Netonos Note™: Amplify your Sonos®
Netonos Note is a small, Sonos-compatible device that adds features to your existing Sonos installation, including control of your surround sound receiver, creation of group presets, integration with doorbells and playback of short announcements through Sonos speakers. It requires no programming, only simple configuration; you can set it up and simply enjoy it, as you do with your Sonos system.
We believe in manufacturing in the United States and plan to manufacture the newly designed parts and the unit itself domestically, so please join us in supporting American custom manufacturing.
After the Kickstarter, Note will likely retail for $399; the Kickstarter prices are a great value and significantly lower to reward backers for early adoption.
Note in Detail
Note's capabilities will include:
- Surround Control: Note links a surround receiver to a Sonos player and automatically controls the receiver's power switch and input settings based on Sonos system events such as play and pause. Note supports surround receivers released within the last three years by Denon, Marantz, and Yamaha. Receivers may be controlled in any of the following ways if the receiver allows: ethernet network, RS-232 serial control, infrared remote codes, or 12-volt trigger codes.
- Groupsets: Note supports the storage and recall of Sonos zone group presets or groupsets (groupings of all your players plus their respective volume levels). Groupsets are recalled from your Sonos app by selecting from a list that appears within the Folders section of your Music Library. (Favsets are similar but restore favorite channels or playlists).
- Doorbell Chimes: Wire your doorbell to a Note and it will pause any selected Sonos zones, play a chime (or audio file of your choosing), and then restore the music.
- Announcements: On demand, Note will pause any selected Sonos zones, play an announcement, and then restore the music. The announcement may be either an audio file you record or a text message you type which is automatically translated to speech!
Installation is simple; Note's web-based configuration utility automatically detects your Sonos players and any surround sound receivers on your home network. You then pair a player with each receiver to be controlled. Whenever you play or pause that Sonos zone, your surround receiver will automatically power on to the proper input, adjust its volume, and power off as needed. Note essentially gives you a pre-programmed control system for your surround receiver zones. Doorbell chimes are also automatic. Sonos system users use their Sonos control apps as before and need not even know that Netonos Note is working behind the scenes for them.
After Groupsets and Announcements are created, new files appear under the Folders section of your Music Library in the Sonos app and when chosen, they automatically invoke the associated Groupset or Announcement. Other means of invocation and integration will certainly be a part of future releases.
Netonos Note Images
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Web-based Configurator Screenshots
Status
Note is at a mid-point stage of development with many challenging problems already solved. We have web-based configuration software that communicates with Sonos ZonePlayers and implements many of Note's features; this runs on the Raspberry Pi computing platform inside of Note. We have started our custom circuit board design which provides all of the hardware interfaces to surround receivers and doorbells but have not yet finalized it nor tied it together with the Raspberry Pi. We have a 3D-printed sample case but have not yet chosen a final case manufacturing technique. We have consulted with circuit board manufacturers, case manufacturers and have lined up a packaging vendor.
Estimated Timeline
- May 2015 - Kickstarter Launch
- June - Sept 2015 - Industrial Design, Software and Hardware Development, Iteration and Testing
- October 2015 - Manufacturing Begins
- November 2015 - Production Unit Testing, Quality Assurance and Packaging Production
- December 2015 - Initial Product Boxing and First 50-100 Kickstarter Netonos Note Initial Deliveries
- January - February 2016 - Many More Kickstarter Deliveries
Use of Funds
Funds will be used for all aspects of the project. All of the earlier work will help us maximize the value of your Kickstarter funding.
Our Story
Bob Weiner and Andy Stevens both studied engineering at M.I.T., lived across the street from each other, graduated the same year, and yet never knew each other. Many years later, they met, found they had complementary skills, and started Netonos to deliver innovative, connected products for the Internet of Things.
We have been integrating Sonos products into home technology solutions since the earliest Sonos releases. Sonos quickly became known as the best and easiest-to-install multi-room music system on the market. But in order to keep the user experience simple and to keep their business focused, Sonos designers have omitted some features that many people want. With Netonos Note, we are building a platform that will make Sonos even easier to use and will better integrate it into the home.
Bios
Bob Weiner - Cofounder
Bob drives the Netonos vision and works on delivering the best overall user experience and software for Netonos. Bob has backed a good number of technology Kickstarters in the last year.
Bob has computer science and engineering degrees from M.I.T. and Brown University, extensive embedded and application software experience, and many years of building unique, successful systems, often years ahead of other efforts. He believes in approachable, easy-to-use designs.
He started as a researcher for Motorola working on the convergence of information management and wireless handheld devices. He developed core technology for the first Fedex mobile package trackers, designed and implemented a large, high-productivity software engineering environment, and has created many advanced user interfaces for home and music control.
Andy Stevens - Cofounder
Andy designs our hardware and manages our systems.
Andy received his bachelors degree from M.I.T., his masters from University of Pennsylvania, and his doctorate from Columbia University, all in electrical engineering. He did his Ph.D. thesis work at IBM Research in the area of integrated circuit design.
He has held R&D positions at Bell Laboratories and Argonne National Laboratory. He has been a consultant in computer hardware/software, network security, and digital forensics. He has also worked on E-commerce and publishing systems at the Voyager Company and John Wiley & Sons, and was CTO of startup Double Agent. He holds three patents in the areas of analog circuit design and computer user interfaces, and has co-written a college textbook on MATLAB.
Richard Costello - Advisor
Richard advises us on branding, marketing and usability. He is a long-time user of Sonos systems and a music lover.
Richard was the brand guru for General Electric during the Jack Welch era. He led the development and implementation of the long running "We Bring Good Things to Life" advertising campaign. Richard provided marketing guidance to every GE business, including lighting, jet engines, plastics, NBC, appliances, financial services and medical systems. This has given him an extraordinary diversity of business and marketing experience. Additionally, he was a member of the business team that transformed the culture of GE from a sleepy bureaucracy to a lean, aggressive growth machine.
Richard leads seminars around the world in branding, integrated marketing communications, new product development, marketing innovation and marketing planning.
SCORE
SCORE consultants advise us on business strategy and consumer thinking. Special thanks to our advisors at SCORE, who wish to remain anonymous. SCORE offers free business consulting from retired executives with broad knowledge bases.
Thoughts for Backers
This first release of Netonos Note is designed for everyday Sonos users, many of whom have no technical background, so please focus the discussions on features and ways to drive the project forward in which everyone can participate. (For technical discussions, we plan to provide separate forums at our website as soon as we can).
We know that backers will have many good ideas for features and integrations in future releases. We welcome your thoughts. We very much want to hear your ideas and interact with you. We promise to work hard to make Note great and to find fun ways to make you part of that process. Please join us today by choosing one of the reward levels at the right of the page.
Questions and Answers
1. How many Netonos Notes do I need? You need one Note per surround receiver you want to control. You need one per doorbell to which you plan to connect. For whole house uses such as announcements and groupsets, you need only one Note. You need at least one Note per Sonos network, e.g. if you have two houses, you would need at least two.
2. Does this replace the Sonos controller app? No, all users continue to use the same Sonos controller apps they have already. Note simply adds extended capabilities within these apps by responding to events from the Sonos system that you set via our web-based configuration app.
3. Which Sonos players does Netonos Note support? Note is compatible with all Sonos players as far as we know. To pair a player with a surround receiver, it must have a "line out" output such as a Connect (ZP90) or the older ZP80 and ZP100 models. You must be running fairly recent versions of Sonos' player software; just update your Sonos player software if not.
4. Is it wireless? No, a Netonos Note must be connected to one of the network ports on a Sonos or to a network switch. However, you can use a wifi-connected Sonos player and simply plug the Netonos Note into one of its network ports. Note also requires an electrical outlet.
5. Will there be a way to integrate Note with other systems, i.e. an application programming interface (API)? Not as part of this Kickstarter, unless it is added as a stretch goal during the Kickstarter. Netonos Note is meant to be an easy-to-use end-user appliance. But we recognize the importance of APIs and have plans to build developer and integrator-centric platforms connecting Netonos technology to the Internet of Things and allowing connected control of various home technologies.
6. How is Note related to the Internet of Things? Beyond this Kickstarter, Note will evolve to be able to receive events and signals from devices around the home and across the Internet, process them and either send them out to other devices or speak results to you.
7. What does the button on the front of Note do? This is pressed to identify a particular Note unit on the network so you can pair it with a surround receiver or a doorbell. We are also likely to use the light on the button to provide feedback that the unit is attached to the network or to flash the light to indicate which unit you have selected when multiple Notes are in use.
8. Why are you shipping rewards only within the United States? International shipping is difficult to price and to execute, as many other Kickstarter projects have found. It is too much given the other work we have. We have decided to have international backers use a reshipper service of their choice. The reshipper will provide you with a U.S. address which you provide us and then you contract independently with the reshipper to ship to your international location. This also allows you to group multiple purchases into one shipment to save. We do not endorse any of these services but here are some we have found that you may explore: Meimeiexpress, Viabox, and Reship.
Reward Levels Summary
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Netonos and Sonos are trademarks of their respective holders and are not affiliated in any way.