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Sonos One not playing Alexa output

  • 21 October 2017
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Userlevel 1
I am using the Sonos One I received today. I’ve got everything set up properly I believe but here’s the issue I’m having... the music plays fine through sonos app and commands but any non sonos commands aren’t outputting through the speaker. For example, if I ask for the flash briefing it will tell me “here’s your flash briefing” and then nothing will come out of the speaker. Same for “sleep sounds.” If I ask it to play a sleep sound it will say it’s playing but it won’t actually play. Seems to be the skill outputs but I could be wrong. My echo dot is working fine.
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Best answer by Ryan S 23 October 2017, 19:42

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69 replies

Userlevel 3
I have the same problem. I ask alexa to play Thriller and it says "Playing Thriller in the Bedroom" and then nothing happens.
Userlevel 1
Tried resetting and stuff but still no luck. It’s like the Echo in the Sonos One doesn’t know it has speakers attached to it to play all of the amazon service related things to it.
Userlevel 1
I have 2 x Play 1's & The Playbar in a surround setup located in the living room. I have an Echo Dot in the living room also and one in the bedroom. Following the release of the Alexa/Sonos integration, I set it up and it worked once, maybe twice. It then stopped working i.e. Alexa will say "playing ... in the living room" but no audio will play.

The apps and devices are up to date and I have rolled back the integration, forgot the devices and reset it, but still the same issue occurs. I even tried renaming the group in the Sonos app and retrying with that.

Massively disappointed with the experience so far. Tell me this is a beta release??
Yes, the Sonos Alexa skill is currently a public beta.
Userlevel 1
Yes, the Sonos Alexa skill is currently a public beta.

Thanks for the response. Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon!
Userlevel 3
I tried switching my default music service from Spotify to Amazon Music, but the problem persists.
Userlevel 3
I got a solution that worked for me from another forum:

Login to the Alexa portal on a computer (not a mobile device);

alexa.amazon.com
alexa.amazon.co.uk

Pick the one that's correct for your region.

With the 'Smart Home' section, select devices. In this section find any Sonos products and hit the forget button. Then move back to the Smart Home section and select smart home skills which is located at the bottom. Next to Sonos select Disable.

Once this is done, open the Sonos app;

More > Settings > Room Settings > Select the room which contains the ONE > Voice Services (might ask you to login) > Amazon Alexa > A pop up will appear > Remove Amazon Alexa from this room > Once removed select the MORE tab > Voice Services > Follow the install steps again.

Once that's done, move back to the Alexa website portal and select SKILLS. Search for SONOS, enable the skill. Once done search for devices. Check within the Smart Home section under devices that all your Sonos products are showing. Then give the speaker a go.
Userlevel 5
Badge +9
I am using the Sonos One I received today. I’ve got everything set up properly I believe but here’s the issue I’m having... the music plays fine through sonos app and commands but any non sonos commands aren’t outputting through the speaker. For example, if I ask for the flash briefing it will tell me “here’s your flash briefing” and then nothing will come out of the speaker. Same for “sleep sounds.” If I ask it to play a sleep sound it will say it’s playing but it won’t actually play. Seems to be the skill outputs but I could be wrong. My echo dot is working fine.

Isn't this intended? I thought all the professional Sonos One reviewers said that "flash briefing" was one of the things that Alexa would not do through the Sonos one (they made it sound like it was a purposeful limitation -- not a bug).
Userlevel 1
I am using the Sonos One I received today. I’ve got everything set up properly I believe but here’s the issue I’m having... the music plays fine through sonos app and commands but any non sonos commands aren’t outputting through the speaker. For example, if I ask for the flash briefing it will tell me “here’s your flash briefing” and then nothing will come out of the speaker. Same for “sleep sounds.” If I ask it to play a sleep sound it will say it’s playing but it won’t actually play. Seems to be the skill outputs but I could be wrong. My echo dot is working fine.

Isn't this intended? I thought all the professional Sonos One reviewers said that "flash briefing" was one of the things that Alexa would not do through the Sonos one (they made it sound like it was a purposeful limitation -- not a bug).


If it’s intended, it appears broken. The Sonos One will say “here is your flash briefing” but then nothing after that. If the flash briefing doesn’t work then it should probably tell you that. But it’s not just the flash briefing anyway. Not sure why this would be by design.
I am having the same problem but found a possible work around. In frustration, I just asked alexa to play smooth jazz (from echo device). She said "Amazon music is streaming on another device, would you like to stream on this device instead?" (or very similar). I said yes and she played music out of the echo. I then told Alexa to stop. Then I said "play smooth Jazz from kitchen speaker (play 3 stereo pair in kitchen) and it worked! Prior to this solution, I couldn't find any music streaming on any other device so not sure what that was about.
Userlevel 2
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Interestingly I forgot that I had a similar problem. I couldn't get the Sonos One to stream any radio station. I then asked it to play some reggae, which it successfully did from Amazon Music. After that, radio stations etc all seem to work fine - for now....
Userlevel 1
I did some searching and found on a review of the Sonos One on "the-gadgeteer" that:

"At present, not all of Alexa’s voice commands work with the Sonos One, such as asking Alexa for a flash briefing, but an update will address this soon. "

That describes my issue. Certain skill commands are not working like the flash briefing or sleep sounds. So I will hope that info above is correct and an update will address it soon.

I will say I'm not having the same problems others are describing above like music not playing at all, or nothing after one song or problems with targeted commands like play music in kitchen. I have a Sonos Play 1, Sonos One and Echo Dot.
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
I did some searching and found on a review of the Sonos One on "the-gadgeteer" that:

"At present, not all of Alexa’s voice commands work with the Sonos One, such as asking Alexa for a flash briefing, but an update will address this soon. "

That describes my issue. Certain skill commands are not working like the flash briefing or sleep sounds. So I will hope that info above is correct and an update will address it soon.

I will say I'm not having the same problems others are describing above like music not playing at all, or nothing after one song or problems with targeted commands like play music in kitchen. I have a Sonos Play 1, Sonos One and Echo Dot.


I can confirm this, some of the Alexa Echo abilities aren't working on the Sonos One right now. Flash Briefing is one of the ones that we're hard at work on and should have brought to the Sonos One as soon as we can. Some features are Echo only right now, and might not be available on the Sonos One, like the Messaging and Calling features. That may change in the future, but we don't have any specifics to share.
Userlevel 1
Thank you Ryan! It's good to know that at least for me at the moment that it isn't a setup issue and I can quit pulling my hair out over it haha. Is there a central location to see potential known issues? This could help for those looking for information on issues they may be running into.
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
The best place is here in the community. The announcement threads for Sonos One has a lot of good details in it.
Userlevel 1
The best place is here in the community. The announcement threads for Sonos One has a lot of good details in it.

Yeah. My suggestion would be to have an official "known issues" thread or something. Especially if this is in beta. Otherwise it's going to be a headache for you guys and especially those of us looking for non configuration related solutions. A lot of the posts here are just user error.
Userlevel 7
Badge +26
The best place is here in the community. The announcement threads for Sonos One has a lot of good details in it.

Yeah. My suggestion would be to have an official "known issues" thread or something. Especially if this is in beta. Otherwise it's going to be a headache for you guys and especially those of us looking for non configuration related solutions. A lot of the posts here are just user error.


We've been considering it. I hate to admit it, but the odds are that people might not read that thread and will ask the same questions anyway. We tend to get questions asked in the announcement threads that are answered in the announcement thread's first post.
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Same issue here.. I ask the Play One to play Radio 4.

It worked the first couple of times, then stopped responding.. Just sits and gives me silence after saying "BBC Radio 4 from TuneIn playing on Kitchen"..

If I Forget and rediscover speaker, it works again a couple more times and then stops responding
How is this released with such massive software flaws??
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I too have just received a One but cannot get my usual flash briefing (I have an Echo in another room). Bit annoying really on top of no voice command on Spotify either
Userlevel 2
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@VOSOME - I think the Alexa element is still officially in Beta - and they always said not all features would be available initially. I think 'Ryan S' has given further details above.
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I seem to have got things working a bit better, just by "forgetting" and re-adding the speaker over and over until things worked.

Method #1: Register/Deregister through Amazon Alexa app
-- Go to Amazon Alexa mobile App -> Skills -> Sonos
-- Forget device and Discover devices

Method #2: Deactivate/Reactivate Alexa through Sonos app
-- Open Sonos app -> More -> Voice Services -> Room Settings -> Select your device
-- Click on Voice Services -> Amazon Aleaxa and choose "Remove Amazon Alexa from this room"
-- And add Amazon Alexa through More -> Voice Services again

I just started alternating between doing the above two things and at some point things just started working a bit more reliably..
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Did you get the news flash briefing? I can’t get that at all
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
The Flash briefing (and similarly, sports update) do not currently work on the Sonos One. Sonos has said that it is high on their priority list to get these features working and that they are working with Amazon on it.
I got a solution that worked for me from another forum:

Login to the Alexa portal on a computer (not a mobile device);

alexa.amazon.com
alexa.amazon.co.uk

Pick the one that's correct for your region.

With the 'Smart Home' section, select devices. In this section find any Sonos products and hit the forget button. Then move back to the Smart Home section and select smart home skills which is located at the bottom. Next to Sonos select Disable.

Once this is done, open the Sonos app;

More > Settings > Room Settings > Select the room which contains the ONE > Voice Services (might ask you to login) > Amazon Alexa > A pop up will appear > Remove Amazon Alexa from this room > Once removed select the MORE tab > Voice Services > Follow the install steps again.

Once that's done, move back to the Alexa website portal and select SKILLS. Search for SONOS, enable the skill. Once done search for devices. Check within the Smart Home section under devices that all your Sonos products are showing. Then give the speaker a go.


Thanks zadi ...Yahoo this worked!!!! :-)

I've been scratching my head for hours.Just got my Sonos ONE delivered to me today in the UK on the day of its release and basically, Alexa did not work ..at all! She could tell me the weather and other trivial bits of info, but when I asked her to play something in my Amazon Prime music/playlists, she would repeat my command ...but nothing happened ...no music ...nothing.

With my laptop open on my lap, and the app open on my mobile phone in my hand, I went through the steps which you detailed beautifully ....and it worked a treat!!!! Thanks 🙂