I mentioned the other day that I would like to see a Web controller for the Sonos music system to supplement the remote controller and the (to a non-Windows, non-Mac user) largely useless desktop controller software.
Well, it tuns out that an inventive user has done just that, and written a Web-based controller in Perl. It actually works as advertised, too, although it’s not quite as functional as either the remote controller or the desktop controller. Still, I can now manage the Sonos from the comfort of my laptop, which — let’s face it — is where I spend a lot of my time.
How it works is quite clever. You install it on any system that can run Perl, so I put it on our MythTV box. When run, it starts a Web server on port 8001. Pointing a browser at the server yields a menu that allows one to select a UI and various plug-ins. Once that is done, one can access most Sonos functions, including the all-important ones, such as selecting zones, playing music and altering the volume.
On the back-end, a UPnP control point listens for UPnP events and talks to the Sonos boxes. With my scant knowledge of UPnP, this has the appearance of happening rather magically.
I’d like to see Sonos take this piece of software and continue its development. There’s clearly a need for a controller that one can manage from one’s Web browser.