Alexa forgets Sonos skill

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
May 29, 2018
12 replies
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I have 2 Sonos Ones (as well as a few play:5s). However, Alexa keeps forgetting how to work them. I can use Alexa for the general non-Sonos stuff, but I'll regularly say "Alexa, play" to resumse playback and I'll be told I have to enable the Sonos skill. This skill is enabled. Yesterday I had this problem and disabled the skill, re-enabled it and it worked again for a bit. But today it's lost it again.

I've had this before as well. It seems pretty unreliable. I had one Sonos One to start with and ended up just not really using the alexa skill because it seemed easier to just go into my pocket, get my phone out and play or pause it there. But now I have a 2nd one I'd quite like it to actually work as advertised. (I bought the 2nd with the understanding that this is still in its infancy so is likely to improve in time, but I also wanted to expand my Sonos a little anyway so the voice support wasn't a deal breaker.)

Is it possible to get this to work consistently?

Sonos Skill for Alexa

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Best answer by UKMedia

Hi

First off a network question. Have you reserved an IP address for your Sonos Ones? Whilst this isn't a mandatory thing, it can introduce some stability if you ever have to boot your Router. I use the address range of 192.168.0.200 and upwards for my Sonos products and these can be easily set-up within your Router settings page.

With regard to this specific problem, the steps I've listed within the Answer to this post will address the majority of Alexa related issues:

https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/alexa-says-she-is-playing-on-kitchen-but-no-sound-comes-out-6800126

Let us know if you need help with reserving an IP address (We'll need your router make and model number) and if this resolves the problem.

Show previous replies

UKMedia

Hi

No problem at all, we all feel a bit emotional to something we value, especially when it doesn't quite work as expected. With regard to the discussion RE: Play vs Resume, not all commands for voice control relate to the names of buttons on the app. The link I included in my previous post, contains the supported voice commands, both general and source specific. I think the error message that you are getting is the catch all statement when the Alexa-Sonos integration gets confused. Not ideal I know.

The reason for the time limit is that the Amazon servers need to be aware of your playlist and I suspect that they only keep that context for a finite amount of time. The other thing to remember is that voice control via the Sonos One utilises logic from both Amazon and Sonos, with Amazon having their own design and development standards that Sonos will have to adhere to.

I would advise sticking with voice control a bit longer, as I use it for most things now and really miss it when it's not available. 😃

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

M

mrgrievesAuthor

Avid Contributor I

I could cope with using Resume instead of Play, counter-intuitive though it is. But if Resume works for a time limit then it's useless to me. I think when things need to be explained technically in order to justify a decision, then it indicates that something is wrong. I'm personally interested in how some of this works, but as an end-user I shouldn't need to know nor care. It should just work and be intuitive.

I would also hazard a guess that Resume maybe won't work when I am setting up my playlist with the Sonos app rather than telling Alexa what to play.

I think the problem is that the technology isn't really as great as it initially appears to be. There are 2 ecosystems trying to coexist and it only sort-of works. You can see it with Spotify Connect too (regardless of voice). If I use the Spotify app, then it works but then things go a little strange. For example, I seem to remember things like Repeat not being available in the Sonos app if I'm playing with something started in the Spotify app. Again, it's counter-intuitive because it shouldn't matter to me how music is started - it's the same music from the same place. It confuses the hell out of me because I find those buttons hard to find anyway, so I have a good look for it, get frustrated then remember where I started playing from. (Or now I just don't bother with Spotify Connect at all)

Similarly with the voice, the fact that it has to go over the internet to figure out what you said means that it's never going to be as responsive nor as reliable as a button on an app. It should be an extension of touch-control not a parallel universe with its own set of rules.

As someone wanting to listen to music I don't want to know that Alexa is maintaining a playlist in addition to Sonos. I don't care about that. I'm not asking Amazon to play, I'm asking Sonos to play. Again that's why I don't think it's ready for prime time - it's fine as a novelty and it has some value, but as something that can replace the existing controls it falls short because there are too many technical compromises involved which means I always end up having to use the app instead.

Can you imagine in the 1980s buying a tape deck with a play button that only worked under a very limited set of circumstances? I don't think we'd put up with it 40 years ago.

For Alexa and Sonos to be useful to me, I only need play, pause, volume up and volume down. That's 4 commands. It can usually manage 3 of them, and actually changing volume is a lot easier with the app anyway. So there's not much to persevere with!

I actually think voice control is very interesting and will only improve over time. But now I feel like I'm suffering from early adopter syndrome. And given the fact the privacy and security questions I'd have over it, I'd really want it to be a bit experience to justify it. If it wasn't for my nerdy curiosity I'd probalby turn it off.

Again excuse the "first world problems" tone of my email - I'm not angrily bashing out these posts so I hope it doesn't come across like that. I realise I'm just complaining about a single function, but it does feel like such a basic one.

Thanks for the link with the command in it too. I genuinely do appreciate your help and you taking time to reply.

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