Lyd - Watch Remote for Sonos Reviews

Update: Lyd slowly appears to be more than I thought. It's not intuitive, but I am beginning to start up the Sonos and change the rooms it's playing. Now I just need to figure out how to change stations/playlist. Changed my rating from 1 to 4 stars.

Lyd controls the Sonos only if most recently controlled by iPhone. I control my Sonos from my iPhone and my iPad. If I have it started on my iPad, I cannot do ANYTHING with Lyd unless I go get my phone. I was trying to remove that step from my life. Bummed.

There are a lot of apps that don’t seem natural on an Apple Watch. this app is NOT one of them. Lyd has become my go-to tool for managing the Sonos speakers in the house particularly when I’m doing construction or cleaning. The best feature is just being able to turn down the volume quickly when someone arrives that I need to talk to.

Like any app that depends on other apps or systems to work, it can sometimes be slow to initially figure out what is playing where and give me the options to stop/start/change volume. I have 3 rooms setup and would really like it to check play status in the background, so when I open it, it’s got all of the current room data ready.

Overall it’s always getting better, continues to be one of my favorite apps, and would benefit from knowing room play status immediately upon being opened.

I brought Lyd after seeing a recommendation online. I didn’t expect too much from it. But it really made controlling the Sonos speakers a breeze. I don’t even have to use the phone app and I can control the volume from my wrist. No need to get off my couch to hunt for the lost tv remote cause I’m using the beam and I can control the sound from my watch. If I want to hear some music on Sonos radio all I have to do is tap a couple of times on the watch and I can listen to different contents. Thank you developer for making me lazier and my life more convenient.😂 A big thumbs up and worth every penny of the price. And big kudos for not going with the subscription model. 👍

I guess it depends how you plan to use this. My main purpose in purchasing it was for managing devices and groups. I have an original Sonos sound bar on my TV and the first Sonos One in another room adjacent to my kitchen; both are fairly old which may or may not affect Lyd . I group the sound bar and the other speaker while in my kitchen so I can listen to the tv news while cooking. It works but intermittently the grouping just gets lost and I lose sound in my remote speaker even though Lyd says they’re still grouped. To fix it I have to make sure I back out of the menus and drill down again or it doesn’t work at all. I can’t just leave it on the manage group screen. So it works but with some annoyances.

I have only just found this....so may need to update my review in time....but so far, I am very pleased with Lyd. I got tired of waiting for Sonos to come out with an Apple watch app.

I put this complication on a watch face that I had used for music listening....with Now Playing as my main complication. This was currently available only for a smaller complication at the bottom of the watch screen. I can now choose/change my speakers in my current group with only a hard press of the screen, as I walk from room to room, I can change speakers on the fly, without my phone.

I can also change my music, but seemingly only to playlists or music that I have added to “My Sonos”.

So far, it works as expected, which is good.

It would be nice, if it was available for the full complication, so it could show the “now playing” info on the watch face, so that I wouldn’t need to use both complications (this app and Now Playing). (Don’t really need both).

Glad I decided to try this. (at least so far)

After an update a while ago, Lyd didn’t work. I thought I was scammed. Decided to try it today. I was pleasantly surprised to see it worked. Sonos is always challenging after an update. Works better for adjusting the volume than “Now playing.” 👍 I love Sonos. I have the original play 5 and connect amp. Maybe since 2012. Discovered Sonos on Pandora. Anyway, I thought I had it set up right. I didn’t for the past year. I believe the play bar returned to factory settings on its own or because of an electrical surge. Everything is working right now and I’m happy about it.

The watch interface is awesome! Always works and is really fast. So great to have instant control of my Sonia system always available on my wrist.

I have continually struggled with the Sonos brand app interface. Loses speaker connectivity all of the time, is slow, and Alexa voice integration only works half the time. The this app interface works every time. And it has the ability to discover multiple Sonos households, which helped me debug why my Sonos speakers were missing from the Sonos brand app.

Thank you! Well worth the tiny price!

Lyd is great.

I can add a complication to my watch, or otherwise open Lyd like normal.

I can select between my speakers and groups, create groups, edit groups.

I just like how easily I can skip songs and adjust the volume. Sometimes it’s not very easy to make incremental volume changes on the Sonos devices themselves or through voice assistants. But Lyd makes it so nice. You just twist the crown and it feels like very fine tuned control.

When you re-open Lyd you go right back to where you left off, making it really easy to quickly skip songs or adjust volume while otherwise busy cooking/dealing with kids.

If you’re looking to control your Sonos system from your watch, this is Lyd for you.

Also, I appreciate that Lyd developer quickly responded to a question I had. They obviously still care and support their product.

👍🙌

I purchased Lyd years ago and I wanted to love it, but it was never reliable and slow. And for a while it wasn’t compatible with some OS releases. I gave up trying to use it mainly due to the sluggishness.

After the version that came out with complications for the watch with performance and reliability improvements I gave it another go. I was blown away how fast it works and appreciated other UI improvements. This is now my go to controller for Sonos (aside from Alexa) since it runs very fast. I like dialing volume, and I find myself also using it to see what song is playing. I am using an iPhone 12 Pro Max and Apple Watch series 5.

Feature request: It would be nice to have a quick way to get to recently played music.

Thank you for the improvements!

I never give reviews of apps but I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate this one. Works great and I get a lot out of it. Just one complaint about the sorting of playback options. One thing is sorting alphabetically 20 is lower than 114 (Sirius channels) but that is not how Lyd behaves. Also, if you sort by streaming service, it doesn’t hold that sort when you revisit Lyd . But again, great job and keep it up and maybe you can sell it to sonos! But don’t! lol.

The whole point of having Lyd on my watch is to see what’s playing and be able to skip songs, control volume, etc. and do it quickly. Unfortunately, every time you lower your wrist and the watch sleeps, the next time Lyd reappears it defaults to the room view where you then have to then select which room you want to see what’s playing. Not a very quick way to see what’s playing or skip a song, especially if you’re busy doing like cooking or doing dishes.

Lyd is great. Works well on the Apple Watch and works consistently. As expected, issues arise when Sonos updates its software but the developer is pretty quick to update Lyd . Some folks downvoting need to realize that these app developers don’t necessarily get the official software as a pre-release. It’s only natural for certain things to not work, but the developer is quick to implement changes to make sure it’s back and working again. That’s all you can ask for.

This is what Sonos should’ve provided. Add the complication to your watch face and volume and skip on Sonos is a tap away. The only problems are a wonky setup to get it connected to Sonos initially and occasional loss of that connection that requires logging in again on iPhone and an unavoidable lag, probably due to Sonos’ API. (Is that REST, I wonder?)

Still, it’s a blast to control Sonos rooms from Apple Watch. Recommend creating a Sonos playlist just for this app.

I love Lyd and how seamlessly it works with my Sonos, but i wish I didn’t need to click the room I wanted when i only have 1 room. I would rather have it just load as a default. Until then I won’t be giving Lyd 5 stars. When i do click it though, everything works seamlessly!

It works, and works well, all for $.99. The Watch integration is well done: the fact that a user can control their Sonos system as an ever-present Watch “Complication“ is handy, and far superior to having to reach for your iPhone every time you want to mute your audio or select different rooms or volumes.

Lyd directions are clear: just remember to open Lyd on your iPhone prior do your first use to complete the set up and syncing with your Sonos system before you attempt to use it on the Watch.

I also appreciate that on the information page the developer includes complete contact information.

Many Sonos systems users have commented that it is puzzling why the standard Sonos app does not include watch integration. Go figure. In the meantime this does the trick nicely.

Use Lyd all the time. I have a Sonos beam hooked to my TV but my TV does not support arc so I can not use the apple remote software to change the volume (kids are always loosing the remote too!) I can use Lyd to change the volume from my watch. Also it’s great for parties when you do not want to be whipping out your phone just to skip, pause or lower the volume. Love it!

This is exactly Lyd Sonos should have made, but never did. It gives a surprising amount of control for a watch app – we have a bunch of devices and it lets you manage groups, set volume at a system or per-speaker basis, even change music easily from your faves list! I’m impressed – and the privacy policy is also exactly what it should be, but so rarely is. Nice work, sir!

Lyd does everything that I need it to:
Starts/stops music, controls volume, allows me to group/un-group rooms, and change sources.
I don’t have Sonos speakers, I have Sonos Connect:Amps (6), an Amp, and a Port.
At times it’s slow to connect to the system, but that could be the distance my watch is from the phone or the fact that I have a series 3 watch.
Nicely done!

Thank you Alexander!! From download to use took me about 5 minutes. Volume control is the thing I most needed, and when you need it, you need it now! I haven’t experimented yet with any other functions, but just having the volume control was worth the small price I paid for Lyd . Also - LOVE the mute option too!! Couldn’t be happier!

this app works great, I have no complaints.

I bought an Apple Watch and was disappointed to find that there was no official Sonos app. I expected Lyd to be a bit buggy and unreliable, as that had been my general experience with third party remote apps. But this app works great and is really reliable. It’s a remote, it works, that’s all I need from it... five stars.

Lyd does a nice job of controlling my Sonos speakers, but one thing I would like to see is the ability to rewind by 15 seconds or 30 seconds. Where I would find this useful is when I am listing to Podcasts through Pocketcasts. I find myself wanting to back up a bit to catch something I missed. Maybe this feature is there, but I’m missing it? Otherwise, nice app.