Retired Sonos Staff

Alexa + Sonos: How it Works

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
October 3, 2017
179 replies
100089 views

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

I'm confused. I have the newer play5s. Both grouped as Living Room. I updated my app. I updated my Sonos system. I even scanned devices in Alexa app (but not sure if Sonos should show up there or not (it does not). I say things like "Alexa, play jazz in the living room" and she says things like "I cannot do that in the living room" and other versions of "no".

I have Hue bulbs that are grouped as Living Room too. Any ideas what I should be saying? How I should be saying it? Or why I am having problems?

More than likely it is defaulting to the bulbs. Name the bulbs "Living Room Lights" or something similar (or name the Sonos "Living Room Sonos".

I renamed the sonos pair to Couch. I have nothing else with Couch in the title. I say "Alexa play classical music on the Couch. (I also tried remove the "the" and just said Couch."

It does not work. She tries to play stuff on her own speaker.

It would really help if they had provided more info. I feel like I have no idea how to set this up or how to request from Alexa to play on Sonos.

Make sure you discover devices again after you change the name of Sonos or the names of the lights. That should solve the issue though.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

It's a bummer that none of this works with my local music library. If all this does is allow you to tell Sonos to play the same streaming sources that Alexa can already play natively, what's the point of going with Sonos instead of simply connecting your Echo Dot to some nice speakers?

You can still use Alexa for controlling music that's already playing on Sonos, no matter the source. That includes volume commands, and starting/stopping. If you have a playlist in your Queue from anywhere, tell the Sonos player to play and it'll start up.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

F

Feenix7

Lyricist II

Ok. so after adding skill and scanning. If I say "Alexa, play jazz on Couch" it plays jazz on Alexa. But if I say. Alexa, play Music on Couch" it plays music on Sonos. So what should I be saying to have some... ANY control on what I hear on Sonos right now? 🙂

B

BriPink

Contributor I

I was hoping you'd put something like this:

https://github.com/rgraciano/echo-sonos

On the devices themselves.

D

deljaso

Lyricist III

Ok. so after adding skill and scanning. If I say "Alexa, play jazz on Couch" it plays jazz on Alexa. But if I say. Alexa, play Music on Couch" it plays music on Sonos. So what should I be saying to have some... ANY control on what I hear on Sonos right now? :)

Here are all of the commands, you can see the general syntax you need to speak in order to control Sonos through alexa:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3514

J

jondorv

Lyricist I

I'm unable to enable the Alexa skill. Despite going through the Amazon and then Sonos dognon pages it still doesnt appear as an enabke skill. Any ideas?

Just making sure, you were able to find the Sonos skill in the Alexa app, right? Once that's done, you need to log in with your Amazon account, then your Sonos account. Once that's done, just discover devices.

Where are you located? Are you in the US, UK or Germany?

Yea I can find it alright. Click enable. It takes me to api.sonos.com, hit continue, tells me about the permissions that Alexa needs, hit OK. Takes me to na.account.amazon.com, click Continue and it takes me straight back to the Alexa app but the Skill is not shown in my skills. Im in the UK

J

jvettrus

Lyricist II

3 Questions:

Is there an Alexa command to have Sonos "TV" audio play?
Is it possible to tell Alexa to play the same music/song/playlist in multiple rooms or "all"?
Is it possible to tell Alexa to play a *Sonos* playlist?

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

Ok. so after adding skill and scanning. If I say "Alexa, play jazz on Couch" it plays jazz on Alexa. But if I say. Alexa, play Music on Couch" it plays music on Sonos. So what should I be saying to have some... ANY control on what I hear on Sonos right now? :)

Here are all of the commands, you can see the general syntax you need to speak in order to control Sonos through alexa:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3514

Also, sometimes Alexa has trouble with the occasional room name. So you could try a different name and see if that works better. Make sure you re-discover devices after changing names.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

3 Questions:

Is there an Alexa command to have Sonos "TV" audio play?
Is it possible to tell Alexa to play the same music/song/playlist in multiple rooms or "all"?
Is it possible to tell Alexa to play a *Sonos* playlist?

1. No. Alexa doesn't understand that your player has a TV input right now.
2. Not yet, but we'd love to add that one day.
3. Nope. Again, something we'd like to see for the future. Alexa doesn't have direct access right now to your favorites or library.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

Ryan SAuthor

Retired Sonos Staff

I'm unable to enable the Alexa skill. Despite going through the Amazon and then Sonos dognon pages it still doesnt appear as an enabke skill. Any ideas?

Just making sure, you were able to find the Sonos skill in the Alexa app, right? Once that's done, you need to log in with your Amazon account, then your Sonos account. Once that's done, just discover devices.

Where are you located? Are you in the US, UK or Germany?

Yea I can find it alright. Click enable. It takes me to api.sonos.com, hit continue, tells me about the permissions that Alexa needs, hit OK. Takes me to na.account.amazon.com, click Continue and it takes me straight back to the Alexa app but the Skill is not shown in my skills. Im in the UK

That's a tricky one. I'd say your best way to go is to give us a call on our support line. We'll take a look with you. You might want to try using a different device with the Alexa app if you have one you could try out.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

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