Alexa and music services

Can we pool our winnings to buy coop's Sonos off him so he can go bother some competitor's forum? My share is up for it. 😉

Oh fun I successfully updated Alexa with the Sonos skill..and it discovered all of my devices. I had already updated my Sonos app. So I asked Alexa to play so jazz in the den...jazz played out of my echo device. I told her to stop and to play jazz on my Sonos..ok...no music anywhere from any device. Fun!

jgatie wrote:

Can we pool our winnings to buy coop's Sonos off him so he can go bother some competitor's forum? My share is up for it. ;)

I’ll do it if you promise to never write the word “sigh” again. 🙂

Toolio wrote:

jgatie wrote:

Can we pool our winnings to buy coop's Sonos off him so he can go bother some competitor's forum? My share is up for it. ;)

I’ll do it if you promise to never write the word “sigh” again. :)

No dice.

I was able to get it playing in my dining room. Still none in the den (which is my playbar and sub). Trying more rooms. Fun!

Coop123 wrote:

Oh fun I successfully updated Alexa with the Sonos skill..and it discovered all of my devices. I had already updated my Sonos app. So I asked Alexa to play so jazz in the den...jazz played out of my echo device. I told her to stop and to play jazz on my Sonos..ok...no music anywhere from any device. Fun!

Sell your Sonos. It obviously hates you.

I assume all of you guys are having zero issues with a multiroom setup? Lucky!!!

Coop123 wrote:

Oh fun I successfully updated Alexa with the Sonos skill..and it discovered all of my devices. I had already updated my Sonos app. So I asked Alexa to play so jazz in the den...jazz played out of my echo device. I told her to stop and to play jazz on my Sonos..ok...no music anywhere from any device. Fun!

If you have Sonos rooms with the same names as other Alexa devices, Alexa can get a bit confused on which device you want it to have follow the command. It's best to go in and make sure each of your smart home devices have different names.

Thanks Ryan I will check and see if that's the problem. Do you know if the new app supports the creation of a way to group all of my speakers so that I can ask Alexa to play music in my entire house at the same time without having to group after music is started? That would be really nice.

Coop123 wrote:

I assume all of you guys are having zero issues with a multiroom setup? Lucky!!!

That's because my Sonos loves me. I'm a lovable guy. 😉

You sound really loveable. So tell me how you got Alexa to play music to all your rooms at the same time? Is there a magic word that only stans know?

Coop123 wrote:

Thanks Ryan I will check and see if that's the problem. Do you know if the new app supports the creation of a way to group all of my speakers so that I can ask Alexa to play music in my entire house at the same time without having to group after music is started? That would be really nice.

You can group your players at any time. In the new Sonos app, from the main home screen just press the name at the bottom and there's an option at the top to play to everywhere. That's one voice command we'd love to get added sometime too.

Things get even worse when you throw smartthings into the mix as that's already discovered and has basic sonos function i.e. stop/pause. smarthings sees paired devices as individuals, so passed this onto alexa, for mucho confusion. renaming everything isn't very helpful as it all gets rediscovered next time round and redistributed.

There's currently no voice commands set up for grouping, so you can't play everywhere just using voice commands. You can, however, group in the app and start playing via voice in any room, and all grouped rooms with the specified room will play simultaneously. You can actually do the grouping before the voice, or after, it doesn't make a difference (just like in the app).

Ok I will group it in the app. Please please please Sonos add the ability to setup permanent groups...or at least add one called All Speakers or All Rooms.

Hello,

I configured everything yesterday evening, it works, but i'm also disapointed that the streaming services are so limited. I use Qobuz for the lossless Quality and can''t use voice commands, tunein doenst work every time. Any idea if i can play localy stored music (on a nas). I must admit i did expect more for such a long wait.

Thank you

I want to try our this voice control via Alexa but if I'm reading the tea leaves right I have to use a low quality streaming service to use it...correct?!?! I subscribe to Tidal today as they and Deezer are the only Hifi options that I know of...I have 13 zones in my home including Xeo6's in one zone, have spent $$$$s, I'm not going to flipping stream pandora! What gives? Will additional services be added? thanks to any and all that shed some light here...

robfmc wrote:

I want to try our this voice control via Alexa but if I'm reading the tea leaves right I have to use a low quality streaming service to use it...correct?!?! I subscribe to Tidal today as they and Deezer are the only Hifi options that I know of...I have 13 zones in my home including Xeo6's in one zone, have spent $$$$s, I'm not going to flipping stream pandora! What gives? Will additional services be added? thanks to any and all that shed some light here...

You can use Alexa for basic control of other sources like pause, play, skip, previous, volume control, even "Alexa, what is playing in xxxxx?" You cannot initialize playback or add to the queue. Whether this will be possible in the future, no one knows. But you can try out Alexa control on your other services.

I’ve just come across the above thread and read it. I wonder whether anything has improved since the last post.

I’m disappointed in the useless posts by apologists for Sonos, when the request for an update/improvement is clear: if Alexa can be used to play anything from Amazon on my Sonos player, it should be able to play ANY compatible audio file from any source Sonos can already handle. Sonos needs to either implement a complete and open access to Sonos commands by Alexa, or implement its own tech otherwise Sonos will be eclipsed by other speaker providers who do. It’s that simple. As an aside, when customers - yes, customers have a right under contract to ask for support despite the snark coming from some here - ask for information, it’s probably a bad idea to reply with less than useful responses written in poor English with spelling mistakes. That tends to undermine any level of confidence you’re tryIng to cultivate with customers who’ve invested in a system that is already coming at a price premium.

Sonos chose ease-of-use (no need to "ask sonos...") for their Alexa integration over universal-music-service-and-library support. If you use one of the few Alexa-supported services that was a great call, but if you use one of the unsupported services, not so much.

As my wife is a huge Apple Music user, I solved this problem for her, and anyone else that meets the requirements.

Ahem.