Question

Am i missing something with Alexa and Sonos

  • 13 January 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 509 views

Being a newbie to my Sonus and Alexa. I hope my query is a simple one. I have connected my Alexa Dot to my Sonos Play 5 using the 3.5 mm single jack lead. Alexa picks up my request to play music from my Spotify through the Sonos speaker and plays perfectly. However when i ask Alexsa a normal question eg weather forecast etc the dot picks up the request but i can hear nothing through any speaker.However when i disconnect the jack lead from Alexa and ask the question again I can hear the reply only through the Alexa speaker. Would like to hear reply through my Sonus without having to disconnect the jack lead every time. Tried everything i can think of. Anybody had the same problem. Many thanks in advance.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

3 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +23
That isn't how it works. If you ask the Dot a question, the answer will come from the Dot. Your use of a 3.5mm cable is a primitive way of working around this, and will only work if the Play:5 is set to Line-In, which is going to be super-inconvenient. Do you want to ask your Dot to play music on your Sonos? You'll need to configure that then using both apps (and no 3.5mm cable).
Being a newbie to my Sonus and Alexa. I hope my query is a simple one. I have connected my Alexa Dot to my Sonos Play 5 using the 3.5 mm single jack lead. Alexa picks up my request to play music from my Spotify through the Sonos speaker and plays perfectly. However when i ask Alexsa a normal question eg weather forecast etc the dot picks up the request but i can hear nothing through any speaker.However when i disconnect the jack lead from Alexa and ask the question again I can hear the reply only through the Alexa speaker. Would like to hear reply through my Sonus without having to disconnect the jack lead every time. Tried everything i can think of. Anybody had the same problem. Many thanks in advance.

I'm not sure why you are not hearing regular Alexa responses through your Play5... I have several hooked up that way and they work just the way you are expecting them to. Are you sure you have the input on the Play5 set to automatically activate when there is a signal present? Do you have the input level configured correctly in the Play5 settings? Do you have the beta Sonos skill disabled in your Alexa app?

When set up properly the 3.5mm cable method of connecting Alexa to Sonos will give you a far better experience and a lot more features than the beta Alexa skill integration though that might change when the production version is released.

When set up properly the 3.5mm cable method of connecting Alexa to Sonos will give you a far better experience and a lot more features than the beta Alexa skill integration though that might change when the production version is released.

I agree, that is exactly what I have found, once the line in is set to Autoplay. A big bonus of this at present is the ducking "feature" going away this way, a "feature" where talking to any Alexa device results in ALL Sonos speakers wherever located in the home dropping volume to close to zero.