Sonos One doesn't work with Hue?

  • 23 October 2017
  • 35 replies
  • 18229 views

According to Amazon that's the case.

So i did a chat with Amazon support since the Sonos One is not finding my Phillips Hue lights (which work fine with the Dot)...



Can someone from Sonos weigh in on this? If i can't entirely replace my Dot with the Sonos One then it's going to get sent back.

Quite simply my Sonos One doesn't find my hue lights, but if i plug the Dot back in it disovers them fine, and they can be controlled via the One. If i unplug the Dot the lights become unreachable. All other smart home devices are ok.

I don't want to make this post too wordy, but i've done all the troubleshooting i can think of, inculding removing and re-adding voice services which i saw in another post. I have removed the Dot from my Alexa account, leaving just the One, still no joy.

My lights are using the v1 Hue Bridge in case that matters

Thanks

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35 replies

I am having the same issue. My hue bridge is the Version 1 (round) and each time I try to discover them, they are just not found. Annoying
oh no... following. My Sonos One should be arriving tomorrow and I will be super bummed if Hue doesn't work.
My suspicion is that the Sonos One is an Alexa enabled device, and not a full Alexa device. Which means that it has a certain amount of difference, which is why things like "drop in" and other features, presumably Hue lights direct control, don't work. That being said, I'd assume that a Sonos One would be able to control a Hue bridge. I haven't tested this yet, but that's my assumption. The new Echo devices from Amazon appear to be able to be a zigbee control device, but I'd seriously doubt that a necessary hardware implementation is made in the Sonos One.
Userlevel 7
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Hey guys, the Sonos One can control the Hue devices through the Hue Bridge. The only skill you need are the Hue and the Sonos Alexa skills. There isn't a unique Sonos One skill.

One thing to bring up is that the Sonos One has Amazon Alexa built in, which means it's an Alexa enabled device, but it's not an Echo device. The difference there is that some features are Amazon Echo only, such as drop in and calling features. The Sonos One doesn't have a built-in smart hub so you can't run Hue devices directly off of it, but you can use Alexa within the device to issue commands to your devices.
I managed to get this working BUT I had to do it through my Samsung SmartThings platform. I guess if you don;t have SmartThings, this might not work but I just downloaded the Smartthings 'Skill' and it found all of my Hue devices which I can now control through Sonons One.
That's good news Gavin. Sadly i don't have that option.

Ryan, i'm glad in theory this scenario is meant to work (clearly Amazon support need to be skilled-up on the new system). Do you have ideas on why i can't pair my hub to the One? I do really want to get this working as light control is one of my most used Alexa features.

Thanks
Userlevel 6
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I had the same problem with Hue, fixed by removing Alexa from the One via Sonos app then re-adding it.
Userlevel 4
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PC World currently have a Hue starter kit with two std white bulbs on sale for £49... I wonder if it's worth getting one to see if a V2 hub works better, and if not just return it? (V2 adds HomeKit support too...)
I had the same problem with Hue, fixed by removing Alexa from the One via Sonos app then re-adding it. Hi Dave, i saw your original post on this, and i tried that with high hopes. Sadly it didnt work.
Did you do anything else after removing Alexa from your Sonos one?
Do you have any other Alexa devices and is your Hue bridge the v1?
Userlevel 6
Badge +11
I had the same problem with Hue, fixed by removing Alexa from the One via Sonos app then re-adding it. Hi Dave, i saw your original post on this, and i tried that with high hopes. Sadly it didnt work.
Did you do anything else after removing Alexa from your Sonos one?
Do you have any other Alexa devices and is your Hue bridge the v1?


Hue v2. I have Hive but not tried it, the One is boxed up for return. Maybe try saying 'Alexa, discover devices'
I had the same problem with Hue, fixed by removing Alexa from the One via Sonos app then re-adding it. Hi Dave, i saw your original post on this, and i tried that with high hopes. Sadly it didnt work.
Did you do anything else after removing Alexa from your Sonos one?
Do you have any other Alexa devices and is your Hue bridge the v1?


Hue v2. I have Hive but not tried it, the One is boxed up for return. Maybe try saying 'Alexa, discover devices'


Tried that. It completes suspicously quickly finding 11 devices. The number should be around 20 inculding the bulbs. I have pressed the button on the bridge before/during the discovery and that doesnt help.
Hey guys, the Sonos One can control the Hue devices through the Hue Bridge. The only skill you need are the Hue and the Sonos Alexa skills. There isn't a unique Sonos One skill.

One thing to bring up is that the Sonos One has Amazon Alexa built in, which means it's an Alexa enabled device, but it's not an Echo device. The difference there is that some features are Amazon Echo only, such as drop in and calling features. The Sonos One doesn't have a built-in smart hub so you can't run Hue devices directly off of it, but you can use Alexa within the device to issue commands to your devices.


Would this mean that if you have a Echo somewhere else in your house to act as the smart hub you could get full functionality from the Sonos One?
Hey guys, the Sonos One can control the Hue devices through the Hue Bridge. The only skill you need are the Hue and the Sonos Alexa skills. There isn't a unique Sonos One skill.

One thing to bring up is that the Sonos One has Amazon Alexa built in, which means it's an Alexa enabled device, but it's not an Echo device. The difference there is that some features are Amazon Echo only, such as drop in and calling features. The Sonos One doesn't have a built-in smart hub so you can't run Hue devices directly off of it, but you can use Alexa within the device to issue commands to your devices.

Hi Ryan, can you or anyone from Sonos assist with my issue? Amazon have been no help.

After all my testing it just seems like the One wont discover the hue bridge without having a companion Echo device. Can you 100% confirm that isn't the case?

If i ask the One to "discover devices" it completes suspciously fast, around 2 seconds, saying it has found 11 devices (it should be around 20 with my bulbs).

While running a "discover devices", invoked from either the app or the voice command, i have run a packet capture for all traffic originating from the One over my wifi, i can see some HTTPS traffic out to 52.94.216.73 which is presumably the voice data going to Amazon, and some standard stuff like DNS and ARP, but no multicast or broadcast traffic that would suggest an actual search for the hue bridge.

Struggling to think of what else to try. It just seems like your product doesn't actually have the native support for Hue devices.

Thanks
Figured it out guys.. must use with an echo dot.. the dot connects to the amazon ap and then your one will be able to operate its skills.
Userlevel 7
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As long as you have the necessary skills enabled on your Alexa App, you should be able to use the Sonos One to discover any of those devices. What happens when you say "discover devices" is a command is issued to your Alexa app to search for devices on the network. The Sonos One isn't directly searching. Most of that is all cloud based.

You can also try discovering your devices using the Alexa app on your phone directly, instead of asking your Sonos One.
Userlevel 1
I can confirm my Sonos one controls my Hue without any issues. I'm kind of loving it.
I was having the same issues with my v1 (circular) Hue bridge + Sonos One. Hue lights worked fine with apps on iOS & IFTTT, but couldn't be discovered by Alexa/Sonos One. I spoke to both Amazon (who was useless) and Sonos (who referred me back to Amazon) today with no luck. However, I decided to just bite the bullet and upgrade my old v1 bridge to the newer v2 (square) bridge. Works fine after the changeover...not the greatest solution since it cost me $60, but at least I can control my lights again...

p.s. Before I switched bridges, I did get a workaround to run correctly using an IFTTT Applet with my v1 bridge, but it wasn't the most elegant solution.
Userlevel 7
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I've had a v2 Bridge as that's what came in my Hue bundle... it's worked great with Alexa on my Echo Dot, and it's working great with the Sonos One as well. BTW, Sonos wouldn't have anything to do with support for the Hue and Alexa, even through the Sonos One. That would be between Amazon and Philips.
I can confirm my Sonos one controls my Hue without any issues. I'm kind of loving it.
May i ask if you have the v1 or v2 hue bridge and if you have any other Alexa devices on your network?

As long as you have the necessary skills enabled on your Alexa App, you should be able to use the Sonos One to discover any of those devices. What happens when you say "discover devices" is a command is issued to your Alexa app to search for devices on the network. The Sonos One isn't directly searching. Most of that is all cloud based.
Are you sure about that? I can see SSDP traffic between my Echo Dot and my Hue bridge when i click discover in the app. This traffic doesnt occur when i use just the Sonos One.

Have Sonos actually tested a Hue Bridge v1 with a Sonos One and no other alexa devices involved? From what i'm seeing that simply doesn't work. My options are:
- Keep my Echo Dot in addtion to the One, just a waste of power
- Spend £50 on a new Bridge which might fix it
- Send the Sonos One back
So i took the plunge and ordered a new Hue bridge. I have no need for a new bridge, my v1 has served me very well.

I used the Hue app to perform a migration to the new bridge, and what do you know, the Sonos One now discovers it straight away and my lights work fine.

I think Sonos need to update their marketing material and support guides, because it seems to me like the v1 bridge simply isn't supported. It's a shame this has cost me money and quite a bit of wasted time.

I would be keen to find out if anyone has sucsessfully got a v1 bridge working with a Sonos One without any 3rd party solutions or additional Alexa devices on their network.
Userlevel 3
Badge +3
My hue lights work well with the Sonos one. I do have the 2nd gen hue bridge, not sure if that matters.
Userlevel 7
My hue lights work well with the Sonos one. I do have the 2nd gen hue bridge, not sure if that matters.

Are you using a Dot or other Echo device in conjunction with the Play One to control your lights?
Userlevel 7
Can someone please clarify if the Sonos One will control lights without having a Dot or Echo as a go between. As of now I can only control lights connected via a Hue Bridge (2nd Gen) by having my Echo Dot as a go between. Not a big deal but some answers in this post seem to indicate that a Dot is not needed with the Sonos One. Thanks!
Userlevel 7
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Hey Aj, a couple others in this thread have confirmed the Sonos One working with the Hue lights through that hub. The only potential concern is that with the v1 Hue Bridge there might be trouble. I'm looking into that with the team, but from what we've seen it shouldn't be an issue.

Just a general note, if you're having issues discovering devices, you can also try discovering using a mobile device on the network running an Amazon App, the Amazon Music app has Alexa built in, you could use that to discover devices.
Userlevel 7
Hey Aj, a couple others in this thread have confirmed the Sonos One working with the Hue lights through that hub. The only potential concern is that with the v1 Hue Bridge there might be trouble. I'm looking into that with the team, but from what we've seen it shouldn't be an issue.

Just a general note, if you're having issues discovering devices, you can also try discovering using a mobile device on the network running an Amazon App, the Amazon Music app has Alexa built in, you could use that to discover devices.


Thanks Ryan

I figured out that I needed to disable the Hue skill which essentially delinks it and then re-enable the skill which required me to sign back into my Hue account and go through discovery mode again. To me that was the same as doing a reset to clean out the cache (erase everything) and start with a clean slate. So just in case someone else runs into a similar issue I can definitely say that an Echo device is not required as a go between or bridge between the Sonos One and the Hue Bridge v2. The Sonos One with Alexa will find the Hue Bridge straight ahead. Thanks again for responding and offering your assistance. 🆒