Entertainment

ZoneFoundry for Sonos

by YONGKUN SHI

Overview

Control the Sonos speakers in your home by talking to ChatGPT. Play songs, artists, albums and playlists, set the volume, group rooms together, move the music to another room, switch to TV, and have a speaker read out a short announcement or a timed reminder. It works in English and Chinese and goes through the official Sonos cloud, so there is nothing to install on your network and it works when you are away from home. You need the free ZoneFoundry iOS app, signed in to your own Sonos account; when you connect, you approve access in the app with a 6-digit code, and you can disconnect ChatGPT from the app at any time.

Tools

adjust_volume

ChatGPT

Raises or lowers a room's volume by a relative amount (-30 to 30); the current level does not need to be known.

announce

ChatGPT

Speaks a short text message aloud on a room's Sonos speaker using text-to-speech. Music pauses during the message and then resumes. Up to 300 characters, at least 8 seconds apart; one message can carry several items. language: zh-CN / zh-HK / en-US; when omitted, the home's language preference is used.

ask_zonefoundry

ChatGPT

Sends a request in natural language to the user's ZoneFoundry assistant, which carries it out on the user's Sonos system and returns a reply. It handles playing songs, artists, albums and playlists, news and radio, spoken announcements, scenes and multi-step requests, across Apple Music, Spotify, QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music, and understands English and Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese). An artist name plays about 10 of that artist's songs. Without the ZoneFoundry bridge, tracks play directly on the speaker and are added to the Sonos queue the next time the ZoneFoundry app is opened. Examples: 'play some jazz in the kitchen', 'play the morning news in the bedroom', '喺客厅播周杰伦'.

cancel_reminder

ChatGPT

Cancels a pending reminder by its reminderId.

group_rooms

ChatGPT

Group one or more rooms onto room so they all play the same thing. room stays the one that keeps playing; the others join it.

list_favorites

ChatGPT

Lists the home's Sonos favorites (title, artist, position, service) in the order Sonos stores them. Works without the ZoneFoundry bridge. Sonos caps favorites at about 70 items; total is the real count.

list_playlists

ChatGPT

Lists the home's Sonos playlists (id, title, track count). Works without the ZoneFoundry bridge. An error response means the list could not be read, not that there are no playlists.

list_reminders

ChatGPT

List pending spoken reminders created via this MCP connection.

list_rooms

ChatGPT

List this user's Sonos rooms and current groups (cloud topology).

move_music

ChatGPT

Moves what's playing from one room to another: the music continues in to_room and stops in from_room (other rooms grouped with from_room keep playing).

next_track

ChatGPT

Skip to next track in a room's group.

now_playing

ChatGPT

Current playback state (track/artist/state/volume) for a room.

play_history

ChatGPT

Lists recent requests this home made to ZoneFoundry, newest first: the user's own words (e.g. 'play Norah Jones', '播周杰伦'), with time, channel and whether each succeeded. Covers requests made through the ZoneFoundry assistant, the app's voice and command features, messaging bots and this connection; music started by browsing in the app or in the Sonos app is not recorded. Entries contain the request text only, with no structured track or artist fields.

play_music

ChatGPT

Searches for a song or artist and starts playback in a room through the Sonos cloud. A query of 'title artist' plays one song; an artist name alone plays a batch of that artist's songs, with duplicate versions of the same title removed. Without the ZoneFoundry bridge, tracks play directly on the speaker and are added to the Sonos queue the next time the ZoneFoundry app is opened.

previous_track

ChatGPT

Skip to previous track in a room's group.

search_music

ChatGPT

Searches for songs without playing them and returns candidate tracks (name, artist, album, duration).

seek

ChatGPT

Jump to a position in the current track, in seconds from the start (e.g. 90 = 1:30). Only works while something is playing.

set_home_theater

ChatGPT

Changes soundbar settings: night mode (quieter loud scenes, clearer quiet ones) and speech enhancement (clearer dialogue). Applies to Sonos soundbars; if the named room has no soundbar, the home's soundbar is used. Only the settings that are passed are changed.

set_mute

ChatGPT

Mutes or unmutes a single room. Muting keeps playback running.

set_play_mode

ChatGPT

Turns shuffle and/or repeat on or off for a room's group. repeat: 'off' | 'all' (repeat the queue) | 'one' (repeat the current track). Only the settings that are passed are changed.

set_reminder

ChatGPT

Schedules a one-time spoken reminder: at the given time the room's Sonos speaker reads the text aloud (text-to-speech). Takes either at (the home's local time, 24-hour HH:MM) or in_minutes. Examples: {text:'Time to get up',room:'Bedroom',at:'07:30'} / {text:'焗炉好了',room:'客厅',in_minutes:20}. This is ZoneFoundry's own scheduler, separate from native Sonos alarms.

set_volume

ChatGPT

Set a room's volume (0-70; values above 70 are clamped for safety).

switch_source

ChatGPT

Switch a room between music, TV audio (soundbar HDMI/optical) and line-in. All three go through Sonos' cloud, so the user doesn't need to be home or have the app open; TV picks a soundbar with a TV input, line-in picks a speaker with a line-in port. Only if the cloud can't switch to TV does it fall back to the ZoneFoundry app on the home Wi-Fi.

taste_profile

ChatGPT

Returns this home's learned listening profile (usual artists, genres, rooms, times of day and language habits) plus request statistics (most repeated requests, busiest hours, channels). Same coverage as the play history. The profile is regenerated daily and may be empty for a new user; statistics are computed live.

toggle_play_pause

ChatGPT

Toggle play/pause in a room's group.

undo_last

ChatGPT

Reverts the most recent volume or grouping change made in this home within the last 10 minutes, restoring every room's prior volume and group layout. Each change can be undone once; repeated calls step back through earlier changes. Playback, favorites, alarms and other settings are not affected.