Amazon Echo / Dot and Sonos Integration

At this time, it is not possible to assign a Dot to certain rooms or functions. I have a Dot upstairs and an Echo downstairs. I can't assign the Dot to turn on the bedroom tv by just saying "Turn on tv". I have to make a Harmony skill called Bedroom TV and say "Alexa, turn on bedroom tv." Same with the lights.

Whether this will change in the future? Who knows ( and I imagine Sonos to be its usual tight lipped selves). Though with Amazon now selling 6 packs of Dots, it's obvious they want one in every room, so individual function assignments would be a natural progression.

At this time, it is not possible to assign a Dot to certain rooms or functions. I have a Dot upstairs and an Echo downstairs. I can't assign the Dot to turn on the bedroom tv by just saying "Turn on tv". I have to make a Harmony skill called Bedroom TV and say "Alexa, turn on bedroom tv." Same with the lights.

Whether this will change in the future? Who knows ( and I imagine Sonos to be its usual tight lipped selves). Though with Amazon now selling 6 packs of Dots, it's obvious they want one in every room, so individual function assignments would be a natural progression.

Surely though it would be madness to have all speakers answer a question asked in one specific room. For example, if you had eight rooms with Sonos speakers yet I was in the kitchen and asked Alexis what the weather forecast was the rest of the household may not appreciate being rudely disturbed by all the other rooms Sonos speakers responding to that question - I just want the kitchen Sonos speakers to respond? Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick here?

I have no idea what the Sonos integration will be. I've only described what it does now. We should probably hold off until the beta is launched before we start coming up with nightmare scenarios, eh?

@jgatie i think youre confused. the dots are all individually assigned and always have been. if anything you cant CONNECT echos. if you ask the echo upstairs a question, only the one upstairs will reply. you have to make the harmony skill regardless of how many echos you had. i have multiple dots connected to multiple speakers in each room and theyre all independent of each other. i CANT daisy chain them like the sonos. i think what spcdust is trying to ask is if sonos will be working the software on their end so the entire system isnt connected by default and the speakers themselves can be individually assigned, as if they were bluetooth, for example, without having to go into the app manually every time. not the dots. the dots are all independent of each other. always have been.

@jgatie i think youre confused. the dots are all individually assigned and always have been. if anything you cant CONNECT echos. if you ask the echo upstairs a question, only the one upstairs will reply. you have to make the harmony skill regardless of how many echos you had. i have multiple dots connected to multiple speakers in each room and theyre all independent of each other. i CANT daisy chain them like the sonos. i think what spcdust is trying to ask is if sonos will be working the software on their end so the entire system isnt connected by default and the speakers themselves can be individually assigned, as if they were bluetooth, for example, without having to go into the app manually every time. not the dots. the dots are all independent of each other. always have been.

Yeah, and what jgatie is saying is we'll know when we know

Are we there yet

Are we there yet

Are we there yet

Let me give this thow at it.

If you ask an Amazon Dot a question it will respond using its own internal speaker. If you want a Sonos speaker to answer the question instead you have to hard wire the dot to a play:5 (or whatever else) and set to autoplay to the speaker you want.

I do not believe Sonos integration will add onto those facts above. Future Sonos integration I believe will focus on utilizing Echo to control sonos units. I do not believe future integration will push the Amazon Dot voice to the Sonos speakers wirelessly.

What you should be able to do on any dot in your home is once integration is in place I would hope we get something like - Alexa tell Sonos to play Playlist 1 on Bedroom. Alexa tell Sonos to pause Bedrrom. Alexa tell Sonos to play bedroom.

The big question mark is how do you search songs etc. and will you have full access to searching sonos partner music. Like Alexa tell Sonos bedroom to search for artist, song on Apple Music. Gets complicated we'll have to wait and see.

In short Dots respond independently and via their own internal speaker (and output) but have ability to control other devices across home via skills and home or automation plugins. Sonos integration should be a skill that controls sonos itself - not a replacement for internal Dot speaker.

@jgatie i think youre confused. the dots are all individually assigned and always have been. if anything you cant CONNECT echos. if you ask the echo upstairs a question, only the one upstairs will reply. you have to make the harmony skill regardless of how many echos you had. i have multiple dots connected to multiple speakers in each room and theyre all independent of each other. i CANT daisy chain them like the sonos. i think what spcdust is trying to ask is if sonos will be working the software on their end so the entire system isnt connected by default and the speakers themselves can be individually assigned, as if they were bluetooth, for example, without having to go into the app manually every time. not the dots. the dots are all independent of each other. always have been.

Thanks, you understand the point I am speculating about.

Obviously the Dot is assigned to a specific speaker/s as it is Bluetooth Paired to a 3rd Party speaker OR a direct jack to a 3rd Party speaker. Obviously the Sonos eco system has no Bluetooth and many of the speakers have no jack so I would assume that the Sonos Application could use a speakers specific MAC address "paired" with the Dots MAC address? If however the Echo / Alexa integration is limited solely to controlling Sonos then that's really not that exciting - much better that it's fully integrated so the Sonos speakers act as the voice of Alexa.

Nothing wrong with talking about these things - kind of the point of a discussion forum.

Thanks, you understand the point I am speculating about.

Obviously the Dot is assigned to a specific speaker/s as it is Bluetooth Paired to a 3rd Party speaker OR a direct jack to a 3rd Party speaker. Obviously the Sonos eco system has no Bluetooth and many of the speakers have no jack so I would assume that the Sonos Application would use a speakers specific MAC address "paired" with the Dots MAC address? If however the Echo / Alexa integration is limited only to controlling Sonos then that's really not that exciting - much better that it's fully integrated so the Sonos speakers act as the voice of Alexa.

Nothing wrong with talking about these things - kind of the point of a discussion forum.

I was kinda hoping the same. Ive preordered (UK release) an Echo and a Dot and was hoping I could sit the Dot next to my Play 3 in my bedroom and the Play 3 would just work as if it were wired to the dot and not use its (crappy) internal speaker at all.

I don't particularly see the Sonos unit needing to be the "Voice of Alexa". I had my dot hooked to my play:5 as the voice and really found no use for it being the voice of Alexa. The only real reason I had it hooked was so I could use voice control to play music - which I found very limited because I do not have Spotify and Amazon music library is not very vast. So I ended up removing it from my play:5 and let the dot just speak from its own speaker. Once Sonos adds the ability to control music via Sonos then that will cover my desire to be able to ask for music and have it play.

Note: Not only did the play:5 being hooked to the dot not do me a lot of good. The play:5 would take about a second or two to come out of standby and I would miss the first word or 2 Alexa would respond with.

Thanks, you understand the point I am speculating about.

Obviously the Dot is assigned to a specific speaker/s as it is Bluetooth Paired to a 3rd Party speaker OR a direct jack to a 3rd Party speaker. Obviously the Sonos eco system has no Bluetooth and many of the speakers have no jack so I would assume that the Sonos Application would use a speakers specific MAC address "paired" with the Dots MAC address? If however the Echo / Alexa integration is limited only to controlling Sonos then that's really not that exciting - much better that it's fully integrated so the Sonos speakers act as the voice of Alexa.

Nothing wrong with talking about these things - kind of the point of a discussion forum.

I was kinda hoping the same. Ive preordered (UK release) an Echo and a Dot and was hoping I could sit the Dot next to my Play 3 in my bedroom and the Play 3 would just work as if it were wired to the dot and not use its (crappy) internal speaker at all.

That's the sort of integration I'm hoping for, basically placing Dots in rooms with Sonos Speakers, Pairing each Dot up with that rooms speakers and away you go. Now that makes it a compelling proposition and, on the face of it, cannot see technically why that couldn't be achieved as each device has a unique MAC address.