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Question about voice integration of Plex with Alexa (Echo Dot) and Sonos

  • 4 January 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 678 views
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I’m trying to use Alexa to play local music via Plex, on my Sonos system. I can’t quite get it all working and am wondering if there’s something that I need to configure differently, or if it’s just not doable at this point.

Here’s my equipment:

  • Sonos Playbar, Sub, and a pair of One SL speakers (configured as surrounds)
  • Echo Dot 
  • Raspberry Pi 3B running Plex media server with local MP3 files (also has a Samba server running)

I’m pretty new to all this equipment, so please forgive me for any obvious oversights. 

Plex is set up and working - can use the Sonos app on my phone to browse and play my local music (both with Plex and Samba) on the Raspberry Pi. The Echo Dot can play music from Plex on its local speaker (using the “Ask Plex…” command).

The Echo Dot (Alexa app) has the Sonos devices configured as a default group, so when I ask it to play something from Amazon Music it will automatically play it on Sonos. Before I had the group properly configured with both the Sonos and the Dot, you would have to specify “... in the Family Room”, but now it defaults to Sonos for music without specifying a location.

This is all great, and I’m not complaining! However, the obvious next step is to be able to talk to the Dot and ask it to play music from Plex on the Sonos system, but I just can’t seem to get it to work.

If I say “Alexa, ask Plex to play Beck” it will play Beck (from local files on Plex) via the Echo speaker, and not on Sonos. If I say “Alexa, ask Plex to play Beck in the Family Room” it will play “Family Tree” by Belle and Sebastian (from local files on Plex) via the Echo speaker, I assume because it’s interpreting the phrase “in the family room” to be a song title and it thinks I can’t tell Beck from Belle and Sebastian. 

So, can someone tell me how to initiate the playing of local media via voice on the Echo, and have it play on the Sonos speakers?  I’m not married to Plex, or to the Echo Dot for that matter (I also have a Google/Nest Home Mini that I haven’t played with yet). Or should I stop messing around with all this stuff, leave well enough alone, and enjoy listening to music the way that these systems want me to?

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Best answer by UKMedia 4 January 2020, 17:54

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4 replies

UKMedia
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

The only way that I know to get this to work is where you flag a local source as a Sonos Favorite and then use IFTTT to create a Trigger to play that Sonos Favorite.  But you need to create a new trigger for each favorite.

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
D

Thanks for the info. Can you quantify a “favorite”? Does that mean an album or a playlist, or can it reference the server/shared drive (and then you can somehow specify details)?

UKMedia
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

Thanks for the info. Can you quantify a “favorite”? Does that mean an album or a playlist, or can it reference the server/shared drive (and then you can somehow specify details)?


Hi

 

A Sonos Favorite can be either a Radio Station, Playlist, Album or Track.  If you use the Search function within the Sonos App, you should see your Local Server displayed, if it matches the search criteria, you can then click on the three vertical dots next to the item you want to play and add as a Sonos Favorite.

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)
D

OK, sounds like it’s not going to work for me, but voice integration isn’t why I got Sonos, so I can wait for it to get better. Maybe I’ll give it a try with the Google Home Mini… 

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