Retired Sonos Staff

Alexa + Sonos: How it Works

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So you’ve read all about Amazon Alexa working with Sonos and you want to know more. Here’s a rundown of how the integration works.

Your Amazon Alexa devices are listening for you to say the wake word, “Alexa”. When they hear that word, the microphones record what you say and send the audio to the Amazon Alexa cloud to be translated.

That voice line turns into a string of text. The Amazon protocols determine if it’s meant for Amazon Alexa or for a Sonos player. If it’s for Sonos, that text is then sent directly, and securely, over to the Sonos cloud to be turned into a command using our own codes.

Finally, the Sonos intended command goes down to the system.

Want to try it out?

Here are some fun commands to try. I like starting with:

“Alexa, play some salsa in the kitchen.”

how it works

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Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

Ryan? Also your response to the question of sound quality. Is Sonos One identical to play 1 running on 8.0?

Generally speaking, the Sonos One has just about the same quality as the PLAY:1. I've heard from plenty of people that the Sonos One has a bit more bass to it, but I think that's going to have come down to personal testing. They both sound great.

Thanks for that update.
My other question:
Amazon will launch Alexa in India and sell echo etc via the Indian website from October 31.
Thereafter will it directly work with my Sonos kit, or is there some Sonos action also needed? If so, how long will it take Sonos to do what it will take to work with Alexa?

There will need to be some work by both us and Amazon, but I don't know how long or what will need to happen specifically. If I were to venture a guess, which is always dangerous, I'd say it shouldn't take long. But I'm sure there are some things I don't know about licensing and legal concerns beyond the server side things. Sorry I can't offer a better answer, but if I hear anything more I can share I'll be happy to let you in on it.

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Gary-C

Avid Contributor I

Well, spoke to soon. All working fine then the Playbar won't accept commands. Not sure what I've done wrong.

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K

Kumar

My other question:
Amazon will launch Alexa in India and sell echo etc via the Indian website from October 31.
Thereafter will it directly work with my Sonos kit, or is there some Sonos action also needed? If so, how long will it take Sonos to do what it will take to work with Alexa?

There will need to be some work by both us and Amazon, but I don't know how long or what will need to happen specifically. If I were to venture a guess, which is always dangerous, I'd say it shouldn't take long. But I'm sure there are some things I don't know about licensing and legal concerns beyond the server side things. Sorry I can't offer a better answer, but if I hear anything more I can share I'll be happy to let you in on it.

That Amazon will launch Alexa in India on Oct 31 is solid; Amazon has announced it here in the press and on their Indian website and Amazon's record is of not missing such promised dates.

And I am sure Sonos will get a confirmation of this from Amazon if/when the question is asked.

So why does Sonos not start the work - assuming there is any in the first place - now, while the launch date is almost a month away and not be in catch up mode after the event?

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Melsays

Avid Contributor I

Yep - agreed.

Note that the way I thought grouping would work is that the Sonos speakers would integrate with the Alexa's own multi-room playback grouping.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16219978/amazon-echo-multi-room-music-playback-how-to

Those groups do look like they are intended to be static (e.g., a "Downstairs" group with multiple devices).

Personally, that would be ideal for me. I don't actually need to ability to create custom groups on-the-fly using the voice interface. But I would like the ability to issue commands to start playing music in only a single room (i.e., "play X in the kitchen") or among commonly grouped sets of rooms (i.e., "play X downstairs," "play X everywhere," ...).

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Melsays

Avid Contributor I

I've always felt that "group" in SONOS should have a fixed component, like grouping several players to be "downstairs", and that this be a permanent option. In an open room setting, where the TV bar and separate SONOS components are inclose proximity, the reality is when you play music on one, you cannot play music (or watch TV). This also is true if you have a surround-sound system and play music through it -- as a practical matter, they are always grouped. So if this type of grouping is available for TV surround sound, why not make it optionally available for grouping SONOS devices into "scenes" -- like "downstairs" or "den"?

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jdrevitch

Lyricist I

Ok, I'll forgo griping about the minimal feature set introduced with this initial release and stick to a glaring issue... In a multi-room/multi Alexa setup ANYONE INVOKING THE ALEXA WAKE WORD IN ANY ROOM MUTES THE PLAYBACK IN EVERY ROOM. Further, the music is muted through Alexa's answer.

So, if I am in the living room listening to music and my son is in his room and says "Alexa, what is the weather today", playback in the living room is muted until Alexa is done answering which can take up to a minute.

This is completely unacceptable, in a home with 7 rooms and 5 Alexa devices someone is alway interacting with Alexa and the music is constantly stopping. I guess I'll be disabling this skill until it is ready for prime time.

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Gary-C

Avid Contributor I

Anyone know why alexa won't forget a Sonos zone once it's found it ? I have two areas, living room and dining room. I want the living room to use the integration, and the dining room to use the 3.5mm jack to the play:5 line in (this stops it muting the dining room when issuing commands in the living room) works fine for awhile, then it finds and adds the dining room and it starts muting them all again.

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BoredofBalham

Prodigy II

It was full of gremlins when I first used it. Unplug dots. Deregister and delete Alexa app. Download alexa app. Register. Plug dots back in. Discover and I was up and running.

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srparker0

Lyricist I

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere.....

I have play 1's in 4 rooms (including the lounge with the playbar and sub).

I'm thinking of buying the echo dot(s) and i'm not sure whether i need one for each room or would one/two suffice?

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Airgetlam

It really depends on where you want to control things by voice. i've got three scattered around my house, and two of them tend to hear commands meant for each other(Kitchen and Living room, about 20 feet apart). In the grand scheme of things, you only need one, but if you're in the kitchen, it's probably hard for the bedroom Dot to hear you, unless you're yelling a lot 🙂

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Bruce

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