Doorbell announcements

Doorbell announcements are configured on a doorbell device under More / Configuration, where a household manager can enable or disable home-wide announcement audio and set its volume from 0 to 100%. The setting applies to devices that have both camera and doorbell-button capabilities, and it is independent of brand. When enabled, the home plays a gentle chime and then Simone names the doorbell in eligible Sonos rooms, with quiet hours still enforced. Turning this off does not affect the normal notification, live view, talk, or camera link behavior.

What the setting does

The visible switch is labeled Announce throughout the home. It is on by default at 40%, and the volume control appears when announcements are enabled. Existing explicit Off choices remain Off. A saved preference does not mean every speaker is audible, so the client still needs to account for the room’s speaker connection and quiet hours when presenting status or troubleshooting playback.

The announcement audio is separate from ordinary phone notifications. A user can turn off doorbell announcements and still receive the notification, open live view, or use talk. TV does not configure this setting.

Who can change it

Only a household manager can change doorbell announcement settings. Household permissions are narrower than staff permissions, so the UI and API should respect the home-level management boundary rather than assuming device ownership or a successful previous request means the caller can update the setting.

Client code should use the authenticated API and the capability and settings descriptors for the selected tenant and home. Preserve any settings fields the client does not edit, and follow the server’s returned permissions, availability, versions, and pending-versus-confirmed results. Do not infer support from brand, model, cached state, or request acknowledgement alone.

API contract

Use GET and PATCH on /endpoints/:endpointId/doorbell-announcement for the selected tenant. GET requires home view access. PATCH requires home management. The patch body accepts tenantId, enabled, and volume, and the returned preference contains enabled and volume.

Do not synthesize press events to refresh state. Follow correlated operation results and current reported state instead. Keep actionable notification navigation scoped to the identified device and home. Public clients must not call internal transport endpoints or bypass home authorization.

Audio behavior

In eligible rooms, a doorbell announcement plays as a chime followed by Simone naming the doorbell. Soundbar and bonded speakers count as one room playback target. Quiet hours still apply, so a saved enabled state does not guarantee the audio will play right away or at all.

The same setting works across brands that expose the required capabilities. It is a device-type setting, not a brand-specific one. Normal phone notifications remain independent of the optional audio path.

Result handling

Treat a save as complete only when the server reports the current state as confirmed. If the result is pending, unavailable, or rejected, keep showing the returned state and do not assume the device changed. This matters because a successful request acknowledgement does not prove the speaker path, quiet hours, or room playback target.

A client should also avoid assuming that a turn-off disables every doorbell response. The announcement switch only controls the spoken audio path. Notifications, live view, talk, and camera links continue to work separately.

Doorbell announcements save stable audio for reuse across presses and after restarts, so clients can keep using the stored chime and spoken doorbell name until the name, voice, or chime changes. A press that expires during preparation is not dispatched later to speakers, while audio that a speaker has already accepted by the deadline remains accepted; this path does not affect independent phone notifications. Availability, speaker connection, and quiet hours can still prevent playback, and the setting does not promise instantaneous or synchronized delivery.