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Sonos One not playing certain skills such as Sleep Sounds

  • 18 January 2018
  • 19 replies
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Sonos One is not playing certain skills such as Sleep Sounds (and other similar ambient noise skills). You ask it to open this skill and it does nothing. If you give it a further command in the skill it responds saying "you're currently enjoying Sleep Sounds, etc..." so it thinks it's playing it but it's clearly not.
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Best answer by Keith N 13 June 2018, 20:20

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19 replies

Userlevel 7
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Hello there, jmhoye. Thanks for posting and welcome to the Community. We are aware of some audio skills not working on Sonos One. While the team is hard at work on a solution, I have no other information to share. Thank you for the feedback and patience.
Thanks Keith, does the team feel there is a high probability they can fix it? I only have 3 days left to return the product.

Thanks
Userlevel 7
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No worries. It's on our list to bring full audio skill support to Sonos One.
Here's a workaround for those interested in having some white noise while sleeping. If you are a Spotify user search for an ambient noise sound track (there are plenty of them) and select one. Create a playlist with that one track. Turn on Cross Fade in Spotify (Settings --> Playback --> Cross Fade) and adjust the timing of the fade. I chose about 3 seconds (this is so that when it gets to the end of the track it doesn't abruptly stop and start. Rather it fades). I think you can cross fade in the Sonos app as well. When ready to play it say "Alexa play my [ambient noise playlist name] playlist" and then say "Alexa loop" This will loop the track indefinitely. To stop the playing just say "Alexa Stop". Hope this helps.
Userlevel 7
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Creative workaround, jmhoye! Thanks for sharing. Will definitely be sharing this with the technicians.
Userlevel 7
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Yeah, most of the on-demand music services do have albums of nature and sleep sounds too... I've seen some in Google Play Music as well... just can't voice control that one yet. 🙂
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I've found that it's not playing ANY third party sounds added to Alexa skills, not just certain ones. I can only get the 'native' applications like Pandora and TuneIn to work properly. Apple Music isn't supported via Alexa, neither is Pandora, so it's really inconsistent in regards to what you can do via voice as opposed to the apps. 3rd party Podcast apps, like Overcast not being supported seems like a bit of an odd decision too. And then there is Airplay... I hear Airplay 2 is coming, but no date

I get this is a new product and software is still maturing, but being able to play skills added to Alexa seems pretty basic. I'd also love to know when this will be addressed.
I'm in a similar boat as @jmhoye. Certain skills start up just fine, but no audio is played. In no danger of abandoning the Sonos Ones that I have (there are 3), but really would love to see this functionality improved ASAP, particularly for skills like Headspace.
I'm in agreement with everyone here. I just wrote tech support on a solution and there isn't an ETA but referred me to the community board. I like Sonos's quality but you're competing with Apple now (and hence the special) so I would hope that you would address the functionality issues. Thanks
No worries. It's on our list to bring full audio skill support to Sonos One.

Must be a bit embarrassing for Sonos that a $49 third-party Alexa device for the car fully supports these, as well as Audible. I have one in my car, works well, even though I do sometimes have to shout “Alexa!” at it.

https://goroav.com/pages/viva
Any update? We just purchased our very first Sonos instead of the HomePod (which was the initial plan). We use the Sleep Sounds continually; it’s our most used skill. I am extremely disappointed and rethinking my purchase decision. I thought Sonos was supposed to be this high tech, industry leader yet it can’t play ambient TP apps???
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Another workaround (sorry if someone else posted this I didn’t dig through all replies)... I have an Echo Dot wired to CONNECT in my garage. I open sleep sounds on that Echo & it begins playing through Sonos in my garage as Line In from Dot. Then I just open the Sonos app & group my garage with Sonos ONE in bedroom real fast, then ungroup & voilà! Sleep sounds playing on Sonos One in my bedroom.
@keith can you give status??? Thanks.

No worries. It's on our list to bring full audio skill support to Sonos One.
Userlevel 7
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@keith can you give status??? Thanks.
While it is still our goal to support all audio skills on Amazon Alexa, I do not have new information to share about this. I will be sure to update this topic and any other the moment I have an update. Thanks for your patience.
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You know what,, i'm not going to go negative on sonos here but i'm hoping that whatever happens, sonos first fixes audio skills on alexa before they go with launching google assistant support.
Because if they do then there probably wouldn't be time for this to be fixed
Is there any time scale on this? It’s mildly annoying that every time I say “good morning” or “good night” I get “Audio actions are currently not supported on this device” instead of the nice message I requested, Alexa carries out the smart home requests associated with the “Good Morning” routine but doesn’t read the news and weather etc, seriously considering replacing the Sonos One in my bedroom with a dot just to have full functionality!!
A reply from somebody at Sonos ( @keith ) with even a rough timescale would be appreciated.
A reply from somebody at Sonos ( @keith ) with even a rough timescale would be appreciated.

Sonos generally does not give timelines, especially on functionality that is heavily dependent on the work of other parties, as this one is.
Userlevel 7
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A reply from somebody at Sonos ( @keith ) with even a rough timescale would be appreciated.
jgatie is right about this. Given the generally tumultuous and fickle nature of software development, it would be unfair to set an expectation publicly when we cannot guarantee it's delivery. We'd much rather set the correct expectation, one time, rather than constantly revise previous statements and reset expectations.

However...

Ryan S has recently posted a helpful update from the team about this. Rest assured, the team is actively working to continue enhancing and bringing the best of Alexa to Sonos.

Thanks for keeping the conversation going!