What is the best way to control Sonos via the Amazon Echo Dot
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You can't. Yet. Sonos are evidently working on it.
Well, it depends on how you look at it - First - there is no specific 'skill' for SONOS. Now that said - If you have a connect, connect amp or play 5 you can go from the Dots Aux out to the SONOS aux in - BUT only if you have on of the three mentioned - now Alexa will stream music through SONOS - no it's not truely controlling your SONOS but it works. Once you have it playing you can group them etc. there is also code on GITHUB if your are technically inclined.
https://github.com/rgraciano/echo-sonos/blob/master/README.md
https://github.com/rgraciano/echo-sonos/blob/master/README.md
just to re-inforce.
If you have the echo dot then you can stream from Amazon Unlimited Music for a ridiculous small amount (£3.99pcm) and the interface works well. Mines plugged into a P5
Alexa - Play me xxxxxx
Where xxxxxx can be a genre (i.e. Death Metal) or a song, an album, a playlist or an artist or a theme (70's pop songs) etc.
Its pretty neat and of course full Alexa integration should be here in 2017
If you have the echo dot then you can stream from Amazon Unlimited Music for a ridiculous small amount (£3.99pcm) and the interface works well. Mines plugged into a P5
Alexa - Play me xxxxxx
Where xxxxxx can be a genre (i.e. Death Metal) or a song, an album, a playlist or an artist or a theme (70's pop songs) etc.
Its pretty neat and of course full Alexa integration should be here in 2017
Actually I just got an Echo Dot and I connected it via line in to my P5 and I can say things like "Alexa play XXXX station" and it will play from Pandora. You have to set up your accounts in the Alexa app.
I have been having some issues though re: volume using Alexa on Sonos vs. just using the Sonos app..
I have been having some issues though re: volume using Alexa on Sonos vs. just using the Sonos app..
As another option, you get the yonomi app, smartthings hub, or lutron hub. Instead of essentially making your echo into a source for sonos, these options actually pass commands you give echo back to your sonos through the app or hub. I've experimented with all 3, and like lutron the best.
To give an example, I setup a song/station or playlist as a favorate in sonos. Then I use the lutron apps to create routine playing the favorite in various rooms at set volumes (and turn on/off lights). On the alexa apps, I search for new devices and see the routine available as a new device. I can tell alexa to turn on the routine, and it happens.
So there is definitely limited control this way, and I loss the ability of doing spontaneous voice searches, but the idea of turning sonos into essentially a dumb speaker for echo doesn't work for me. I'm not knocking that strategy as it makes sense for many, just not for my setup.
Either way though, there is a lot of room for sonos/echo integration that would turn out absolutely amazing results.
To give an example, I setup a song/station or playlist as a favorate in sonos. Then I use the lutron apps to create routine playing the favorite in various rooms at set volumes (and turn on/off lights). On the alexa apps, I search for new devices and see the routine available as a new device. I can tell alexa to turn on the routine, and it happens.
So there is definitely limited control this way, and I loss the ability of doing spontaneous voice searches, but the idea of turning sonos into essentially a dumb speaker for echo doesn't work for me. I'm not knocking that strategy as it makes sense for many, just not for my setup.
Either way though, there is a lot of room for sonos/echo integration that would turn out absolutely amazing results.
I have an Echo Dot with a line in to a Play 5 G2. I also have 5 other sonos speakers in three other zones that I feed music to through the 5 via the sonosnet. I never have a problem with sync or buffer when using Sonos products alone. When I feed the music from the Dot, it becomes intermittently broken after about 20 minutes. It's like the Dot cannot stream the data off of the network fast enough. Perhaps the Wifi to the Dot is the bottleneck. The Sonos network has one of the Play 1's hardwired to the router so I doubt the problem is with Sonosnet. Has anyone else seen that with a Dot? It makes me thankful for the thoughtful approach Sonos took when setting up their own mesh net with hard wiring one node as an option. In any case, I would imagine that the integration solution will not route the music stream through the Dot (right?), so my guess is it will be fine when the Alexa integration is released. Until, voice control using the line in from the Dot s not working very well for me.
I do this very successfully using a home control software called HomeSeer. HomeSeer has a plugin that very effectively controls Sonos, and they also have a couple of Alexa skills that allow you to use Alexa to control anything in HomeSeer (including all my Sonos components). I have six Echos/Dots around the house and can very easily say "Hey Alexa, tell HomeSeer to play Rock" (just as an example) and it will play the playlist that I have programmed to that command. I can also tell it to link all zones, turn up volume, pause, play etc etc.
I use Homeseer to group and ungroup various rooms via Alexa voice commands. I also use it to start and stop music in different rooms by voice. It works really well... probably 70% of what the direct integration will do. Main drawback is you have to have your playlists and favorites set up to use. I can't just name a random track or artist in my local library and have it play. Of course we don't know for sure that the official integration will be able to do that either.
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