Petition to Add Local Library Playback to Alexa/Sonos Voice Control

I can only really use my local library due to poor local Internet due to rural area, poor speeds and ridiculous caps - I think this wouldn't be a huge step, since there's plenty of amateurs who have got this working, never mind a BILLION dollar giant company like SONOS

The integration methodology of the amateurs is rather different than the official Sonos/Alexa. Part of that is to allow for different features, and part (speculating) is for business reasons. The assumption that local library isn't too hard is not really a good one, despite how it may look from the outside, without considering all the details.


Seriously! What's the point of having Alexa integration with sonos if it's only limited to music services that are integrated with Alexa.
What an over-hyped "upgrade".
If you can't control playback of your sonos library through Alexa, it's a complete wast of time.

Actually, stats have been posted on the forums before that show the vast majority of users only use streaming services. That's not to say that those that use their local library's are irrelevant, but releasing the integration with streaming only is far from a waste of time. Particularly when the streaming services they hit are essentially "long hanging fruit" and people have been practically begging to get some form of voice control with Sonos.

I think we would all like our music libraries integrated into voice control on Sonos, but they have chosen to partner a company that has its own streaming service so I really can't see that happening anytime soon .

I don't care if library is included since I don't use one, but for the longevity of the company, I want them to please as many companines as possible.

As for why you can't, there are techincal reasons, but almost everyone wants to assume it's all about Amazon greed and Sonos not understanding what features their clients use (even though they track this).

I think we would all like our music libraries integrated into voice control on Sonos, but they have chosen to partner a company that has its own streaming service so I really can't see that happening anytime soon .

If this were truly about partnering with Amazon, why would they allow basic playback controls of any non-Amazon services, including local libraries? If they wanted to offer Voice Control only for Amazon Music or other Amazon partners, they would have done just that. Instead, everything except initializing playback is available for all other services; Pause, Play, Volume Control, Skip, Previous, even "Alexa, What's playing?" - all available; you just can't add tracks. This, coupled with published facts about the Alexa interface, says it is far more likely there are technological barriers to this feature, rather than any greed/protectionism on Amazon's part.

Jgatie, I cannot believe that technological Barriers is that big a barrier for two technological companies, if they really wanted to sort it out . Any big company is going to employ a level of protectionism and push their product over it's rivals why wouldn't you ? Amazon have a music streaming service why wouldn't they promote that over a rival streaming company ? Nobody outside of Amazon or Sonos knows the time scale for Spotify integration but I would bet that it won't be before Christmas, and when/if it arrives it won't give you as good an experience as using Amazon's music streaming over Sonos using Alexa .

I find the technological barriers to be an adequate explanation. Now could those be due to Amazon not playing ball or prioritizing development because of protectionism? I have no doubt this factors in. But if Amazon is not willing to host a local index in the cloud or is unwilling to accommodate a query to Sonos to get an entry back from the local index, or they push back this development in favor of streaming services, what is Sonos to do? And exactly how is that different from what you would call technological barriers impeding development?

If it doesn't exist in the API, and Amazon isn't working to put it in, that's a technological barrier, no matter the reasons behind it. These are things that have to be worked out, and it stands to reason Sonos and Amazon would do the stuff they can do before tackling the stuff they can't. That "stuff" happens to be streaming services though Amazon. Why would that be surprising to anyone? It's simple common sense.

But I still maintain if Amazon truly wanted to support only their services, they would have locked out all voice commands from anything but their services. This would be easy to do, and there is nothing Sonos could do about it. But they didn't, and nobody claiming there is a greedy conspiracy going on can explain this fact.

yes please!

Disappointed that we even need to ask for this via a petition. This and similar has been asked of Sonos for some time. Has Sonos responded yet to anyone regarding this?

Yes please. I'm sure you had to give priority to Amazon Unlimited to sweeten the deal with Alexa, but it would be awesome if we could get a Plex/Sonos via Alexa solution working.

Yes please this is one of the most important uses to me. I already have Pandora and Spotify enabled although I must say it's pretty difficult to get Alexa to play a song from spotify in a given room without her defaulting to the default music service.

Yes, please, me too. The marketing blurb I read was a little misleading in that it should have stated that ONLY streaming services were supported, currently.

I understand (or have an idea of the limitations) but I hope it could be made available at some stage. Those of us who joined Sonos to play our own library (bought at huge cost) shouldn't just be forced into accepting only a streamed service.

seems to me that by not providing this sonos have shot themselves in the foot ! surely it can't be that hard to do as third party alexa developers will provide the service for a price. Sonos should make it clear that you cannot use alexa to control your nas shared stuff.

Sonos great products but naff customer service !

yes. If alexa controls sonos we should have ALL OF THE SONOS features. Unfortunately, right now Alexa just uses Sonos as a speaker. Meaning I can't even use Apple Music with the sonos as I always do. Because Alexa doesn't like apple, even though sonos plays it. I just want Alexa to turn sonos on and control the volume. I don't want her to now restrict my music choices. am I missing something or is this true: the current hack just turns your sonos playing into a speaker, you give up all sonos functionality and streaming services if you use alexa to "control" sonos?

Count me in..... if it doesn't happen i may as well sell my sonos kit and just but AppleHome or amazon echo speakers.