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For those of you who have tried to get Alexa working on one, or especially multiple Sonos devices, here’s a cheat sheet of things to know.

Documentation

Sonos still has the Alexa Voice Assistant in Beta. The documentation for the Sonos Skill on Amazon.com is sparse and out of date, and the rating is 1 star.

https://www.amazon.com/Sonos-Inc/dp/B072ML3N6K 

The guide to setting up Alexa on the Sonos app covers only the best case, and does not include how to handle situations like a power fail, factory resetting, multiple systems, room naming, etc etc. They’ve also followed the bad habit Google created by making you follow many links within a support guide to get complete knowledge, and have to unwind your reading each time: 

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/set-up-amazon-alexa-with-a-voice-enabled-sonos-speaker

Terms

Sonos terms: system, speaker or component or product, room, service, voice assistant, “ownership”, group

Alexa terms: device, skill, app, account, group

 

  Sonos terms:

  1. speaker/component/product - a sonos device.
  2. system - one or more sonos devices listed together within the sonos app. You can see your systems in your Sonos account on the sonos.com website.
  3. room - A setting called Name under each sonos device. Alexa detects and adopts this room definition as you define it in the Sonos app.
  4. service - an audio/music service like Amazon Music Unlimited or Spotify.
  5. voice assistant - For our purposes Alexa.
  6. ownership - which Sonos account manages the system.
  7. group - within the system, an organization of speakers.

  Alexa/Amazon terms

  1. device - anything that has alexa attached to it in some way. So, if a Sonos room has a device with alexa in it, the room itself is also a device, not just the Sonos device(s) in the room.
  2. skill - in our case the Sonos skill. A confusing term that sounds like it means knowing how to work on Sonos devices. However, it really means knowing how to use Amazon services while Alexa is running on a Sonos device. You can run Alexa on a Sonos device by configuring Alexa onto your Sonos device in the Sonos app as a voice assistant. But unless Alexa has the Sonos skill added, Alexa will not be able to use Amazon Music service on a Sonos device. But it will be able to tell you a joke, the time, the weather etc etc. But if you ask Alexa to play music on Amazon music and the Sonos skill has not been added, it will say “Shuffling songs on Amazon music” and then not play anything. You can also enable/disable the Sonos skill here: https://www.amazon.com/Sonos-Inc/dp/B072ML3N6K
  3. app - the Alexa app installed on your phone (or your spouses phone)
  4. account - the amazon login used when using the Alexa app. It must match the amazon.com login you use, if you want to use the amazon website to see or manage your devices.
  5. group - a different notion of group than the Sonos group. It has to do with devices responding to alexa as a group.

Sonos systems

Sonos has the notion of a “system” in the Sonos app. All your Sonos devices have to be part of one system for Alexa to work on them all. Unfortunately, when setting up multiple speakers, or having multiple speakers and having a power failure or Internet failure, the app allows you to create multiple “systems” anyway. It is very easy to accidentally assign a speaker to a different system, thinking you are assigning it to a different room. So if you go to  Gear Icon (settings)  and scroll down to “Switch System”, tap that, you will see if you accidentally made multiple systems. If you have multiple systems, it is a royal PITA to delete the 2nd system and then re-add your Sonos devices from the 2nd system into the first system. The fact that Sonos support uses the term “household” instead of “system” here in the Community is even more confusing, because there is really no help in the Sonos app for preventing you from creating multiple “systems” within your house. The app doesn’t use the term house or household.

Removing/adding to a Sonos system

To remove a device from your “system”, you have to factory reset the device speaker/component. When the Sonos app discovers your reset speaker again, be very careful to add it as a speaker or component to your existing “system”. You can verify/achieve that by X-ing out of the auto discovery of the device in the Sonos app. Then, go to Gear (Settings)→ “+ Add Speaker or component” You can re-discover the device there, and it will be added as device under your “system” Unfortunately when you create a system, by default it takes the name of your device. So, until you discover that you can change the name of your system in Settings->General Settings->System Name, you don’t understand why it is referring to your speaker as a “system” or what the difference between a “system” and a speaker is (since they both seem to have the same name) Further confusing, if you DO switch to your other system, the Sonos app retains the first system name in the home screen pull down, while the settings screen shows the second system.

Alexa voice assitant
One important thing to notice is that when you change  settings like removing the Alexa voice assistant from a Sonos device using the Sonos app, it takes sometimes several minutes before the Amazon database accurately reflects that change. Also, your Amazon Alexa app on your phone will probably need you to sign out and sign back in again to correctly reflect the changes.

Alexa devices

Amazon.com, once you login to your Amazon account, you can find a “Devices” menu when clicking on your Profile in the upper right. Clicking the devices menu will show you that Alexa is installed or not on your Sonos devices.  It will also confusingly list the rooms you put for each Sonos device as an Alexa “device” there as well.  The Amazon website receives the info that you have added Alexa to your Sonos device as a voice assistant when you use the Sonos app to add a voice assistant. But if you factory reset your device, Sonos deletes your device from the Sonos system, but the Alexa page on Amazon does not find this out. You have to manually delete it and its room from the Amazon devices website page. When you do add your Sonos device back to your Sonos system, and re-add Alexa as a voice assistant, it will take many minutes before the Amazon website gets the updated information. Many things can go wrong during this process! For example, if your Roam goes to sleep or runs out of power when the Sonos and Amazon databases are updating, things can be left in a weird state where the Sonos app, the Alexa app, and the amazon website are out of sync. You may find that the Sonos app shows Alexa connected, but the speaker doesn’t respond to Alexa wake word.

Two final things to note, also very important, is that the Sonos skill for Alexa is for all of Alexa app/alexa devices. Whereas adding Alexa as a Voice Assistant on the Sonos app is per-speaker/component. So, once you have your speakers all under one system, with the Alexa app properly having the Sonos skill attached to all of Alexa with your Sonos sign in, you still have to go back to the Sonos app and re-add the voice assistant to each speaker. You may also find, that in the Sonos app, you can for example go to Gear icon/Settings->TV Room (Era 100 or whatever) then scroll way down to Voice, that Alexa looks to be added. If you tap on Amazon Alexa there, you may see a message banner that says Alexa is not connected! Within the banner, in a dark font against a dark background, are the words fix it. You have to know to tap on the words fix it! You will then be led through signing into your Amazon account and connecting Alexa to the speaker. Then, again you might have to wait several minutes, before Alexa once again starts working on that speaker !

Sonos, no wonder 85% of the reviews of using Alexa on Sonos give 1 star. 

This post reeks of someone trying to plant indecisiveness and paranoia for current and potential Sonos customers.

I have 31 Sonos units of which 18 are Alexa capable. Although not all are Alexa enabled as some are surrounds; and therefore, the Sonos sound bar handles Alexa. Others are stereo pairs requiring only one to have Alexa enabled.

In addition to Sonos Alexa enabled devices; there are 6 Echo devices with Alexa. They act independently and interact with my Sonos via Alexa commands. In fact, Alexa controls lights, cameras, TV’s and my security system via Sonos and/or Echo devices.

Neither the Sonos nor Alexa app are overly cumbersome. Nor do they require all the re-programming you suggest after the incidents you have mentioned. Also, what’s all the chatter about regarding the Amazon website?

I honestly fail to see the need for your lengthy dissertation 🤔

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

 

What kind of snake oil are you selling? This post reeks of someone trying to plant indecisiveness and paranoia for current and potential Sonos customers.

I have 31 Sonos units of which 18 are Alexa capable. Although not all are Alexa enabled as some are surrounds; and therefore, the Sonos sound bar handles Alexa. Others are stereo pairs requiring only one to have Alexa enabled.

In addition to Sonos Alexa enabled devices; there are 6 Echo devices with Alexa. They act independently and interact with my Sonos via Alexa commands. In fact, Alexa controls lights, cameras, TV’s and my security system via Sonos and/or Echo devices.

Neither the Sonos nor Alexa app are overly cumbersome. Nor do they require all the re-programming you suggest after the incidents you have mentioned. Also, what’s all the chatter about regarding the Amazon website?

I honestly fail to see the need for your lengthy dissertation 🤔

 

Wow, very agressive! I’m not selling anything. I went through everything in the post just today with the Amazon Alexa tech support team. It’s all well documented in the case as well. All facts, none of which you try to dispute I note, just slander and personal atacks and aggrandizing on your status as frequent contributor out done by some one on their very first post to the community.

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct.

​@AjTrek1 - question for you since you have Alexa and non Alexa enabled devices. 
 

Do all the devices need to have Alexa enabled functionality to respond to the command or just the device you are giving the command to?

 

For instance, I currently have wired outdoor speakers that I would buy the AMP for. I would then get an Era 100 for the kitchen. This Era 100 would be the main speaker where the Alexa commands would be given to. Can I control the outdoor speakers on the Amp with Alexa commands given only to the Era 100 speaker in the kitchen (The Amp and speaker wire would be connected in the basement). 
 

I have multiple zones around the house with Alexa’s  I since it was cheaper. I am slowly moving to Sonos. Thank you!!

Yes.

You must enable the Sonos Skill in the Alexa app and ask Alexa to discover devices.

You can speak a command to your Era 100 to control speakers connected to the Amp or any Sonos room

For example:

  • Your streaming service is “Spotify”
  • The Era 100 room name is “Kitchen”
  • The Amp room name is “Outdoor”

The Alexa command to the Era 100 in Kitchen would be:

  • “Alexa play Spotify on Outdoor”
  • Alexa stop music (without naming the room)

I even speak to my branded Amazon Echo devices and command them to play or stop music in various rooms

Sorry, if I understand the question, no. 

Once you’ve enabled Alexa on any device, be it Sonos or other, you can control all of your Sonos ‘rooms’, as long as your voice can reach Alexa. So what ​@AjTrek1 suggests in terms of naming is correct, but I use Alexa to control Sonos ‘rooms’ that are PLAY:1s, and don’t have microphones to enable with Alexa. I use an Alexa Dot to ‘hear’ my voice. 

Sorry, if I understand the question, no. 

Once you’ve enabled Alexa on any device, be it Sonos or other, you can control all of your Sonos ‘rooms’, as long as your voice can reach Alexa. So what ​@AjTrek1 suggests in terms of naming is correct, but I use Alexa to control Sonos ‘rooms’ that are PLAY:1s, and don’t have microphones to enable with Alexa. I use an Alexa Dot to ‘hear’ my voice. 

Thank you for your answer. I think you both are saying the same thing. You don’t necessarily need a Sonos device to be compatible with Alexa to respond to a device that has Alexa capabilities (whether Sonos or Amazon). Thank you!!

Sorry, if I understand the question, no. 

Once you’ve enabled Alexa on any device, be it Sonos or other, you can control all of your Sonos ‘rooms’, as long as your voice can reach Alexa. So what ​@AjTrek1 suggests in terms of naming is correct, but I use Alexa to control Sonos ‘rooms’ that are PLAY:1s, and don’t have microphones to enable with Alexa. I use an Alexa Dot to ‘hear’ my voice. 

Thank you for your answer. I think you both are saying the same thing. You don’t necessarily need a Sonos device to be compatible with Alexa to respond to a device that has Alexa capabilities (whether Sonos or Amazon). Thank you!!

You are correct. I was responding to your question in regard to the speakers you own or are going to purchase. ​@Airgetlam is referencing older Sonos speakers such as the Play:1 that were not voice enabled. However, you could integrate an Alexa device with a non-voice controlled speaker (or component such as Amp or Port) as shown in this link. 

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