New to Sonos or Alexa? How to set up

Ryan,

This forum is great - saw the exchange below and got a new Play One w Alexa today but I'm having trouble getting it to play music on both my Echo and new Play One at the same time. Did I misunderstand the comment - is it not possible to play the same source through both the Echo and Play One at the same time?

It is not possible to play the same synchronised source on both echo and sonos devices at the same time. You can have a group containing all sonos devices, or all Echo devices, but you cannot have a mix of hardware in a single group.

As an additional point to note, you cannot create a stereo pair with a new Sonos One and an older Play:1. A group, yes, but not a stereo pair.

I’ve tried to add the skill to Alexa thru the app and the website but every time it says I need to connect my speakers to my email address - which they already are. I’ve been into the Sonos app and set them up again with my account, but every time it just defaults to that page. Any idea what the problem is?

I'm really impressed with this. The downside side is I have to remember not to say music otherwise I end with some random amazon playlist (I use deezer)

I was was always dubious of how useful voice would be, but its amazing, good job sonos!!

Awesome update!
Is there anyway to toggle the ducking feature on/off?
There isn't, I can pass on feedback to the team about it for you. Would you rather it not work at all or just not drop as low? Or something else entirely?

Awesome update!
Is there anyway to toggle the ducking feature on/off?
There isn't, I can pass on feedback to the team about it for you. Would you rather it not work at all or just not drop as low? Or something else entirely?

Ideally it would be cool if it were more granular. If you could set different levels for different speakers or turn it off completely for speakers that would be awesome. It would also be beneficial if you could make it only happen when certain Echo devices are triggered. If I’m listening to my living room Sonos I wouldn’t want it to drop out because my girlfriend asked my Echo in the bedroom what the weather was. Thanks for passing the feedback along!

There needs to be a way to associate 1 or more Sonos zones with each Alexa device for the "ducking" functionality.
We have 11 zones in our house and all 11 zones should not be "paused" anytime you say "Alexa" on any one of the 7 Alexa devices in our house. Or at a minimum be able to disable the feature. Hopefully this is something that can be implemented very soon in the beta as the current "ducking feature" makes this new functionality of controlling with Alexa a nuisance in our configuration. :|

Adding some more details on what would really improve this service where multiple Sonos Zones and Alexa coexists.

Association Mapping:
Each Alexa device (Echo, Dot, embedded, etc) can be associated with one or more Sonos Zones (Amp, ZonePlayer, etc).
- Devices which are both an Alexa device and a Sonos Zone are shown as associated, but can not be disassociated.
- Associated Sonos Zones become the default target for command on the Alexa. "Alexa, play classical music" will default to the associated Sonos zones, but "Alex, play classical music in the Den" would apply to only to the specified Sonos Zone.
- Stretch Goal: A Sonos Group could be used as one of the Sonos Zones
This feature is needed in location that contain many Sonos Zones and Alexa Devices. It would not be desirable to have the music in the Kitchen Zone "ducked" when a query it put to an Alexa a bedroom.

Ducking:
Different sources may want a different effect; for example, streaming music could have the volume reduced to listen for the Alexa commands, but other sources such as Audio Books or PodCasts should instead be paused.
- "Ducking" will apply to all Sonos Zones by default unless there is a user created association. Devices which are both an Alexa and a Sonos Zone are not considered "user created" associations.
- When user created associations are created, only those Sonos Zones are Ducked.
- Stretch Goal: Allow the type of Ducking to be selected per service/source.

Alexa Service Responses:
Ducking should apply to both Alexa command inputs as well as service responses. Several Alexa services such as News ("Alexa, what's in the news?") may respond with audio (and video) from seconds to minutes. During the Service Response, "Ducking" of the associated Sonos Zones should be in effect.
- Stretch Goal: Optionally allow the Service Responses to be played in the associated Sonos Zones; i.e. hear the news audio stream over the Sonos speakers instead of the Echo Dot where the request was made.

It will be very interesting to see where this goes next and whether Sonos becomes little more than a "physical" add on for the likes of google/amazon and other voice assistants. Sonos are big, but google and amazon are serious heavyweights in comparison who could, if so inclined, launch their own speakers with their own technology built in, or perhaps move to acquire sonos or another speaker manufacturer in order to do so.

I think the additional functionality will depend on who blinks first with the competition and really how much of a priority this is seen as. Though having all options available to consumers, and all the grouping/ungrouping functionality etc before google home announces its colaboration with Sonos (if/when), would certainly be a coup for Amazon, so perhaps we will see these functions ooner than expected, but personally I still think Amazon aren't in a rush to deliver them whilst ever people with sonos speakers are now signing up for amazon prime music trials....

You're right on Oswald, Big Foot and Trump - but not nessie. 😛

I think the hold up was Amazon, the recent release of their API for smart speakers is proof of that. I think the lack of local library support is due to the logistics of getting a copy of the local track index into the Amazon cloud and keeping it updated, and Amazon having no current functionality to access such data, so it must be manufactured from scratch. I think the delay in Spotify support is due to the fact that Spotify was also waiting for the Amazon API, and as such, they are delayed a bit compared to Amazon Music, who had the inside lane to the finish line.

I also believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, there is no Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, and space aliens have not implanted themselves in Donald Trump's brain (he actually is really that way).

So calling something "lazy development" or saying they "didn't have the skills" isn't belittling a developer? Gee, who knew? :8

But hey, glad to see my belittling of you got you to back off on them. Baby steps.

You will note, as you appear to hang on my every word with a desire to disect and analyse each one, that in my post on page 4 I offered my conclusion that this was a commercially driven decision. I was never on the developer.

The scenario of lazy or unskilled development was put forward as the only other alternative. Given that the developers are easily skilled enough to achieve the functionality, it somewhat validates my original conclusion.

When all other possibilities have been discounted, what remains however implausible or ugly, has to be the truth.

The reason we dont have these functions os down to finance.

Either they didnt want to spend more developer time doing the slightly more complicated stuff and had other priorities for them, or they saw these additions as a commercial conflict with their own music services, at least for a period of time.

Nice dodge. If you offered it as an alternative, then you offered it as a possibility. Admit it dude, you were taking cheap shots. You had the gall to say it then, so own it now.

Then again, don't own it. I think we all know what you are all about by now. :8

We'll have to agree to disagree because there can be no common ground here. You are not making logical conclusions. You invented, whole cloth, scenarios which you proceeded to "validate" with your misunderstanding of the technology.

It's irrelevant though, as I'm not going to convince you, and we're clogging a thread up that could be used for better discussion.

Have you, or have you not, got any experience of deploying any form of app using the amazon developer and amazon web services?

If you haven't, please don't assume i am misunderstanding the technology.

There are several apps out there that reference local items in a users home which alexa knows nothing about.

Alexa can for example turn on my hot water system, and while it has the thermostats listed as smart devices, it knows nothing of my hot water install but relays commands to the honeywell system which does.

Alexa does not have a full list of phrases which can be sent to IFTTT but she sends them anyway and hands off the work of interpreting the instruction to another platform.

As you are able to refresh your library content on the sonos system, it is entirely plausible that this local library index file which I believe is stored on the non volatile memory of each player (to a max of 65000 tracks) could be used in a very similar way to the list of triggers stored for an ifttt account. The list is external to the alexa system but addressable non the less.

This appears on the face of it to be technically possible from the amazon and sonos developers.

However if i were in charge of the purse strings at amazon, would i pay for developers to bring forward a solution which allowed customers to use their own storage instead of my $25 a year offering? Not until id reviewed whether the omission of such a feature encouraged the take up of my $25 offering. Once id scooped up enough of the people willing to shell out $25 instead of whinge about it on forums then id consider appeasing the rest of the customer base, and certainly so if the competition (google home) offered this functionality if and when it integrated with sonos.

For simplicity, my opinion is that this is a commercial decision and we will see a change when the competition offers this functionality. Though whats the bets google launches with the ability to address files on your google homedrive first...

Ok now you've both traded blows, can we all just chill out a little? The Alexa Sonos update is a beta right? so expecting perfection isn't going to be realistic. What is realistic is constructive debate around an issue that may give the developers a steer on what to deal with

So calling something "lazy development" or saying they "didn't have the skills" isn't belittling a developer? Gee, who knew? :8

But hey, glad to see my belittling of you got you to back off on them. Baby steps.

I then proceeded to offer a logical theory from the available evidence.

As am I.

evidence available to myself being:

that the functionality is already available in home brew format.

Experience in deploying that home brew to one stage from public submission/publication via amazon marketplace

Experience of bringing apps to market on multiple platforms and the costs/skillset of developers required.


My logical conclusion is that Amazon and Sonos have access to development teams at least as skillful as those ive employed before, and have access to infinitely higher budgets. It would therefore, in my opinion, be well within their capability of delivering the homwbrew functionalities in a native format of they wanted to within the 9 months or so they have been working on it. I can also logically conclude that they chose not to for commercial reasons, be those a will to drive consumers to amazon services, or a cost vs benefit of delivering the extra functionalities.

ah well all good things take time and Im sure once it is refined and bugs squashed, it'll be up to Sonos's usual level of awesomeness..... I really hope it'll support playback from my own music library though ... fingers crossed