Question

local library integration

  • 19 January 2018
  • 10 replies
  • 579 views

Userlevel 2
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anyone know whether you can tell alexa to play items in your sonos library to sonos speakers yet?
Thanks.

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10 replies

No. It would require Amazon to keep an index of your local music in the cloud, or for Sonos to run some type of server on your system to serve the Amazon cloud client, neither of which is available today. So initially, the easiest implementation is to support services that are already supported via Alexa. Whether this will change in the future is unknown, but there are some technical issues to overcome, to say nothing to the fact there may be differing goals as to what each company is willing to support.
Userlevel 7
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Best bet would be if someone like Plex created an Alexa skill as they have access to indexing your library (Amazon doesn't)
Userlevel 7
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There actually is a Plex alexa skill - don't know what it will actually do.
Userlevel 7
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Plex has an Alexa skill, but it simply acts as a controller for their existing apps/servers. It doesn't work over Sonos.
Userlevel 1
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There is a skill that you have to pay a small yearly subscription for ($5, £4) that is supposed to play stuff from your local library. I didn't try it because of the subscription. Might rethink that though, the skill is My Media.
tried it but would not play through Sonos
The skill that works on Alexa with local libraries would suggest that it’s not as hard to do as first thought.

Hopefully it won’t be too long till it appears on our devices.
The Sonos CEO indicated in a podcast last week that they are looking to bring local library and other non-Amazon supported streaming services to the Alexa Sonos skill.

Around 32:15 in:

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/2/16961978/sonos-patrick-spence-apple-homepod-alexa-virtual-assistants-too-embarrassed-swisher-goode-podcast
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I truly hope that this get integrated in the near future. Until then, my Echo remains switched off!
I truly hope that this get integrated in the near future. Until then, my Echo remains switched off!

I wonder what the holdup is on this? There are third party solutions that use a local PC to make the local library index visible to Alexa to act on so all the Amazon pieces must be in place. Sonos just needs to emulate that using a copy of your index uploaded you your Sonos profile to do the same thing. The new CEO promised much faster execution going forward after the reorganization so hopefully we can expect this soon.