Chromatic Producer I

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Can you play music from your Sonos music library using Alexa?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 12, 2023
23 replies
1188 views

Okay, it is now January 2023, and evidently you still cannot play music from your Sonos indexed music library using Alexa. I’ve wasted my time looking at numerous articles that seem to indicate you can play your music files in Sonos using Alexa, but there is always an issue. I have the Amazon music service setup in Sonos. I have the Sonos skill linked and ready in the Alexa app. Yet I still can’t play my own music in Sonos. I just followed one article to setup Alexa with Sonos and at the end the commands below were listed, nothing to do with playing your own music. Here are the commands in the Sonos app on my Android phone.

“Alexa, play music for meditation in the bedroom”

“Alexa, play top hits from the 70’s in the kitchen”

“Alexa, turn up the volume in the bathroom"

Unbelievable! So I’m guessing that the answer to my question is “NO”, you cannot play music from your Sonos music library using Alexa.

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Best answer by UKMedia

Just another thought. Although I haven’t tested this myself, I believe that Plex allows for the playing of locally stored music: You’ll need to install Plex, and then add that account as a Music Service within the Sonos App.

Mounting Network Resources | Plex Support

and supports Alexa voice Control

Getting Started with Alexa Voice Control | Plex Support

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Z

zBernie123Author

Chromatic Producer I

Just another thought. Although I haven’t tested this myself, I believe that Plex allows for the playing of locally stored music: You’ll need to install Plex, and then add that account as a Music Service within the Sonos App.

Mounting Network Resources | Plex Support

and supports Alexa voice Control

Getting Started with Alexa Voice Control | Plex Support

I wasn’t aware of the plex skill. I’ll have to try this out.

Just to briefly add here, I’ve just tested this and the Plex Skill does indeed ‘happily’ play a users locally held music library, via Alexa, to Sonos devices - so this is at least one way to achieve the desired outcome.

So does Emby but Amazon makes sure it works in a “wonky” manner. I can play music from my music library using Emby, but cannot rewind, play the next song, etc. It doesn’t work well! I’m sure Plex has limitations too.

Airgetlam

I’d think there may be some sort of various legal teams differing interpretation of GDPR here as well….but I could be wrong.

Bruce

melvimbe

There is no technical excuse for SVC not supporting local libraries. Mind you, there is no technical excuse for it not supporting Spotify either, but it doesn’t.

I have to point out that my now-retired Alexa-Sonos integration did both of these things. May it RIP.

I don’t think it’s exactly a fair comparison as your skill required a local server set up, took text passed from Alexa and then passed it on to Sonos speakers via API. SVC is locally processing voice commands on the speaker itself and I’m not 100% sure that results in the same sort of text that you get from Alexa, that could then easily (ie, with speakers limited resources) be processed to receive a local library file (or Spotify) for playback. Maybe it can, and it seems like it can looking at it from a far, but some assumptions have to be made about how exactly SVC works.

Danny

Ken_Griffiths

@zBernie123

See link for what’s available via the Alexa Plex skill:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/236324808-alexa-voice-commands/

Z

zBernie123Author

Chromatic Producer I

@zBernie123

See link for what’s available via the Alexa Plex skill:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/236324808-alexa-voice-commands/

Yes, Emby has very similar functionality and a skill for Alexa. Lots of voice commands listed that DON’T WORK! The only thing I can do with Emby is play a song or album from my music library via Alexa after saying “Alexa, open Emby home”. After that NOTHING WORKS like next song, replay, etc. I’m sure Plex is similar.

Actually, the situation has gotten even worse. Greedy Amazon has changed how Amazon music works. I don’t mean the $8.99 / month subscription, rather the free service that comes with prime. Now if I say something like “Alexa, play “Blue Wind” by Jeff Beck”, Alexa now responds with “Playing Blue Wind and similar songs”. Sometimes you get the song you requested, other times you get “similar songs’. I’m seriously considering cancelling my prime membership!

Z

zBernie123Author

Chromatic Producer I

Okay, it is now January 2023, and evidently you still cannot play music from your Sonos indexed music library using Alexa.

I’m not sure why you’re thinking the feature is more likely to be implemented as time goes by. As I’m sure you know, the market size for people using local libraries is getting smaller, not larger. Businesses tend to focus efforts on things that more people care about, not less. No doubt that a lot of the people who use local libraries do so because they don’t want to use cloud services like Alexa, making the market even smaller. If there is a resurgance in use of local libraries, like there has been for vinyl for whatever reason, then maybe it has a chance.

Second, we’re talking about Amazon Alexa, which essentially exists for the purpose of keeping people in the Amazon ecosystem and spending their money there, whether it be music streaming, buying goods, etc. They don’t care about your local library or supporting it. They would only care if Google Assistant supported it or something, and thus they had to do it in order to keep customers. But that’s not happening.

Your best bet would be for Sonos Voice Control (SVC) to start supporting local libraries. However, since it wasn’t supported from the beginning, it leads me to think that it’s not a technical no brainer. And again, because of the small market size, I expect them to focus on streaming services like Spotify with bigger markets, and additional language support. Not to mention the need to produce new speaker products, since that’s how they actually make money.

Unbelievable! So I’m guessing that the answer to my question is “NO”, you cannot play music from your Sonos music library using Alexa.

Again, not at all unbelievable if you think about it. But to be clear, you cannot innitiate playback, but you can use basic control commands like volume, next/previous track, mute, pause/resume playback while using your local library.

It is VERY unbelievable that Sonos is unable to play music stored on my NAS. Emby media player can do it, I do it all the time. So I can play local with the Alexa Emby skill but not the Sonos skill? Hmmmm. However, Amazon does place limitations on the functionality because they want you to pay $8.99/month for Amaon music. If Emby can do it, Sonos can do it,

K

Kumar

There is no technical excuse for SVC not supporting local libraries.

I will take your word for it, but that is what should have been in SVC from day one; add to that the fact the SVC is available globally, being not dependent on Sonos having to match the local server infrastructure presence of an Amazon or a Google in order to offer latency free deployment of the Alexa or Google skill in remote to the US/EU geographies.

The only reason I can see for this miss is that Sonos does not see this as a user need large enough to be worth spending the development dollars on.

PS: As a Spotify user, I don’t bother with my local library of some 12000 tracks anymore; I just finished a session using it just to make sure that it still works, using the rarely used Sonos app to do so. So that if I ever need it as a back up, it won’t let me down.

melvimbe

It is VERY unbelievable that Sonos is unable to play music stored on my NAS. Emby media player can do it, I do it all the time. So I can play local with the Alexa Emby skill but not the Sonos skill? Hmmmm. However, Amazon does place limitations on the functionality because they want you to pay $8.99/month for Amaon music. If Emby can do it, Sonos can do it,

So to be clear, Sonos does play music stored on your NAS, you’re talking about voice control only. Also, you just said a few posts ago that the Emby skill does not work very well. Also, Emby and Plex alexa skills require you to prefix commands with “Ask Emby”, which Sonos does not do. I’ve already talked about why that is. Also, Emby (and Plex) require you to setup your own server or a cloud service to index your library. Sonos does not, as all processing is done on the speakers. I already talked about that too. Also, Emby and Plex are almost entirely geared toward playing local media content, while Sonos is geared more towards home theatre content, streaming services, aux sources, and local media a distant 4th….and they make money by selling speakers.

I’m not saying that Sonos can’t get it done via SVC, but the comparison should consider all the variables at play rather than treating Emby and Sonos as equal situations.

Danny

melvimbe

There is no technical excuse for SVC not supporting local libraries.

I will take your word for it, but that is what should have been in SVC from day one; add to that the fact the SVC is available globally, being not dependent on Sonos having to match the local server infrastructure presence of an Amazon or a Google in order to offer latency free deployment of the Alexa or Google skill in remote to the US/EU geographies.

The only reason I can see for this miss is that Sonos does not see this as a user need large enough to be worth spending the development dollars on.

While I’m sure that development time and costs are a factor, as I said eariler, I don’t think we can assume that SVC, where all the firmware is on the speakers themselves, would work exactly the way Alexa + controlAVs local server used to work. If it did, they you’d expect every streaming service and the local library to be supported when they went life. That did not happen though. For streaming service, perhaps legal and licensing reasons are involved if it’s not technical. For local libraries, the reason appears to be technical.

Danny

Z

zBernie123Author

Chromatic Producer I

Just another thought. Although I haven’t tested this myself, I believe that Plex allows for the playing of locally stored music: You’ll need to install Plex, and then add that account as a Music Service within the Sonos App.

Mounting Network Resources | Plex Support

and supports Alexa voice Control

Getting Started with Alexa Voice Control | Plex Support

I mentioned that I use Emby to play locally stored music using Alexa. My point being of Emby can do it, then why can’t Sonos?

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