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rogercatto
Contributor I
Jun 20, 2018 1:53 PM UTC

Alexa and Sonos Playlists

I can get all my music through Alexa but cannot get playlists
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      8 replies

      Jeff S
      Jeff S
      Retired Sonos Staff
      Jun 20, 2018 4:38 PM UTC
      Hi rogercatto,

      Thanks for reaching out. Currently starting playlists with voice commands through Alexa isn't supported on Sonos. We are working to make the Alexa better over time though. I'll send along a feature request to the team for you.
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        rogercattoAuthor
        Contributor I
        Jun 21, 2018 10:48 PM UTC
        Thanks, saves me searching in vain and makes me feel a lot less thick. Great service
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        Chris Rowe
        Chris Rowe
        Contributor I
        Jun 22, 2018 12:08 PM UTC
        That’s odd, because I can start playlists on Sonos One through Alexa. I say “Alexa play my Spotify Favourites playlist” and it plays. What she can’t do is shuffle the order, although she says “starting shuffle” the order of songs doesn’t change.
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        controlav
        controlav
        Lead Maestro
        Jun 22, 2018 1:22 PM UTC
        Playlists for supported music services will work fine, as they are in the cloud. However Sonos playlists are not in the cloud, they are on your local network, and Alexa can't get to them. Same reason she can't get to your Sonos Favorites as well.
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        Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.
        Lemankus
        Lyricist II
        Jul 17, 2018 10:32 PM UTC
        Playlists for supported music services will work fine, as they are in the cloud. However Sonos playlists are not in the cloud, they are on your local network, and Alexa can't get to them. Same reason she can't get to your Sonos Favorites as well.

        I'm not sure why Alexa would need to get a listing of Sonos playlists.
        Couldn't the communication between Alexa and Sonos be set up so that Alexa issues a request to Sonos to play a playlist of a given name and then the validation occurs only on the local sonos player? If the playlist is invalid, then the local Sonos machines just don't play it; if it is recognized locally then it could be played. I understand the services don't currently exist to permit Sonos to be issued a request to play a playlist from a cloud-based authorized client, but it also doesn't seem that hard to implement.
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          NullReference
          Avid Contributor I
          Jan 9, 2019 12:24 PM UTC
          It's certainly doable. The Alexa device discovery can be extended to discover the local Sonos playlists and favorites in a similar way that is discovers third party home automation "scenes" (e.g. SmartThings).

          Any update on this?
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          readec
          Lyricist I
          Jun 28, 2019 1:08 PM UTC
          Long overdue for you guys to get this working...when will it be possible?
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          John B
          Jun 28, 2019 4:16 PM UTC
          Long overdue for you guys to get this working...when will it be possible?
          You can trigger a Sonos Playlist by using IFTTT with Alexa.

          I am not expecting direct playing of any local music using the Sonos skill for Alexa anytime soon (but what do I know?). Of course, once it is playing you can perform certain actions by voice.

          Also, there are some third party skills that I believe are able to control local music playback more fully.
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