Asking Alexa to play music

Having probably actually never written a review online for a product before, I have just submitted one on Amazon on this exact topic. For your convenience, I will copy and paste it here, but before I do, I'd ask one quick question to you - do you really want to change the whole way you listen to music just because Sonos are awkward (e.g. start going for a streaming service, even though you prefer another model, e.g. the iTunes pay per song/album one)? I really am in shock at the awkwardness of them. I thought it was a premium product. I've heard it being touted around a bit that Alexa on Sonos One is still "in Beta" or whatever - but, what? How is that even acceptable? I don't buy a blender that's still in Beta. What you are saying you want, which is what I want(ed), is a pretty simple ask. Anyway, here's my review:


ALEXA DOES NOT WORK PROPERLY WITH ITUNES (OR ANYTHING APART FROM AMAZON MUSIC, SPOTIFY & TUNEIN)

This two-star rating is based on the uselessness of Alexa on Sonos One, unless your music source happens to be Amazon Music, Spotify or TuneIn.

If the music you want to play is in your own music library, for example in iTunes - purchased from iTunes, uploaded on CD, or anything else, you will not be able to use Alexa on it as advertised at all. You can, for example say "skip, play, pause, turn it up" etc, but unless your music comes from one of the sources named above, you won't be able to make commands such as "Alexa, play The Beatles", even if you have their whole collection saved and are looking at them on your computer or phone. She will say "I can't find anything by The Beatles in your library."

Sound ridiculous? It is, but unfortunately, it's true. Who would imagine you'd actually want to be able to play your own music library through your speakers, and that if you're going to pay for a speaker with a voice assistant, that you might want her to be able to locate the music that is staring out at you from your own library?

Sonos don't make this at all clear on their website, or here on Amazon. If you trowel through all the small print and use your skills of deduction, you may work it out, I don't know; I haven’t tried. However, it's such a simple, obvious, expected thing that you wouldn't expect to need to do this. You might imagine that Sonos would not work with every one of the dozens and dozens of music platforms out there at this stage, but your own music library? iTunes?? Have you EVER met before a speaker that’s not compatible in whatever way it should be with iTunes? And if you were to, you would hope the retailer would make this pretty clear. Hmmm.

So the situation this leaves me in, having bought 2 Sonos Ones and assuming I keep them, is that I either:
A. don't use Alexa at all, write it off
B. Use Alexa for navigating within a Playlist, but if I want to play any particular song, or artist, or album, have to use my computer or phone to find it. What a clunky mess! Is it 1995? I don’t desperately care, thank goodness, but if you were hoping to impress friends in house parties with your voice-activated system, forget it! You will look like a wannabe who bought them on the cheap!
C. Sit here and hope that one day soon they fix this ridiculous mess

In terms of C, they don't seem in too much of a rush to assure people that it is high up on their priority list, as I found on emailing them. Rather their apathetic, sloppy, copy-paste customer service is what stands out: they got my name completely wrong – I’m Liam, not David; they thanked me for my call, though I emailed them; they ‘advised’ me that I was able to pause, play, etc using Alexa, despite me explicitly telling them I knew this in my email to them; they said that they had no timelines for any new services; and as I bought through Amazon rather than directly, they (gleefully, I deduced) reminded me that since I was not full satisfied, I would have to contact the third party retailer about their returns policy. Cheers guys, a pleasure doing business with you.

Of course, it's an extreme first-world problem, but as I'm typing from the first world and have just spent £400 on two Sonos Ones, I feel I need to let prospective buyers know that if Alexa is part of the sell for you, it's a mess and a joke, and looking at the speakers in my living room now, it's cheapened them and the whole affair. Will I get over it? I'm sure I will. But.

Am I going to keep my 2 Sonos Ones? Maybe, as I live in Spain and have ordered them through Amazon UK, and really can't be bothered to change them, having positioned them, thrown away the outer-packaging and so on (maybe they count on this, hmm?). And the sound is good. And despite the above, having Alexa is less important to me than it might be to some other people. However, do I feel like I've bought a streamlined, professional, ‘premium’ product? Not really, more like I've worked out how to make-do with a camcorder stand from the 90s that is a bit shaky, but as long as the ground is totally flat, you don't touch it hard, and you get a really sunny day, it will just about do the job you bought it for.

Conclusion - good sound, but the ‘premium product’ feel is let down by the lack of this simple, simple feature; the lack of professionalism shown by (willfully?) not making this missing thing clear to people who are buying the things; and the apathetic customer service. Should you buy? Well, I don't know. Do you want to use Alexa with iTunes or some other service not in the Magic Three? If so, really, it’s a no. If you don’t want to use Alexa, or every song you will want to play is on one of those three services, then maybe, although Sonos really don't deserve your custom.

Ken Griffiths,

I will not enter into a long back and forth with you (feel free yo take the last word, however), but I will allow myself one hopefully brief-ish message.

I did not read this 'release document' to which you allude; I have never head of one. You linked to some articles buried on the website; are those what you are terming a 'release document'?. Interesting, I didn't consciously read a 'release document' went I bought my iMac, camcorder, phone, camera, video editing software, fridge, other speakers I have / have had, hairdryer, etc. I researched them of course, sometimes fairly obsessively, to see what they could and couldn't do. Maybe I did read a release document or three at times, but then some of those items were of course a little more complex than one might imagine a simple wireless speaker would be to get going. And I wasn't checking things like, for example, so, will my fridge be able to make milk cold as well as orange juice?

So, no I did not read anything suggesting something so simple and obvious would not be possible, and as it would appear, neither did the many others who are saying similar things to me, and worse, here and elsewhere online (have a hone in one what people are currently making of the Alexa 'integration').

If your 'confused' post intends to suggest that anyone sensible (and so I gather you intend to insinuate not my good self) buying a simple wireless speaker or anything of similar value / type would first of all assume they need to check anywhere for something so absurdly simple/obvious, the idea is ludicrous. This really shouldn't require research or checking (especially when Alexa is so much of what things are sold based on). It is absurd it doesn't let you control your own iTunes library using Alexa. It's like buying a Mac that won't let you on YouTube. And it is certainly not clearly stated; from a cursory glance at what you linked to (and a cursory glance is all I'm now willing to do, considering the time), it doesn't say that you can't do it, it only says what you CAN do. But then, doing so might substantially cut down people buying it. Or have I still missed the place where it is pointed out so clearly that this simple/obvious thing can't be done for some inexplicable reason? No one would expect something so simple to not work. It would/should not need to be checked - the idea that it doesn't do this is preposterous. It can not be over-stated.

Buying a simple wireless speaker in this day and age should be plug and play, and it's certainly the impression given on the website; that's the kind of product it of course wants to be (however, I would draw your attention to the days of fun that are the various parts of this very forum - people really are having a great time just trying to get the things to play at all!)

And as a final 'by the way', do you work for Sonos? If not, your reminder of my rights as a consumer comes across as hilarious. Do you enjoy standing outside other people's drives telling them how to park, not noticing their amused faces through the windscreen?

Cheers for your input anyway, mate.

Liam T.

I’m truly sorry you feel so upset ... and no I don’t work for Sonos. I was just simply pointing out the Sonos 100 day refund scheme that maybe available to you if you purchased from them direct, within that time period.

Your consumer rights in Spain (which I never mentioned) is a separate issue and entirely a matter for you... I only mentioned you could also speak to a possible non-Sonos product supplier (if applicable), which is not directly related to your consumer rights. Consumer rights are not in anyway affected by any agreements between you and your product supplier.

Anyhow moving on...

I still don’t see how any person can make a decision to not read the accompanying main documentation of a product and then try to openly criticise the manufacturer, because their product does not do what was expected of it ...especially as the documentation has no mention of such high expectations in the first place.

That to me seems entirely 'the wrong way round' to go about making any purchase. It just seems wrong also to critisize Sonos or Amazon, after the event, because your personal research fell well short of the mark on this occasion.

I too purchased a Sonos One, but at no time did I ever think the Alexa voice control would launch the Apple Music Service, which you refer to as iTunes... nor did I ever expect it to launch the Google Play Service library files either. It was never mentioned in anything that I read before I bought my speaker.

Next, let’s take a brief look at voice-control and the playing of music from a local library, which is another criticism you talk about ...

I cannot see how Amazon Alexa (in her current form) would ever be able to see (let alone access and play) my locally stored library music, which in my case are stored on a NAS Box on my secure firewalled LAN, unless I actually uploaded a copy of the files (or a reference pointer list) to their Amazon cloud storage... which is what a user is able to do (presently) to play a copy of their local library files, however that additional service costs £24.99 per year, but that service is also due to end on the 29th April 2018.

Even my Sonos App's locally indexed library references, are not ever uploaded to the Sonos servers, so Sonos (the company itself) cannot see or gain access to my locally stored music files either.

Amazon Alexa has never EVER been able to play music from a locally held set of library files since it first began... so why should the Alexa component built into a Sonos speaker suddenly be any different?

That’s just another obvious bit of 'simple' research which has not ever been acknowledged, prior to purchase.

So, in conclusion, I think the critical review you have made of the 'Sonos One' product, in your post above, is based on your own (wishful) expectations and those expectations were just unfortunately (for you) incorrect and entirely flawed from the offset.

Sonos and Amazon did not mislead anyone here as you are trying to claim in your review and I disagree with its content, at least until such time as you can show me any documentation that says the Sonos One product, was able to do the things you actually expected it to do.

Ah, Kenneth.

They are 3D printing homes here in 2018. If you think that the simple feature of voice controlling your iTunes library on Sonos using Alexa will not be incorporated due to customer preference / expectation / demand, you are crazy. I will await your eating-of-words ceremony! Until then, why not step away from the computer, Kenny? I can see by your number of posts that you really enjoy your time in this forum, but there's a world outside!

In terms of anything else you said and insinuated, I really will have to leave these to the echo chamber of this forum and draw a line under our discussion here.

I agree with Liam, it is misleading for Sonos to sell these products with "Alexa integration" but omit to make it real in the SALE literature that Alexa will not allow you to play music from your SOnos library. Now I understand that Amazon will not be seek for your o do this (less amazon subscriptions to sell), but SOnos should not have jumper with Alexa integration without making this clear to buyers.

As for the other poster saying you should have read some technical release document, that is just absurd and disconnected with the real world!

Yes, agree with Liam. For years people have bought Sonos boxes in order to play their own locally stored music. Isn't that what Sonos were all about? So, Sonos, well known for playing local music library, and Alexa, well known for voice control... put them together and, oh, we can't use voice control to play our local music! Doh!

Why can't we have "Alexa, ask Sonos to play whatever from my music library"?

Tansdale. I completely agree with you. It's not much to ask. I just put the Alexa app on my Android, joined Amazon Unlimited, connected my (older model) Sonos speakers and asked Alexa to play Mozart. It came out on my phone. I asked her to play Mozart on Sonos. She couldn't understand.

I'm getting an Amazon Echo tomorrow. The quality will be less good than the Sonos speakers and I was hoping that I could ask Alexa on Echo to stream to my Sonos. It looks like that won't happen. If I find myself never using them, the Sonos speakers will be heading to a thrift shop and my advice to all my friends will be not to buy Sonos.

Sonos: Fix it, or go bust!
It sounds to me like you haven’t yet setup your smart-home section. You may need to read through the support pages to set things up correctly.

After setting up the new Amazon Echo device, I can now access the Sonos speakers both from voice control and from the android phone app. Whether it was because Iwent through the full procedure properly, or because it only works with an echo device in the loop is anybody's guess!

Oh, for the days of instruction manuals!
Do you want/need the Alexa voice commands... if so, you will find a list of them here:

Controlling your Sonos with Amazon Alexa

Hope that helps.