Can you please provide me information if Sonos is actively working on creating skills for Alexa India Account. If yes, whats the target completion date. If not, is there any other way I can add Sonos skills in Alexa India account or connect echo dot to Sonos Playbar?
Best answer by Paul A
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You’re probably considered too small a developer to go after, no disrespect intended. I’d imagine Sonos’ lawyers are more conservative. I know there were things I could get away with as a smaller game company that I never could get by the legal departments when I worked with Sony or Disney. Its a question of how much risk you’re willing to take, and how exposed you are…
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Alexa support is determined by Amazon, not Sonos. In order to offer Alexa in India, Sonos must get authorization from Amazon, they are not legally allowed to add it on their own. Any schedule of said authorization would be held by Amazon.
I’m not sure I buy this entirely. When I did my Alexa skill for Sonos, I added Indian support without any special permissions from Amazon (other than the usual submission process). Their developer tools made it much more painful that simply hitting a checkbox for “in-in”, and testing it from the USA was a gigantic PITA. In the end the biggest problem was latency: my Alexa server was on the west coast of the USA, and Indian home networks and internet were slower than expected, which made the whole transaction often timeout. Sonos have a lot more resources them I do so could put a server in south Asia to fix some of those issues, but there could be other blockers, both technical and legal.
Alexa support is determined by Amazon, not Sonos. In order to offer Alexa in India, Sonos must get authorization from Amazon, they are not legally allowed to add it on their own. Any schedule of said authorization would be held by Amazon.
Hi,
I am using Sonos arc and pair of one sl, but
Alexa not supported in India, Alexa support with arc coming or not in India
I can’t help more with the SVC feature - I do not use it nor am I waiting for Alexa skills since all my Sonos kit has line in jacks to which I have wired Echo front ends, and I now use Sonos only as dumb electronics - which function it renders exceedingly well.
But all this works for me because I do not use soundbar solutions for TV since I dislike all of them.
I have been planning to buy sonos now hearing the response... I am wondering if Sonos is actively looking for Indian Market, i would like to know the Alexa and Google assistant support availability in India
Google Assistant availability is shown on this Support Page:
https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/google-assistant-availability-on-sonos
Amazon Alexa availability is shown on this Page:
https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/amazon-alexa-availability-on-sonos
You can either monitor those pages (perhaps) for announcement/updates, or you can contact/chat to Sonos Support via this LINK, although you are probably best to speak to Google and/or Amazon to let them know of your interest, as such things are probably driven by customer demand aswell as the required infrastructure.
I have been planning to buy sonos now hearing the response... I am wondering if Sonos is actively looking for Indian Market, i would like to know the Alexa and Google assistant support availability in India
Sonos Team,
any update on the availability of Alexa for India ?
Sadly, I have been fooled by Sonos, and Amazon India. Wish I had seen this thread earlier.
After purchasing from Amazon, I immediately asked for exchange the speakers with something else, but Amazon India denied. I purchased from Amazon Inda authorized seller Appario Retail Private Ltd.
Please Sonos and Amazon India don't fool people.
For what it’s worth, here’s another plea to Sonos product management for prioritising the release of Alexa skill on the Indian skill store. The most basic use case is really just having my echo devices play music on my Sonos speakers. e.g. saying “Alexa, play music in the living room” and having the music play on the Sonos speaker group instead of the echo device in the room (Alexa allows setting a default speaker for music playback in each room) - This has worked on my Heos speakers in India since 2017 but does not on my Sonos speakers.
Please provide Alexa link to sonos in India. I use Sonos and love it. But cannot use its potential because of no link with Alexa. Can you tell him a what steps are taken to resolve this issue. Thanks
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In the time it takes for you to respond to this thread, you could enable the Alexa skill for English (IN). I'm an Alexa skill developer, so I know.
I suspect it is more than just a check the box thing and involves Sonos server infrastructure upgrades to ensure that the necessary Sonos and Amazon server level integration works fine all the time in a distant geography.
As someone who has actually rolled out a Sonos Alexa skill to India, I can tell you it is NOT just a checkbox. The India endpoints have less language features than the en-us ones so you need to adjust the schema, change the code to handle the differences, then re-test everything, plus you need to host your servers somewhere vaguely close to India else the latency is a killer. You also need to stand-up a permanent test system in each geography in order for Amazon to test against every month or so, else they disable your service. Just some of the reasons it was easier to pull my entire Alexa skill then try to keep it running.
In the time it takes for you to respond to this thread, you could enable the Alexa skill for English (IN). I'm an Alexa skill developer, so I know.
I suspect it is more than just a check the box thing and involves Sonos server infrastructure upgrades to ensure that the necessary Sonos and Amazon server level integration works fine all the time in a distant geography.
Amazon sees India has a strategic market of interest, and therefore does not allow India to lag behind the rest of the world in terms of product/feature releases. Sonos does not, and given all the options that are now available in India to what Sonos offers as a solution, I doubt that they will ever garner much volumes in India - and knowing this may well be behind Sonos dragging their feet on this.
And although I am not interested in the Sonos skill anymore having bypassed the need for it, I would be happy to be proved wrong via a release of the skill.
Until this small change is done, the only way to use Sonos with Alexa is to change my country settings in Amazon to USA. This comes with its own problems as it prevents me for accessing Alexa skills which are specific to India.
As others have mentioned, this request has been in the pipeline for many years now. Could you please share if there has been any effort at all from the development team on this? Whether you sell your products in India or not, we're your customers, and more importantly, we're fans of Sonos products. Why wouldn't you listen to a simple request from your user base?
In the time it takes for you to respond to this thread, you could enable the Alexa skill for English (IN). I'm an Alexa skill developer, so I know.
I don't want Sonos to do anything. I am only updating Indian customers about why they are better off not buying Sonos.
I reckon Sonos, for the same reasons, will also refuse any warranty obligations for non voice controlled products.
But this is the same tired argument that Sonos trots out about other issues, where the first thing it does is blame other service providers; this is like a government party line, but we would be foolish to expect different.
Since you asked: This voice controlled unit is also NOW being sold by Amazon India’s trading subsidiary in India. So it isn't the case of “if it’s even Amazon that’s doing it”.
My objection is to the fact that the voice controlled unit is also being sold, at a premium, alongside the Sonos One SL. The premium being collected is for voice control. A feature that does not work in India.
But... it is never Sonos’ fault. The lawyers would have their knickers in a twist if any Sonos Staff was to admit that.
So you want Sonos to talk with Amazon India to get them to change their product description or stop selling the Sonos One in that market? Why wouldn’t you complain directly to Amazon India? I’m not saying Sonos couldn’t do something about it, and perhaps it’s a contract violation of some sort, but I would think the more direct route would be a better way to go in this case.
But this is the same tired argument that Sonos trots out about other issues, where the first thing it does is blame other service providers; this is like a government party line, but we would be foolish to expect different.
Since you asked: This voice controlled unit is also NOW being sold by Amazon India’s trading subsidiary in India. So it isn't the case of “if it’s even Amazon that’s doing it”.
My objection is to the fact that the voice controlled unit is also being sold, at a premium, alongside the Sonos One SL. The premium being collected is for voice control. A feature that does not work in India.
But... it is never Sonos’ fault. The lawyers would have their knickers in a twist if any Sonos Staff was to admit that.
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Hi @Kumar
If this isn't false and misleading, I don't know how to define that adjective “false and misleading”.
As this is in English, it seems it’s been copied from our main product feature list (intended for fully supported regions). As we do not sell products anywhere but on our own website, it seems Amazon have bought stock and decided to sell some of it in India (if it’s even Amazon that’s doing it - who is the seller?), and therefore it’s not our advertising or responsibility, but Amazon’s (or the reseller’s).
Similarly, you could sell your Arc on eBay, claiming that it can play DTS. It’s not true, and it’s not our fault you’ve made that claim.
I made no excuse. I objected to your description of a speaker not able to use voice control in an unsupported region as “essentially does not work”. Essentially, a speaker plays music. Semantics, I guess.
Be aware that Sonos does not treat you with the respect you deserve as a paying customer, no matter how small a market you may constitute for them, such that you are irrelevant in their eyes. Buy therefore at your own risk.
Fortunately there are now many options easily available in India for getting equally good and feature rich solutions that this need not be a dampener on your ability to experience what other Sonos customers in geographies like the US /UK do. This was not the case when I bought Sonos via Amazon US for use in India back in 2011, but many others have now caught up with Sonos.
If this isn't false and misleading, I don't know how to define that adjective “false and misleading”.
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Hi
It is ridiculous that Sonos are selling a product that essentially does not work, I think you will agree...
I think this is heavy exaggeration, at best. If it plays music, it’s doing it’s job - being a speaker. This is the “essence” of a speaker. If it could not play music at all, I would agree.
The Sonos India skill has been in private beta from at least December 2019; it is equally ridiculous that it has not found its way into even S2 systems.
I am afraid I have nothing further to share at this time.
The Sonos India skill has been in private beta from at least December 2019; it is equally ridiculous that it has not found its way into even S2 systems.
The feature request is pending for 4 years now, Sonos! Boo!
Hey guys, tired of the same drub with SOnos.
I am giving away my sonos or trashing it some place distant so I don’t get to see this stinking brand any more.
THumbs down, Sonos!
Don’t bother replying to my thread. Not anticipating your pathetic reply.
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