Features

A Scene remembers which speakers play together, which one leads the group, how loud each one is, and what starts playing. Tap it and Lyd sets all of that in about a second. "Morning Kitchen", "Dinner Party", "Movie Night": one tap each.

A Scene can go further than rooms and volumes. It can set bass, treble and loudness, switch a soundbar to Night Mode or Speech Enhancement, start a Sonos Favorite, a playlist, the TV or Line-In, set shuffle and repeat, carry its own Sleep Timer, and pause every speaker that is not part of it.

Scenes are built on the iPhone or iPad, where the editor lives. On the Apple Watch they are a list you apply. Lyd also offers starter Scenes worked out from your speakers and your room names, so there is usually one to try before you build your own.

A Scene belongs to the Sonos system it was made on, and it applies even when half its speakers are missing. Anything it cannot reach it reports instead of failing.

The widget shows the room, the artwork and the track, and the controls are live. Tapping play in the widget is one tap. Opening an app to do the same is several.

There are small, medium and large sizes, plus an extra-large one on iPad. The bigger sizes carry the full transport row and volume; the small one is a shortcut to the room you use most. Every size has a refresh button in the corner.

Raise the phone, tap the widget, and the speaker responds. It is the shortest path Lyd has to your music, and it is the one most people end up using.

While the phone is locked, iOS asks Face ID to confirm the tap. That is a glance rather than a trip through another app, but it is a check, so nobody who picks up your phone can turn the kitchen up.

Lyd offers the circular, rectangular and inline shapes iOS supports, so it fits next to the flashlight and the camera or in the wider slot under the clock.

The Live Activity carries the artwork, the track, the artist and the transport controls. On iPhone 14 Pro and later it also sits in the Dynamic Island, so the volume and the skip button are there while you are reading, mapping or typing.

It appears on its own when playback starts and goes away when the music stops. There is nothing to enable.

One limit worth knowing: while the phone stays locked the Live Activity does not refresh, so it can still show the previous track until you wake the screen. Tapping a control goes through the same Face ID check as a Lock Screen widget.

Dinner is ready, the taxi is here, someone left the lights on. The message goes to the room you picked and plays there straight away, which beats shouting up a staircase at someone wearing headphones.

Lyd sends the clip with that speaker's current volume, so it arrives at the level the room is already set to. Sonos ducks whatever is playing, plays your message, and puts the music back.

There are two. One shows which rooms are playing, so you can read the state of the house without opening anything; the other is a plain shortcut into Lyd. Between them they cover the rectangular, circular, corner and inline slots, though not every complication fits every slot.

This is the shortest route Lyd has on the watch. Raise your wrist, tap the face, and you are on the controls. Lyd also ships watch faces built around it, which the iPhone app can hand to your watch.

Say the command and Lyd carries it out on the room that is playing. The phrases are registered when you install the app, so there is nothing to set up. The command sets differ by device, because the iPhone and the watch register different ones.

Your Sonos Favorites are there the moment you open Lyd. Search reaches what your Sonos system is connected to, so a playlist, an album or a radio station is a few taps away, or a few turns of the Digital Crown.

Favorites are made in the official Sonos app, which is the better browser and the only place to configure a system. Lyd reads them and they show up within seconds.

Grouping is the thing people walk to the phone for, and it is two taps on the watch. Add a room to what is already playing, drop one out, or send the whole house the same track.

Ungrouping is the same move in reverse, and every speaker keeps its own level, so nothing comes back at party volume the next morning.

Turn the kitchen down from the office. Start the music before you are through the door. Check that the house is quiet after everyone has left. Nothing has to be switched on for this and nothing has to be opened up in your router: Lyd talks to Sonos the same way from the sofa and from another country.

A friend’s house, a holiday rental, an office. Guest Mode finds the speakers on the local network and talks to them directly. You can play, pause, seek, set the volume of the whole group or one speaker, mute a room, and group or ungroup speakers, without asking anyone for a password.

It is narrow, and the app says so when you turn it on. Choosing what to play needs the host’s Sonos account, so there are no streaming services, no Sonos Favorites and no playlists. Nor is there a next or previous track, shuffle or repeat, a Sleep Timer, or a voice message. Use it for someone else’s system, and sign in for your own.

Nothing is kept. Your own login is untouched while it runs, and switching back to your own system takes the guest access with it.

On iPhone and iPad you get Play, Pause, Pause All, Play Music, Set Volume and Apply Scene. The watch adds next track, previous track, volume up and down, and grouping. They run without opening Lyd.

Applying a Scene is the one that makes an automation worth building: a single step, and the rooms, the volumes and the music are all set at once.

Sonos split the platform in 2020. The oldest hardware could not run the new software and stayed on S1; everything since runs S2. The two are separate systems that cannot share rooms or groups, and the official route is one app for each.

In Lyd both appear in the same list. Each one is its own system, and you switch between them where you switch systems. What an S1 system can do is decided by Sonos rather than by Lyd, so expect a slightly smaller set of capabilities there.

Every Sonos system you own shows up in the same list. Pick one and Lyd controls it; pick another and it moves across, including between an S1 and an S2 system. Lyd also picks the system that matches the network you are on, so most of the time the switch has already happened.

Up to five members, no second purchase, no code to pass around. When one person in the group buys Lyd, the purchase reaches the rest through their own Apple Accounts.