How to Install and Use Sonoscli in OpenClaw

Open your terminal and run the ClawHub install command. The sonoscli skill uses Sonos's local UPnP API and mDNS discovery to find and control speakers — no API key or external service is required. The installation adds the full Sonos control capability to OpenClaw. After installation, the skill automatically runs a network scan when OpenClaw loads to discover all Sonos speakers. This discovery runs once on startup and caches the speaker list. If you add new Sonos speakers later, run `clawhub run sonoscli discover` to refresh the speaker inventory. The skill requires no mandatory configuration keys — it is the only smart home skill in this guide that works out of the box after installation with no additional setup steps. OpenClaw and your Sonos speakers just need to be on the same local network.

1clawhub install sonoscli
2
3# After installing, manually trigger discovery to see available speakers:
4clawhub run sonoscli discover

Open OpenClaw chat and ask it to list your Sonos speakers. The skill maps Sonos room names to the speakers — the same names you see in the Sonos app for each room. If your Sonos app shows a speaker named 'Living Room', you can reference it in OpenClaw as 'living room speaker' or just 'living room'. If the discovery returns no speakers, the most common cause is that OpenClaw is not on the same network segment as the Sonos speakers. Sonos mDNS discovery requires the device running OpenClaw and the Sonos speakers to be on the same subnet. If you are using a VPN, Docker network, or separate VLAN, mDNS packets may not traverse the network boundary. For setups where mDNS cannot reach the speakers, you can manually specify speaker IPs in the skill's YAML configuration as a fallback. See Step 5 for the manual IP configuration approach.

With speakers discovered, test the core playback controls. The sonoscli skill supports the full range of Sonos playback operations: play, pause, stop, skip to next track, go back to previous track, jump to a specific position in the queue, set volume (absolute or relative), set mute, and more. For speaker-specific commands, include the room name in your prompt. For commands you want to apply to all speakers, use 'all speakers' or 'everywhere'. For grouped speakers, you can reference the group by the coordinator speaker's room name. Volume can be set as an absolute level (0-100) or relatively ('turn it up a bit', 'increase volume by 20'). The skill understands descriptive volume terms: 'quiet', 'medium', 'loud', 'max' all map to reasonable percentage values.

Sonos's multi-room grouping capability is one of its standout features, and OpenClaw makes it conversational. When you group speakers, Sonos synchronizes playback across all grouped speakers with zero latency mismatch — all rooms play in perfect sync. To create a group, tell OpenClaw which speakers to group together. OpenClaw designates the first speaker you mention as the coordinator (it becomes the group leader whose queue and transport controls apply to the whole group). The other speakers in the group follow the coordinator. To ungroup speakers and return them to independent control, ask OpenClaw to 'separate' or 'ungroup' specific speakers. You can also disband an entire group at once. Sonos supports 'stereo pairing' (two speakers in the same room as a left/right stereo pair) — this is different from grouping and is configured in the Sonos app, not via OpenClaw. Once paired in stereo, they appear as a single entity in OpenClaw.

For most setups, the auto-discovery in Steps 1-2 is sufficient. This step covers optional advanced configuration for edge cases: manual IP setup for networks where mDNS does not work, custom speaker aliases, and discovery refresh intervals. If mDNS discovery fails due to network segmentation, you can manually specify speaker IP addresses in the skill's YAML configuration. The Sonos app shows IP addresses under System > About My System — each speaker entry shows its IP. You can also create aliases for speakers so you can use shorter or different names in OpenClaw commands. For example, aliasing 'Living Room' to 'LR' lets you say 'turn up LR' for faster commands. RapidDev recommends the manual IP approach for home setups with separate VLANs for IoT devices — a common security configuration that separates smart home devices from computers on the network. In this case, configure the speaker IPs manually and ensure OpenClaw's host machine can reach the speaker VLAN on port 1400.

1# ~/.openclaw/skills/sonoscli.yaml — optional advanced configuration
2sonoscli:
3  discovery_method: auto     # auto (mDNS) or manual
4  discovery_refresh: 300     # Seconds between auto re-discovery (default: 5 min)
5  # Manual speaker configuration (use when mDNS fails)
6  speakers:
7    living_room:
8      ip: "192.168.1.60"
9      name: "Living Room"
10    kitchen:
11      ip: "192.168.1.61"
12      name: "Kitchen"
13    bedroom:
14      ip: "192.168.1.62"
15      name: "Bedroom"
16  # Optional: create aliases for speaker names
17  aliases:
18    lr: "living_room"
19    downstairs: ["living_room", "kitchen", "dining_room"]