Alexa Sonos Roam


Userlevel 2

Alexa will not connect to my sonos roam correctly- it will respond but then not play news, flash briefing, or music. All of my sonos devices (roam, beam, and move) will not play spotify through alexa. I have called support twice, and already tried the following:

  • On sonos app: disconnect and reconnect devices
  • On alexa app: 
    • Disable sonos skill and enable again 
    • Disable spotify skill and enable again
    • Delete all sonos devices and add again
    • Deregister all sonos devices and register again

None of these things have resolved the issue. I was told to post on beta community but I don’t have any projects open so cannot post on that board.

One of the reasons I bought the roam was for handsfree use of Alexa and to play music with spotify- none of these things are working. 


64 replies

Can you play Spotify through the Sonos app? And I assume you’re using the same Spotify account in both Alexa and  Sonos.

Userlevel 2

Yes- I’m able to play spotify through the spotify app and the sonos app, just nothing works with alexa

Userlevel 2

When I ask my move to play spotify (“alexa play spotify”)- it says “to play spotify enable the skill and link your account”. I have done both things but still not working.

Do you have any Amazon echo’s in your house?  If so do they work with Spotify?  Another option to test is to try that spotify voice command in the Alexa app and see how it responds.  I’m not allow that as I think the Alexa and Amazon music apps will only play Amazon music.  

I’m just trying to see if this is an Alexa problem or a Sonos problem.  I do think it’s Alexa though, based on the response you’re getting back.  Alexa is running validation and rejecting the command before it’s sent to Sonos.

 

Userlevel 2

I have 2 echo dots that are still working with spotify/ playing the news. The alexa app says I have to use a connected device to use spotify though, like you mentioned. 

 

Thanks for your insight- it’s strange that it’s just the roam that won’t play the news (my other sonos devices still will). The spotify issue is for all of the sonos.

Did you get this working. I have a similar issue where Roam won’t read me the news or play my Audible book using Alexa. It says it’s going to, but nothing happens. Both these things worked fine on my Sonos Move (and my Amazon Echos). It just seems to be Roam that’s not happy. It does play music from my Amazon account though using Alexa - so it half works! 

Userlevel 2

Alexa will not connect to my sonos roam correctly- it will respond but then not play news, flash briefing, or music. All of my sonos devices (roam, beam, and move) will not play spotify through alexa. I have called support twice, and already tried the following:

  • On sonos app: disconnect and reconnect devices
  • On alexa app: 
    • Disable sonos skill and enable again 
    • Disable spotify skill and enable again
    • Delete all sonos devices and add again
    • Deregister all sonos devices and register again

None of these things have resolved the issue. I was told to post on beta community but I don’t have any projects open so cannot post on that board.

One of the reasons I bought the roam was for handsfree use of Alexa and to play music with spotify- none of these things are working. 

 

Same here. My other Sonos products are working with Alexa OK (well, as OK as Alexa ever gets...) but my brand new Roam is utterly useless with Alexa. Like you, she says she’s understood and is going to play something, but…. nothing. Radio, Spotify, everything is hopeless. Maybe connects one time in 10 attempts. And if I give a new instruction while she IS playing something, all that happens is that the volume drops right down for a minute or so, then the original content keeps playing. Spent 2 hours on the phone with support this morning. Couldn’t fix it. They sent me a long email of instructions. I did everything with great care. No good. This is rubbish!

Userlevel 2

Nope- still not fixed! 

Did you get this working. I have a similar issue where Roam won’t read me the news or play my Audible book using Alexa. It says it’s going to, but nothing happens. Both these things worked fine on my Sonos Move (and my Amazon Echos). It just seems to be Roam that’s not happy. It does play music from my Amazon account though using Alexa - so it half works! 

I’m having similar problems with my Roam.

if I ask the time I get the time.

if I ask for news/music it acknowledges the request but then nothing.

My echo dot and flex, when I ask, will respond with time/news/music correctly.

Same here. Spotify works, however for news, it acknowledges the request and nothing happens.


Followed the various “solutions”, i.e. de-register and re-enable but no cigar.

Solved my problems eventually by disabling Sonos skill on alexa and then re-enabling.

Maybe that will work for you (but I wouldn’t bet on it - hold the cigar).

I’ve got lots of older sonos kit and I’m now struggling to set up the sonos 1 app to use it.

 

nothing is ever easy with Sonos!

 

Same issue here, same error message. None of the suggestions in this thread have worked. I hope @sonos will respond and fix this quickly. 

Solved my problems eventually by disabling Sonos skill on alexa and then re-enabling.

Maybe that will work for you (but I wouldn’t bet on it - hold the cigar).

I’ve got lots of older sonos kit and I’m now struggling to set up the sonos 1 app to use it.

nothing is ever easy with Sonos!

  1. Remove the S2 App & install S1 App on your mobile device (mobile must meet the Sonos Requirements).
  2. Create a new Sonos Household using an S1-only compatible Sonos device.
  3. Add the remaining required devices to the S1 HH. 
  4. Reinstall S2 App and choose to connect to the ‘existing’ system when prompted and select the join button on a device in your ‘existing’ S2 HH

Same issue as described in the OP. I really don’t understand what’s going on. Is the problem Sonos or Alexa? I can’t offer any suggestions but just adding another voice about the problem. I hope this gets fixed somehow.

Userlevel 5
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I also noticed differentiation between Roam/Alexa vs. other Sonos speakers (Ones) and Alexa.

If I say to Roam:  “Alexa, play NPR” - it says - “playing NPR”, but then ….. silence.    This does NOT happen with any of my Sonos Ones (only the Roam).    I disabled and re-enabled the NPR skill, and that seemed to fix it -- but the fix stuck only for a while.    Not sure why this would only impact the Roam, but not other Sonos speakers.

Userlevel 2

Just got off the phone with a Sonos engineer- they said it was a problem specifically with Alexa and Sonos Roam and they are working on it now. 

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Which problem specifically? - there are a few mentioned in this thread.  I’m only noticing an issue with “play NPR”.  Nothing happens with Roam, yet it works with my other Sonos speakers. 

Userlevel 2

Issue with “play NPR”, “play the news”, “play flash briefing”

Userlevel 5
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Issue with “play NPR”, “play the news”, “play flash briefing”

Ok cool. Glad they are working on it.  Weird that it just isn’t exactly the

 same software (for Alexa) as in the One though. 

Same here with my brand new Roam. It plays music, but no news. When I ask to pause the music or whatever its playing, Alexa acknowledged, but no further action, it keeps playing whatever she’s playing.

Same issue over here, Alexa responds immediately but does nothing. Music is playing, I say “alexa pause”, nothing happens. If I pause in the app, and then say “alexa resume”, she responds with “there’s nothing to resume”.

 

Very very strange behaviour. 

 

Any resolution on this?

Just posting to stay up to date on this.  Same issue with “News/Flash Briefing” on Roam not ever playing content, just the initial ‘announcement’ that “Here is your flash briefing”.  All other services via Alexa and Spotify seem to be working just fine.

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Grr, same for me, connected Roam to my system and Spotify / BBC Sounds all broken on all devices via Alexa. She tells me Spotify is offline. I can use all services via Sonos app so annoying rather than catastrophic.

I've got exactly the same issue with my new Sonos roam. Alexa responds when I ask to play a Radio station from the BBC then silence. When I ask to play a song it says I have to use the Alexa app to discover the skill and enable. I can play music through the Sonos app but the Alexa voice assistant doesn't work at all. 

Same problem here, when I ask to play news briefing it is just silence, I thought the update yesterday might of fixed this, but still the same. 

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