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Sonos Alexa Integration India

  • 2 November 2017
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80 replies

H
Hi, I live in the Netherlands, bought an echo dot in the UK and via an usa based apple account downloaded the software for Alexa. Works fine (also with Philips Hue lights) as long as I give the commands in english and some local things are obviously not available: train times, etc.

I keep reading the standard response "Alexa support for Sonos is available in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and we're hard at work getting everything ready to bring the Sonos skill for Alexa to more countries. We haven't announced which countries are up next, but our aspiration is everywhere."

Can you please explain why that is the case? What is the harm for users outside of those 3 countries to be able to use Alexa with Sonos as it can obviously work. What holds that back? I would like to see an explanation rather than a statement like the one above.
K
Sonos explanations will take time, so permit a chance:
1. There is no harm that I can see, if it works for you as it does. As it is, you don't have local content anyway.
2. Outside of these 3 countries - now 5 if you add India+Japan - the problem is Amazon. Alexa app/services have to be made available by them first to allow local content.
3. But after that, it seems to come back to Sonos. Until they catch up with the Amazon Alexa release, you will have to use the Dot the way you are using today for Sonos, or use it for local content and local relevant skills. Doing both will only be after Sonos Skills are present in the Netherlands release of Amazon Alexa. What "hard work" is needed for this either in Sonos or in Amazon, I have no idea.
K
Squeaky wheel knocking on the door. Mixed metaphors suck, I know, but may attract Sonos attention. It is now 18 days and counting. And a weekend coming up.

PS: Sonos created a ticket for this one, directed by their CEO to do so and for those interested, a quote from my update there as well today:
"When will these be available? When can I expect a communication to an expected date? "You will know it when you see it" doesn't seem a customer friendly answer. Given that Sonos has promised simultaneous availability in its own FAQ on Alexa on this site.

It is now 18 days since Amazon launched Alexa in India on October 30th."
K
More than a bump, a question for Ryan from the Canada thread.

As I see there, two main issues arise - the pathing working well between the two clouds involved in the integration feature. And two, accent recognition if Sonos One is to understand Indians speaking in English.

Why can't these two be dealt with in sequential steps so those of us who don't have or even want the One can get going with Amazon hardware released in India, that has been customised to our accents after a claimed 12 month effort by Amazon?

Why have us wait till Sonos One also understands what we are saying? Not having to solve such challenges is why Sonos partnered with Amazon in the first place!

Whose door do I knock on with this request - else we won't get this in India even in 2018.
Ryan S
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I'll pass the request along to the team so it's in the right hands.

Speaking personally, I think the team would prefer having all the main work behind the skill as done as possible before releasing it in a location, and not splitting up the release into a couple phases.

That could just be me worrying about trying to find a way to say, "Ok, the server side of the work is done, but unless you speak a certain way it won't recognize you."

I'll let you know if I hear anything I can share with you all.
Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.
H
As I can see I'll be facing the same music as you guys. I just bought Sonos One from Amazon UK (yet to receive it). Just on communicating with Amazon India Customer Care I came to know that Sonos Skills are not currently supported by Amazon India. Then I landed here. What I feel is that both Amazon and Sonos are equally responsible for the fiasco. Amazon India site officially list Sonos One, with Alexa built in, for sale. Based on this information I made my purchase. This is wrong information on part of Amazon as well.
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R
I have a Multi room setup with 4 speakers. On speaking to sonos over Twitter was assured integration will come soon as the official policy is to launch in every country that Alexa is offered.
Purchased echo based on that. Also in the initial days the Alexa app had a sonos icon which has now disappeared. Please make this a priority.
If possible then give us a timeline
K
was assured integration will come soon as the official policy is to launch in every country that Alexa is offered.

If possible then give us a timeline
Good luck getting anything better than "Soon".
K
The other thing that we also need to raise just now is the question of the simultaneous integration of Amazon Music including Prime into Sonos. Amazon India has given a year's free Prime subscription to all that have bought the Echo - with three devices purchased, mine now extends to 2021.
At this time, the only international music services that can be accessed via Echo/Dot are Amazon Music and Tune In Radio. Having Sonos Skills enabled in Alexa India but not having these services at the same time would make it a useless integration. One could use it for voice control on music playing from NAS, but that isn't half as useful as invoking music play as well.
V
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Got my Sonos One from US and disappointed to know that Alexa is not enabled. Being in IT industry for 20 years I dont understand the technical reason behind so much delay in enabling a skill in particular region.

I have bought an echo plus and returned due to poor quality of speakers, this is an advantage for Sonos
Considering the fact that
Sonos has to just allow customer to Enable the skill nothing else.
Alexa resides in Amazon Cloud and all communication from device is between AI API and Amazon cloud
Sonos already have the capability built in and proven in other regions
Sonos anyway do not sell or offer support in India hence nothing to loose enabling the skill.

All the above facts are pointing clear that technical issue is not the reason behind not enabling skills.
K

All the above facts are pointing clear that technical issue is not the reason behind not enabling skills.
What other issue could it be? Both companies stand to get more sales by doing this, so why not do it if it was not a technical issue?
V
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Looking at the number of issues reported about Alexa on Sonos One , sonos might have wrote a wrapper around Alexa API . Something that need extensive testing and prone to introduce multiple bugs. A wise implementation is as is and down the line customisation.
K
A cut/paste of an entire Ryan answer of a little over a month ago, on this subject, and I am NOT quoting out of context:
"It wouldn't likely be immediately when voice becomes available, but soon after. We'd need to test a few things out first."

What is "soon"? For Canada that is launching a month after India, early next month it is early 2018. Per Ryan.

For India where Amazon launched a day short of a month ago? "Soon" - I haven't heard anything more useful that that reply. But "soon" is more than 30 days in the Sonos dictionary, that much we know.
V
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Low priority item in their backlog or lack of respect for early adapters in certain part of the world.
Had I been in this forum before making purchase decision, I wouldn't have been even 1000 miles closer to SONOS.
K
What would you have bought in preference if you were to buy again today that would give you more than what Sonos does now?
V
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What would you have bought in preference if you were to buy again today that would give you more than what Sonos does now? BOSE sound touch with echo dot . As I mentioned earlier I bought this after returning Echo Plus , main purpose was to have AI based speaker. As Bose soundtouch enabled Alexa only an echo dot would have solved my problem. Now money on sonos wasted as Echo dot is on the way.
V
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It is 2 month since iPhone 8 public release till now truplay tuning for iPhone 8 is not supported.
I do not have any expectation on this company, seems it is heading the same route of blackberry and Nokia.

https://en.community.sonos.com/controllers-software-228995/ios-11-and-trueplay-6790909
K
No responses for more than a couple of days - 10 actually - from Sonos to questions posed here in that time. Will the Community Managers charged with ensuring responses do the necessary please?
V
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Looks like vacation season already started in Sonos. No response, no app update no commitment. Voice service " Not available in your country" Its a month and 5 days since amazon started alexa in india, these guys still sleeping. Looks like some major issues within this team
Ryan S
Userlevel 7
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Ryan: One month since Alexa/Echo were launched in India and no signs of Sonos Skills. Will it be sooner than the early 2018 promised for the later in the queue Canada? Will it be later? Only her hairdresser knows for sure...

As VijayS guessed, I did have a few days off. We don't have a public timeline to share regarding Alexa support for Sonos in India right now. As soon as one can be made available, I'll let you know.
Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.
K
Ryan, much more useful will be making these skills available in line with the EXISTING commitment made by Sonos that is there even today on this site. As of now Sonos is in breach of promise.

And if Sonos works in similar manner to US corporations I am familiar with, in another ten days it will effectively be curtains on 2017.

Very disappointing state of affairs, the Alexa integration, unless one's world consists of just the oyster that is US/UK/Germany.
K
Let me ask another question: in India, the only music service that Alexa will work on in the near future is Amazon Prime. For the India integration to be useful in a meaningful way, Amazon Prime will also have to be addable to Music services in Sonos. So will that ability be in place when the skills are released, or will that be another indeterminate wait after that release?
V
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Ryan: One month since Alexa/Echo were launched in India and no signs of Sonos Skills. Will it be sooner than the early 2018 promised for the later in the queue Canada? Will it be later? Only her hairdresser knows for sure...

As VijayS guessed, I did have a few days off. We don't have a public timeline to share regarding Alexa support for Sonos in India right now. As soon as one can be made available, I'll let you know.

Welcome back Ryan!
Not having Alexa for few more weeks not much of a problem. My real frustration is ,
1. No specific project plan that can be communicated to customer with a tentative timeline.
2. Being in technology and in the era of TAKT and Sprint something that is not able to deliver after a Month of availability.
3. Enabling something in a country that have least risk, lack of courage from Product, development and program team.
4. Lack of willingness to take low to moderate Risk where impact almost insignificant.
5. Almost NIL development effort as options has to just enable in Cloud as feature is already LIVE in the cloud.

This boil down to a weak management who is not willing to take even a low risk. Another similar example is Room correction via iPhone 8 microphone, still not available even when there is slight difference in implementation of API in SDK.
K
For anyone that wants to have a preview, here is how to get one.

On Amazon India, change your country to US via "Manage Contents and Devices". I then launched the Alexa App via my computer and after some time, in response to the above change, it opened via amazon.com with Sonos skills included.
Once that is opened, follow the instructions on this site to get them enabled. Then change back to country India, to get back all local access for shopping including content for Alexa. The Skills still remain in the app, as do discovered Sonos speakers.

But, the preview leaves a bad taste in the mouth. For one, there is no Amazon Prime content accessible, although available in India because it isn't enabled in Sonos under Music Services. I can play it, but only via Echo in standalone mode.

Then there is this disappointment: I just discovered this issue though I suspect it has been raised here but I haven't delved into till now. When skills are enabled and Sonos speakers are linked to Alexa, ALL of those playing duck and drop volume when the wake word is uttered even for a command that does not expect a response from Sonos. So if a standalone Echo in one room hears a wake word, a Sonos speaker playing in another room also drops its volume. Very distracting for that room.

Finally, because of inefficient server to server comms, there is too much of a lag between the voice command and music coming out of Sonos speakers.

For now, I have disabled the Skills and delinked Sonos because there is no benefit at this time. It took me all of 60 minutes to decide this and do so.

I think now that it will take all of 2018 for this voice thing to be more than the gimmick it is just now for music play via Sonos, with as many cons as pros to it that detract from the experience. Even for users in the US/UK/Germany oyster.
K
Seeing how clunky this is, and comparing to how slick is the way that Google Play Music casts to Sonos in India as well, leads me to think that when Google Assistant is rolled out, it will be a much better user experience.

I am quite satisfied with how the Echo works for music play in standalone mode - but the way it works with Sonos once skills are enabled, is decidedly a turn off. In fact, I suspect that the wired to a Connect line in jack Dot offers a better user experience.
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