levels — appear only in rooms with a soundbar. Subwoofer controls appear in any room that has a Sub bonded; the crossover slider appears only on a Sonos Amp.If a specific model isn’t being discovered, contact support with the model name.
No. Somos InControl does not use your Sonos® account and will never ask you to log in. It talks to your speakers directly over Wi-Fi — no credentials, no cloud, no sign-in. Even music playback works without a login, because the speaker streams from the service itself and your phone only sends the command.
iOS requires any app that discovers and communicates with devices on your local Wi-Fi to request Local Network permission. Somos InControl needs it to find your Sonos® speakers. Without it, the app has nothing to control. The permission only lets the app see devices on the Wi-Fi network you’re currently connected to — nothing else.If you declined the prompt initially, re-enable it in Settings → Somos InControl → Local Network (the menu’s App Permissions in iPhone Settings takes you straight there).
No. Somos InControl only works on the same local Wi-Fi network as your Sonos® speakers. This is a deliberate design choice — it’s what keeps the app fast, private, and free of any account requirement. If you’re away from home and need remote control, use the official Sonos® app.
Dial in the sound you want, then hold a preset card. On the Save Preset sheet, name it and tick anything extra you want it to carry — Volume, Night Sound, Speech Boost, Loudness — then tap Save. Bass, treble and the surround, height, subwoofer and crossover levels are always saved. Tap a preset to load it. Hold it again and change only the name to Rename it without touching its values.Each room has three TV presets on its page and three music presets on the Music sheet. While a preset is active, changing any control it captured clears its highlight and a toast says the preset was disabled. See Sound Presets.
Yes, in two senses. The bottom bar holds up to four favourite rooms as tabs (plus a second page of saved groups) and you can swipe between room pages; the menu lists every room. And you can group rooms so they play the same audio: tap the group button at the top-right of a room, switch other rooms on, and each room’s volume then appears on the page. See Grouping Rooms.
The Live Activity is off by default. Open the menu and switch Live Activity on under Settings. If it still doesn’t appear, iOS may have Live Activities disabled for the app — the menu shows an orange link that opens Settings → Apps → Somos InControl → Live Activities. Live Activities need iOS 16.2 or later, and the card ends about 30 minutes after you background the app; reopening the app brings it back.
Trueplay is Sonos®‘s room calibration feature. It tunes your speaker’s sound to match the acoustics of your room, and turning it on generally improves sound quality. The Trueplay tile in every room shows whether the room is tuned (then it’s an on/off switch), untuned (Tune in Sonos app — calibration itself only runs in the official app), or blocked, with a Why not? explanation.
Sonos® firmware can’t tune a room with separate front speakers bonded to the soundbar, so Trueplay becomes unavailable — the app warns you about this before it bonds fronts. The trade-off is yours: a larger soundstage with the custom configuration, or your original layout with Trueplay. Port, Connect and Roam SL never support Trueplay at all.
No — firmware updates are handled exclusively by the official Sonos® app. What Somos InControl does do: if a speaker is running older firmware than the rest of your system (Sonos® quarantines it), that room shows Needs a firmware update and its page has no controls until the Sonos® app has updated it. If all your speakers match, Somos stays quiet — it never nags you to update.
Yes. Somos InControl lets you bond separate front left and right speakers to a soundbar, something the official Sonos® app doesn’t offer. 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 is unavailable while fronts are bonded. Fronts must be assigned as a matched pair. See Speaker Setup.
Yes. On a single speaker’s page, press and hold the room diagram to open the Stereo Pair sheet, pick a same-model partner, choose which is left, and apply. On an existing pair the same sheet has Separate stereo pair. See Speaker Setup.
Yes. They appear as normal rooms with their battery level next to the model name at the top of the page. If you switch a portable to Bluetooth it disappears from the app — and from the official Sonos® app — because on Bluetooth it only plays from the phone it’s paired with. Turn Bluetooth off on the speaker and it comes back on its own.
Not from inside the app — Apple doesn’t allow third-party apps to initiate AirPlay to external speakers. However, AirPlay-capable Sonos® speakers accept AirPlay directly from the iOS AirPlay picker, where they appear alongside any other AirPlay speakers in your home.
Both. The Home Screen widget (small, medium, large) offers preset buttons and volume/mute rows for up to two rooms. Siri applies presets by name — “Apply Movies in Somos InControl” — and can turn the volume up or down or switch room. See Widget & Siri.
No. Nothing leaves your device except the local control messages your speakers need and one image request to Sonos®‘s public photo library for speaker pictures. There is no analytics, no telemetry, no iCloud sync and no account to send data to. The questionnaires under Speaker Checks open a web page in your browser; the app itself sends nothing to it. See the Privacy Policy.