Amazon Echo / Dot and Sonos Integration

I expect Sonos to keep the overall experience as consistent with the current experience as they can. Right now if you want to listen to Spotify you set up an account with Spotify on their app, and you set up Spotify as a source on Sonos' app. It "should" work similar with Echo and Sonos. You'd set up Sonos on the Echo app, and then Set Echo as a service on the Sonos app.

That way when you command Echo to play music it knows you are talking about Sonos, and knows what credentials to send to Sonos' server. Via the Sonos app, Sonos knows which zone is the Echo default and what other zones or groups you have, so it can respond properly to the instructions it gets from Amazon.

I don't particularly see the Sonos unit needing to be the "Voice of Alexa". I had my dot hooked to my play:5 as the voice and really found no use for it being the voice of Alexa. The only real reason I had it hooked was so I could use voice control to play music - which I found very limited because I do not have Spotify and Amazon music library is not very vast. So I ended up removing it from my play:5 and let the dot just speak from its own speaker. Once Sonos adds the ability to control music via Sonos then that will cover my desire to be able to ask for music and have it play.

Note: Not only did the play:5 being hooked to the dot not do me a lot of good. The play:5 would take about a second or two to come out of standby and I would miss the first word or 2 Alexa would respond with.

I believe you can adjust Play:5 settings to Autoplay from Line-In. Would this solve the issue?

I gotta say spcdust, you've got me convinced. It's not something I thought of before, but now that I hear it, it's a good implementation.

I just see the Amazon 'dots' being assigned over wifi to a Sonos room or zone, during their integration setup, like you would with any other Sonos device and It's resonse to 'nearby' voice commands, will be 'constrained' just to that same assigned area (usually where the ’dot' is located), but you can play, stop pause the music etc. in ANY room or zone, or grouped areas.

I think it makes sense to have each 'dot' attached to a zone and direct its responses just to that one room or maybe the 'user-assigned, rooms that have temporarily been grouped to it's assigned default zone.

spcdust,

I think you've just confused me more. But that's OK, I get your general direction, regarding a firmware connection between Sonos and the Echo ecosystem. I would certainly hope that it heads in that direction, although I'm doubtful about how much "integration" would occur without Amazon purchasing Sonos (or vice versa, if you want to smile a bit). But the tighter the integration, the better for those of us who already use both devices, to be sure.

I'm just 99% convinced that there won't be a bluetooth connection involved, between the speaker and anything. But as I say, I could be wrong.

It will be interesting to see where they end up.

I'm pretty sure that the echo itself has bluetooth capability, so you could connect to the dot via bluetooth, and then through the line out from the Dot to your speakers. I would not expect to see Sonos adding bluetooth to their speakers, though. Nor Airplay, for that matter.

I could be wrong, though. I've been wrong in the past, and expect I can be at any time.

...or some marketing guy did the video who doesn't even know how it works

Indeed that could be the case, guess it all depends if you're a pint is half empty or half full kind of person;-)

However a company has to be very careful how they represent the functionality of a product even in marketing material - any mis-representation can land them in lots of bother. Also, Amazon will certainly have had sign off on any material released by Sonos and likely be all over any potential miss-representation of their echo product.

My thoughts, Sonos would be missing a trick not giving their speakers this capacity as other multi-room wireless speaker systems, that also have Bluetooth technology, will be able to link up to Echo devices. If Sonos don't implement this then they would be at a dis-advantage compared to competitors - however if they do implement this capability they can do it so much better, built into their firmware, giving them an advantage over other systems.

...or some marketing guy did the video who doesn't even know how it works

The Sonos video demonstrate how this will work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFJ7O7N5Yok

At the one minute mark, the home shows two zones: a Play1 in the kitchen (next to a Dot) and a Playbar in the living room. A guy says "Alexa play new music", and music starts to play in the kitchen. He doesn't name a zone, he just tell it to play music and the system knows to play on the Play 1. Then he says "Alexa play in the living room", and the music switches to the living room zone.

So, his kitchen Play1 must be the default zone connected to his Dot, but you can move the music to other zones via voice command.

The video gives hints as to whether Sonos replaces the Dot's speaker.
1. Whenever the Dot "talks", a Sonos speaker is also in the frame
2. The Dot's sound quality is quite good, indicating it's coming from Sonos not the tiny speaker in the Dot.
3. Music pauses when Alexa speaks the name of the song, and resumes again once Alexa stops speaking . If the Dot was merely a Sonos controller and used it's own speaker for Alexa's voice, it would talk at the same time music played from the Sonos.

Based on all this I conclude that you will be able to designate a default zone for each Echo, and that zone will always act as Echo's voice. It would not surprise me if there were also an option on the Echo app that let you choose whether to use the Echo or Sonos as Alexa's voice.

I've pre-ordered myself an Echo Spot (2nd Gen), I don't really need the capability of the full Echo speaker as have Sonos speakers, which will be superior in audio quality, for the playback of music. The way I'd love for it to work is that when Sonos implement their integration they look beyond just using Echo as a control device and actually allow the Echo to use their speakers for the voice of Alexa - to me that would be kind of cool. If that were the case then I'd just buy Echo Spots for all the rooms that have Sonos Speakers in - however high chance that's a wish to far so will settle on using the Spot to control Sonos and just have the Spots lesser speaker act as Alexa's voice.

Would also be curious about any Beta Sonos do in testing the Echo / Sonos integration.

well i actually have both. ive the connect amp in my kitchen and play 5 in my room. each connected to an echo dot. i only listen to pandora, pretty much these days so i dont need more. daughters have an echo in their own rooms. when im in the kitchen ill talk to alexa and get my music going. same in my room. when i want to throw it to both I'll just go through the app. best of both worlds as far as im concerned. basically just added voice to my sonos when i bought the dots. but like i, and OP, said before, this set up only works if you have the play 5. anything less and, for the time being at least, youre out of the loop.

Right. I was not imagining the "pair one Sonos to one Dot" scenario when I made my explanation. I had never considered it, so I immediately went to the control hub scenario (which I still prefer). If I wanted a Bluetooth speaker, I'd buy one. OMMV

Jgatie i agree. like i said, thats the set up i have at the moment. but that's what OP was asking and thats what i was trying to clarify for you guys. i have given no opinion on the matter. wether sonos will or wont offer to individually pair speakers "bluetooth style" i dont know. only they know. but that was his question. it had nothing to do with the echos themselves. echos are already independent by default. youre comparing lights that require a central hub to control to smart speakers that are capable of running independently.