When will true compatibility with Alexa & Sonos be available?


I have Sonos in virtually every room and it is used daily to play the radio, streaming music and most importantly music from my NAS. Can someone tell me:
When i can use Alexa to play my music from my NAS drive?
When Alexa will be able to group and ungroup Sonos zones?
Now my 4 CR100 controllers no longer work i bought Alexa to help, unfortunately it is not yet a proper solution.

Unless someone out there has a fix??
Thanks

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15 replies

Userlevel 7
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This can already be done using 3rd party Alexa Skills for Sonos. Based on its current architecture, the official Sonos skill will never work against your NAS.
This can already be done using 3rd party Alexa Skills for Sonos. Based on its current architecture, the official Sonos skill will never work against your NAS.

Note, this poster has a financial interest in selling his "3rd party Alexa Skill". His posts constantly mention a "3rd party Alexa Skill", but do not mention his skill by name because he is the "3rd party" and has been warned about Spam. Take his comment on the possibility of playing via local libraries in that vein.

In truth, if Sonos/Amazon enables the Audio Player API to work on 3rd party speakers, it is quite possible to initiate play of your local library on Sonos via Alexa. Sonos' CEO has mentioned that they intend to work on this ability, as well as support for music services that are not directly supported by Alexa.
Userlevel 7
Badge +23
financial interest in selling his "3rd party Alexa Skill"

If by "selling" you mean "giving away", and by "financial interest" you mean "losing $45/month running the server", then you are spot-on. Get real: people want Alexa control over their music collections. I am offering a solution to this (and I'm not the only one), as Sonos cannot/are not. I don't see why you continually give me grief over this. I also don't see you offering any actionable help when people ask for this feature.
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I have Sonos in virtually every room and it is used daily to play the radio, streaming music and most importantly music from my NAS. Can someone tell me:
When i can use Alexa to play my music from my NAS drive?
When Alexa will be able to group and ungroup Sonos zones?
Now my 4 CR100 controllers no longer work i bought Alexa to help, unfortunately it is not yet a proper solution.

Unless someone out there has a fix??
Thanks
Badge
I truly thought a Sonos One would be the answer to my music needs but clearly not as I have invested a lot of money in my music collection and want to be able to stream it from my NAS using Alexa. I would never have bought a Sonos if I had known it wasn't possible. One forum impresario said to hassle google not Sonos and I can see their logic. Well I think I will just take advantage of the return period and send it back instead of buying a second one. Sorry Sonos it produces lovely sound but isn't as advertised unless you pay for subscriptions to Google e't al I am not impressed.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
While we haven't seen any true integration - Sonos has made hints that its a possibility - will have to wait and see. We haven't seen Google Home integration yet as to its capabilities.
I truly thought a Sonos One would be the answer to my music needs but clearly not as I have invested a lot of money in my music collection and want to be able to stream it from my NAS using Alexa. I would never have bought a Sonos if I had known it wasn't possible. One forum impresario said to hassle google not Sonos and I can see their logic. Well I think I will just take advantage of the return period and send it back instead of buying a second one. Sorry Sonos it produces lovely sound but isn't as advertised unless you pay for subscriptions to Google e't al I am not impressed.What has Google got to do with it? What subscriptions are you referring to? Where does the advertising claim anywhere that Sonos One is anything other than Alexa-enabled? Still, do without Sonos by all means. Which multiroom system are you planning to get in its place?

P.S. Forum impresario? Dictionary definition of impresario: 'a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas'

You seem confused in many ways.
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
Sorry Sonos it produces lovely sound but isn't as advertised unless you pay for subscriptions to Google e't al I am not impressed.
In what way is it 'not as advertised'? Just curious.
I think someone is a little confused. :?
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I truly thought a Sonos One would be the answer to my music needs but clearly not as I have invested a lot of money in my music collection and want to be able to stream it from my NAS using Alexa. I would never have bought a Sonos if I had known it wasn't possible. One forum impresario said to hassle google not Sonos and I can see their logic. Well I think I will just take advantage of the return period and send it back instead of buying a second one. Sorry Sonos it produces lovely sound but isn't as advertised unless you pay for subscriptions to Google e't al I am not impressed.What has Google got to do with it? What subscriptions are you referring to? Where does the advertising claim anywhere that Sonos One is anything other than Alexa-enabled? Still, do without Sonos by all means. Which multiroom system are you planning to get in its place?

P.S. Forum impresario? Dictionary definition of impresario: 'a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas'

You seem confused in many ways.

I truly thought a Sonos One would be the answer to my music needs but clearly not as I have invested a lot of money in my music collection and want to be able to stream it from my NAS using Alexa. I would never have bought a Sonos if I had known it wasn't possible. One forum impresario said to hassle google not Sonos and I can see their logic. Well I think I will just take advantage of the return period and send it back instead of buying a second one. Sorry Sonos it produces lovely sound but isn't as advertised unless you pay for subscriptions to Google e't al I am not impressed.What has Google got to do with it? What subscriptions are you referring to? Where does the advertising claim anywhere that Sonos One is anything other than Alexa-enabled? Still, do without Sonos by all means. Which multiroom system are you planning to get in its place?

P.S. Forum impresario? Dictionary definition of impresario: 'a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays, or operas'

You seem confused in many ways.

In the older sense of the word an impresario was a theatrical person full of bluster and little help. Anyway with 8000 odd posts to your name I am sure you have great technical ability so how about helping a newbie out?

See https://www.sonos.com/en-gb/home this page says "With Amazon Alexa you use your voice to play and control songs, playlists, radio stations and more." This is the main reason I bought the Sonos one. So lets try the example from the same web page though without the room designation.... "Alexa, Play the Kinks" Alexa replies "The Kinks is available on Amazon music unlimited do you want to sign up......" OK fair enough I don't have any Kinks in the my home library lets try Pink Floyd that IS in my library, they play using the app.... "Alexa, Play Pink Floyd" Alexa replies "The Pink Floyd is available on Amazon music unlimited do you want to sign up......" So how do I how do I use my Sonos One with Alexa to "play and control songs" that are quite clearly in my library? I can even buy a copy of a Kinks album and stick it in my library to prove the point. Please forgive me if I sound exasperated I've been at this for ages, this should be simple and if it is I will humbly apologize?
At this time, you cannot use Alexa to initiate play from your local library. For more details on what Alexa on Sonos can do, see this link:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3514?language=en_US
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At this time, you cannot use Alexa to initiate play from your local library. For more details on what Alexa on Sonos can do, see this link:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3514?language=en_US

Thank you so much for your reply succinct I do appreciate it. Perhaps Sonos could make this clear on their web site giving potential first time buyers (like me) more information to choose a model with or without Alexa. As I thought simply checking the compatibility of streaming protocols supported by the Sonos product and my server would be sufficient.
Userlevel 1
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At this time, you cannot use Alexa to initiate play from your local library. For more details on what Alexa on Sonos can do, see this link:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3514?language=en_US


You can, however, use the Sonos / IFTTT / Alexa integration to start playback of named items from your "My Sonos" Favorites (*), including music from your local library. It's not very convenient to set up and does not support playlists (ugh), but it's enough for my home's major use case.
Still no eta for playing music from your local library via the Alexa skills for Sonos? This feature needs to exist for me to invest in the Sonos solution.
Userlevel 7
Badge +23
When did you ever see any ETA from Sonos for any new feature? They don't work like that. However in this case the main problem is the architecture they have chosen to integrate with Alexa: local library playback is simply impossible for them. Several 3rd party Skills can do it, because they integrate using a more "standard" method. If you really want a solution from Sonos for this, give it up now and look elsewhere.