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Contributor I
January 20, 2018
Question

Alexa in Canada

  • January 20, 2018
  • 20 replies
  • 5576 views
For Christmas, I bought an Alexa Dot off Amazon Canada for the main purpose of voice control of our Sonos system. The description said it supported this. I would not have purchased Alexa if I knew this was, in fact, not the case in Canada. I'm very disappointed. When will the Sonos skill be available in Canada?
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20 replies

January 29, 2018
You can have Alexa in Canada (Jan 29, 2018) but you have to start by flipping you Amazon account to the US first. First first first, no fooling. I got all the way set up with spotify and the alexa app and linking sonos between both and (and alexa to spotify) and it was a huge waste of time. You have to "rip out the wires" so-to-speak and start again. Basically once you flip the account, you can set everything else up and THEN set the device locations to be in Canada and it will have useful location-based functionality. Honestly just did this 2 hours ago and I'm much happier now with all of it working... took a WHILE to figure out how deep you have to dig though. I wont post any screenshots unless there are replies/interest. Suffice to say, it is totally possible.
Lyricist I
January 30, 2018
Hi, Can you post the screenshoots?
January 30, 2018
So I believe I followed this link:


Then go to settings and with the country settings press "Change".

I can't actually DO it to screenshot those steps as this is my mothers account and I've already done it but that's the 'deepest' level change that I believe permitted everything else to start working. You should see a warning about shipping and being shown prices in american dollars... Then you should remove devices like i said and re-link everything going from there.

In addition to the changes I was after to start setting up the Sonos One with Alexa the alexa app completely changed it's appearance on my phone. I now actually have alexa on my phone and everything needed to be relinked. Wouldn't hurt to clear caches at this point.

I was in a pretty safe spot to try this out of course as i have no other devices or smart home components. Decide if you want to risk the hassle of having to re-tool things if it doesn't work as expected but other than that i think there's no harm in doing this.

Like i said before you can then set device locations to be where you actually live in Canada once you're done all this. I no longer see that "amazon account language" and useless blue Continue bar like before. I've got skills set up and everything is really working. ALSO my amazon.ca is still intact from what i can tell, including my saved for later, addresses and payment methods.

Best of luck.
Lyricist I
February 12, 2018
Can anyone confirm if this actually is working for them with full local regional alexa support and sonos usage?
February 12, 2018
I don't understand, did you TRY the steps I posted? I'm telling you it's working right now: calendar, weather, news... All local to my Canadian account/location. TRY it and see and then you can be the one to come and confirm it here.
Avid Contributor III
February 13, 2018
I am in Canada, with a Canadian Purchased Sonos One and Several Canadian Purchased Amazon speakers. I have Alexa working on Sonos.
The only thing I cannot do is play Audible.com content, although I can play audible.ca content. The keys to get this working until a full and complete solution is to set up an Amazon.Com account, to load a Yanomi skill onto Alexa and then let Yanomi discover the devices. It discovered my Sonos One speaker and using the Alexa App, the speaker was registered to the US Amazon Account. Everything except Audible works.
I had to deregister everything a couple of times to get the implementation sequence working, but it works and I will leave it until formal implementation whenever that occurs.
I have no idea if Sonos or Amazon need additional infrastructure as noted in the rest of this thread, it works for me as is, and now. The Sonos speaker shows up in the Alexa app and I can play Alexa services on the Sonos and vice versa.
Lyricist I
February 15, 2018
I’ve set my location in my sonos profile (on the sonos website) to be a u.s. location. Then when you go back to the sonos app you should be able to add the Alexa voice service. works like a charm
Avid Contributor III
February 15, 2018
Puggles, yes, Alexa works fine, my issue is getting Audible to work in Canada on a Sonos One. Just changing location and all the other cute fixes will not get the Sonos One streaming Audible content, and, the simple fix using Bluetooth is not available on Sonos. This site shows discussions which go back many many months looking for Reinstatement of Audible support which was once available on Sonos systems, and, Sonos has said, many times that the support is coming. Yes, I know you can connect some Sonos devices by a wire to play tAudible content, you cannot do it with Sonos Ones.
Lyricist II
April 13, 2018
You can have Alexa in Canada (Jan 29, 2018) but you have to start by flipping you Amazon account to the US first. First first first, no fooling. I got all the way set up with spotify and the alexa app and linking sonos between both and (and alexa to spotify) and it was a huge waste of time. You have to "rip out the wires" so-to-speak and start again. Basically once you flip the account, you can set everything else up and THEN set the device locations to be in Canada and it will have useful location-based functionality. Honestly just did this 2 hours ago and I'm much happier now with all of it working... took a WHILE to figure out how deep you have to dig though. I wont post any screenshots unless there are replies/interest. Suffice to say, it is totally possible.
Lyricist II
April 13, 2018
Does it works only with sonos one, i mean the new generation or it can works with an old generation play:5?

Thanks