What’s new in Sonos Chime V2
Sonos Chime for Crestron has been rebuilt from the ground up. V2 is a new driver on the Crestron Home entity model, and it changes how you set chimes up, what you can play, and how much the driver tells you when something goes wrong. Here is what is new.
A new driver, on the entity model
V2 replaces the previous Sonos Chime driver. It loads as a Crestron Home extension device — an Audio Processor — and everything below follows from that rebuild. In the driver list it appears as SONOS Chime V2, alongside the one it replaces.
Set up chimes in a browser
The biggest day-to-day change: chimes are configured in an app served from the processor, not in the driver’s settings pages. Search the catalogue instead of scrolling filenames, listen to any chime in your browser — instantly — and play it on a real speaker to hear where it lands before you commit. Speakers that can’t play chimes are greyed out with the reason, so you are never guessing why one is not working or not supported.
Bring your own sound — included
The catalogue is no longer limited to the native crestron home chimes.
- Upload two chimes of your own — any MP3 up to ten seconds.
- Have the speakers say something. Type up to 100 characters, pick a voice, and that is the chime.
- Or point a chime at your own
https://URL, if you would rather host the file yourself.
Text-to-speech used to be a separate subscription. In V2 it is included with the licence. An announcement is recorded once when you save it, so it plays instantly.
Volume Controls
V1 played everything at one level. V2 gives each chime its own volume, with a house default it falls back to. A doorbell that is polite at 40 no longer drags your intruder alert down with it. The ChimeLevel command still sets the house default — but a chime you have pinned to its own volume ignores it, so an alarm set to 95 stays at 95 even if ChimeLevel is wired to a night-mode scene.
Upgrading from the previous driver
One thing to plan for: this is not an in-place upgrade. A site on the old driver has to be commissioned again — re-enter the licence key, reconnect the Sonos account, and rebuild the chimes in the new setup app. Your existing licence key still works: V2 keeps the same product SKU. Speech announcements have to be re-typed, but nothing else is lost — and they are now included rather than billed separately.
Ready to try V2? Start a 30-day trial at SONOS Chimes, and follow the full setup in the installation guide on our documentation site.
