New to Sonos or Alexa? How to set up | Sonos Community

So you have an Alexa device and Sonos players, where do you go next?

1. Make sure your Sonos and Alexa devices are all powered up and connected to the network.

If you're new to Sonos, this means Installing the Sonos app, and going through the steps for Setting up Sonos here.

If you're new to Alexa, install the Alexa app (currently only available in the US, UK, and Germany) and make sure your Alexa device(s) show up. They will be listed under Settings > Devices. Amazon has a setup guide for the Echo Dot here.

2. In the Alexa app, search for and add the Alexa Skill for Sonos.

3. Follow the on-screen prompts to authenticate your Amazon account, then your Sonos account.

4. Finally, inside your Alexa app, select discover devices under Smart Home or on the Sonos skill page.

You are now ready to try out some commands! There’s a great, comprehensive list here.

Wondering how it all works? Check out the How it works thread.

If you run into any trouble, please feel free to take a look here to start, or ask any question in the Amazon Alexa and Sonos forum.

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I took your example, but it just plays Heart Radio on my Dot, not in the Sonos speakers.

Is there a way to play a radio stations? What command do you use? Thanks

Yes e.g. "Alexa, play Heart London in the Bedroom". This will play Heart FM from London using the TuneIn service on my Sonos called "Bedroom".W

Note that commands are linked in the first post. There's a decent list of what one can do with this integration.

I took your example, but it just plays Heart Radio on my Dot, not in the Sonos speakers.

Have you installed the Alexa skill and linked it to your Sonos account? The same Sonos account used by your speakers?

I am having issues with music playing over my Echo Dot instead of the SONOS speaker. My SONOS speakers are named as follows: Living Room, Kitchen, Office and my Echo Dots are named as follows: Living Room Dot, Kitchen Dot, Office Dot and Bedroom Dot.

If I look in the Alexa app, the SONOS devices are showing up and names as above, do I need to rename the Echo Dots to solve the problem?

Are you saying the right phrase e.g. ending with 'in the Living Room/Kitchen/Office'?

Yes. To clarify, my Dots names are the same as the Sonos, unlike the first person in this thread. Should I add "Dot" to the Dot names? For instance, "Bedroom Dot" for Dot and just "Bedroom" for Sonos?

I am having issues with music playing over my Echo Dot instead of the SONOS speaker. My SONOS speakers are named as follows: Living Room, Kitchen, Office and my Echo Dots are named as follows: Living Room Dot, Kitchen Dot, Office Dot and Bedroom Dot.

If I look in the Alexa app, the SONOS devices are showing up and names as above, do I need to rename the Echo Dots to solve the problem?

Are you saying the right phrase e.g. ending with 'in the Living Room/Kitchen/Office'?

Yes. To clarify, my Dots names are the same as the Sonos, unlike the first person in this thread. Should I add "Dot" to the Dot names? For instance, "Bedroom Dot" for Dot and just "Bedroom" for Sonos?

Yes. To clarify, my Dots names are the same as the Sonos, unlike the first person in this thread. Should I add "Dot" to the Dot names? For instance, "Bedroom Dot" for Dot and just "Bedroom" for Sonos?

Yes! They need to have different names :)

EDIT: Also looking at your other replies, you need to make sure you use 'in the Bedroom' or similar for commands like increasing the volume too.

I took your example, but it just plays Heart Radio on my Dot, not in the Sonos speakers.

Have you installed the Alexa skill and linked it to your Sonos account? The same Sonos account used by your speakers?

Yes

Yes. To clarify, my Dots names are the same as the Sonos, unlike the first person in this thread. Should I add "Dot" to the Dot names? For instance, "Bedroom Dot" for Dot and just "Bedroom" for Sonos?

Yes! They need to have different names :)

So I changed my Dots to have "Dot" in their names, but the sound still only plays in the Dot - not the Sonos! Ugh. Yes, the skill has been installed.

Yes. To clarify, my Dots names are the same as the Sonos, unlike the first person in this thread. Should I add "Dot" to the Dot names? For instance, "Bedroom Dot" for Dot and just "Bedroom" for Sonos?

Yes! They need to have different names :)

EDIT: Also looking at your other replies, you need to make sure you use 'in the Bedroom' or similar for commands like increasing the volume too.

I just tried. Dot says "Living Room isn't responding."

Yes. To clarify, my Dots names are the same as the Sonos, unlike the first person in this thread. Should I add "Dot" to the Dot names? For instance, "Bedroom Dot" for Dot and just "Bedroom" for Sonos?

Yes! They need to have different names :)

EDIT: Also looking at your other replies, you need to make sure you use 'in the Bedroom' or similar for commands like increasing the volume too.

I just tried. Dot says "Living Room isn't responding. However, the Dot responds to play/stop for Sonos - just not volume Si odd."

I just tried. Dot says "Living Room isn't responding."

It looks like a few people are having similar problems, there's an active thread about it at the moment.

Great. I am impressed that Alexa/Sonos are trying to integrate. Bugs are expected in Beta. Hopefully in a few weeks/months this will be better. But right now it's pretty useful to use for voice command.

Great. I am impressed that Alexa/Sonos are trying to integrate. Bugs are expected in Beta. Hopefully in a few weeks/months this will be better. But right now it's pretty useful to use for voice command.

It might be worth removing the Alexa skill and discovered devices and retrying from scratch. Perhaps there's a bug when renaming devices? Something is cached?

Any idea why Spotify isn't working yet? It's the most popular music streaming service. Hopefully, it's added sooner rather than later.

@Ryan

I have 5 play1’s and an alexa device for each.

Scenario,

In my bedroom and master bath I have 2 P1’s I ask alexa to play Kings of Leon. That works perfect, so when I leave the room I say alexa pause or stop.

I then walk to my family room, 1 P1 there, I ask alexa, play some reggae it works perfect, but when I head to sonos app, to check things, the speaker menu says bedroom+bathroom (King’s of Leon *no longer playing) I then select the speaker menu on the bottom, and I can see the bars jumping up and down on my family room speaker, but there is no way of actually navigating to that speaker unless I group some speakers to the family room.

Known issue? Or what do you think?

Hopefully you understand.

Any idea why Spotify isn't working yet? It's the most popular music streaming service. Hopefully, it's added sooner rather than later.

Amazon, the owner of the Prime music streaming service, did not enable its primary competitor spotify in this release.....shocker.

Amazon, the owner of the Prime music streaming service, did not enable its primary competitor spotify in this release.....shocker.

Good point, except for Spotify has been available as an option to Amazon Music as the default service on Echo/Alexa devices since early 2016. More likely is the interface requires Spotify's help, and getting three parties to get together to wok on software is like the old adage about monkeys and a football.

Amazon, the owner of the Prime music streaming service, did not enable its primary competitor spotify in this release.....shocker.

Good point, except for Spotify has been available as an option to Amazon Music as the default service on Echo/Alexa devices since early 2016. More likely is the interface requires Spotify's help, and getting three parties to get together to wok on software is like the old adage about monkeys and a football.

I don't use Spotify, so I could be off on this, but it seems like there are several differences between Pandora, XM, iheart, and tunein...and Spotify. The first group are all essentially channels, you don't request a particular track or playlist per se. Spotify, you do. As well, you can play Spotify music on Sonos through the Spotify app. You can't play Pandora music on Sonos through the Pandora app. Again, I don't know how everything works with Spotify, but I can see where it could be a little more complex.

Google announced some very cool devices today and while they fall short of the home theater experience I have to believe that their own integration with the Google Assistant is spot on.

You're suggesting that Google's integration with Google will be good? Yeah, Amazon's Echo also integrates nicely with Alexa. This isn't an accurate comparison, and I'm doubtful you actually think it is either.

Any "partner" that has you at the bottom of the search list of your own company name clearly shows their level of commitment.

This has nothing to do with search ranking algorithm; it has to do with level of commitment and promotion strategy.

You're being absurd with these statements. It isn't reasonable to expect ecosystem owners to override user preferences, and it'd be objectionable if they did.

It's also such a ridiculous point that you're nitpicking. The search order is your complaint? Well take it up with Amazon.

I'm truly disappointed at how far behind the curve Sonos is

Do tell us who's ahead of them in this space...

I truly appreciate the feedback but the honest truth is that Sonos made this announcement and commitment over a year ago and the "public beta" is truly just an indication of their level of confidence to deliver - not a true public beta.

I seriously have no idea what you're trying to convey here. Maybe if you use honest, truth, true, or truly a few more times I'll get it.

Sonos v8 is a full release. The Alexa skill is a public beta. These are things that are true. What's your point?

Any idea why Spotify isn't working yet? It's the most popular music streaming service. Hopefully, it's added sooner rather than later.

I don't have any insider information, but let me give you the most logical answer.

The Alexa integration launched with the core functionality that Alexa already brings to bear. It makes sense, those would be the easiest things to make work. Everyone who's asked why not Deezer or Napster or whatever... same reason. Maybe in the future Sonos gets it working with them, but frankly maybe not if Alexa never has the control.

In the case of Spotify I have to assume the extra integration that Sonos:Spotify already has is something they don't want to mess up. So rather than hold all of the functionality they will get it next.

Amazon, the owner of the Prime music streaming service, did not enable its primary competitor spotify in this release.....shocker.

Good point, except for Spotify has been available as an option to Amazon Music as the default service on Echo/Alexa devices since early 2016. More likely is the interface requires Spotify's help, and getting three parties to get together to wok on software is like the old adage about monkeys and a football.

Spotify (and local streaming) seems to work fine on the homebrew apps, using just Amazon and Sonos.

https://github.com/rgraciano/echo-sonos

https://github.com/jishi/node-sonos-http-api

So I have to assume there is some commercial arrangement in place between Sonos and Amazon which currently prevents them offering spotify via this release.

Spotify (and local streaming) seems to work fine on the homebrew apps, using just Amazon and Sonos.

https://github.com/rgraciano/echo-sonos

https://github.com/jishi/node-sonos-http-api

^^^^And there it is again folks!! Let's count how many times this "home brew app" is pimped today!!

So I have to assume there is some commercial arrangement in place between Sonos and Amazon which currently prevents them offering spotify via this release.

Or maybe Sonos wants to do it without running a server someplace on your network or having to say "tell Sonos" for every command.

But seriously dude, you pimp this stuff more than one of the actual guys who wrote it. jishi is a member here; he's actually a great guy with a lot of knowledge, and even as the author he knows that pimping his stuff in threads where it doesn't belong is seriously gauche behavior.

Hello,

Like others, I am super excited to be able to control my Sonos speakers with Alexa!!! I have set it up, linked everything and enabled the skill.

The issue I am having is I can't get Alexa to turn on the group, only specific speakers. I created a device group named 'Sonos' and included all of my speakers in there. None of the speakers have the same name as my Alexa devices. I tried renaming the group 'House' in case naming a group the same thing as a skill was an issue but Alexa still won't "Play Pandora on House". Any help folks can offer on how to utilize device groups with this new skill and/or what I am doing wrong?

@ac921ol, I reached out to you in private message to help. Feel free to respond there.

@Erica_1, We're not using device groups through Alexa at this time. Grouping is done through the Sonos app. For the Alexa skill, you'll want to target any Sonos room name. If you already have a group of rooms created in the Sonos app, just pick any of those players and Alexa will play to them all.

@Erica,

if speakers are already grouped in the sonos app, and you use Alexa, it will work, if the speakers are not grouped then it will not work, Ryan said a few pages back that they're working on grouping and hopefully sometime down the road, but as of now.

you need to group them in the Sonos app first, then tell alexa, and Alexa is only working on specific speakers right now

Ryan S, thank you for replying. I didn't realize the Alexa app wouldn't recognize a device group. Can you help me set up a permanent group in the Sonos app? I couldn't see where to do that. I know I can group speakers while I am listening to music but I didn't realize I could group them permanently.