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Zones

A zone is a region of a place that has its own sound behaviour, independent of individual spots. Zones come in four flavours:

  • Ambient zones – play a continuous background sound while the listener is inside.
  • Entry zone – plays once when the listener enters the place.
  • Exit zone – plays once when the listener exits, and can mark the place as completed.
  • Maintenance zone – fires sounds tied to maintenance/setup of the listening device. Most setups don't need this.
  • Boundaries zone – defines the outer perimeter of the place. Optional; when present, leaving the boundary stops playback.

Ambient zones

Ambient zones are the most common. Use them for "background atmosphere" – wind, room tone, traffic noise – that should play whenever the listener is in a particular part of the place but should not interrupt the main spot sounds.

Each ambient zone has:

  • Label – the admin display name. Listeners don't see this.
  • Beacon sensitivity – the signal strength threshold (1 = least sensitive / strict, 10 = most sensitive / loose). Default is 8 (-85 dBm).
  • Stop all ambients – when this zone fires, stop every other ambient. Use for "scene change" zones where the previous ambient must not bleed in.
  • Triggers – same options as spots: beacon, iBeacon, WiFi, GPS.
  • Sound file – the ambient audio. Loops by default until the listener leaves the zone or another zone takes over.

Adding an ambient zone:

  1. Open the Ambient zones panel.
  2. Click Add ambient zone.
  3. Give it a label, set the sound file, and add triggers.

Ambient zones support the same iOS-compatibility check as spots – a zone whose only trigger is a MAC-based Beacon shows the orange warning.

Entry, exit, and maintenance zones

These are special slots – each place has at most one of each. They live in Place settings → Zones.

  • Entry – sound that plays once when the listener arrives at the place. Often a spoken welcome.
  • Exit – sound that plays once when the listener leaves. Optionally marks the place as completed in the listener's history.
  • Maintenance – niche; consult engineering before configuring.

Each special zone has the same trigger and sound options as ambient zones, but only one instance per place.

Boundaries zone

A boundaries zone defines the outer perimeter of the place. Use it to stop playback when the listener walks out of the area.

  • Without a boundaries zone, listeners can carry sounds with them indefinitely after leaving (depending on app behaviour).
  • With one, the app stops audio as soon as the boundary is exited.
  • A boundaries zone can require an explicit trigger to activate the place – useful when you want listeners to scan a beacon at the entrance before any sounds play.

Enable the boundaries zone via Place settings → Use boundaries zone.