How to get Alexa to tell Sonos to access my Local Music

Local libraries are not supported at this time for initializing playback. You can start playback via the Sonos app, then control play, pause, skip, previous, volume level, and ask what is playing via Alexa.

So the integration is fairly useless i would say. Pull your finger sonos. If i can access my libraries from my iphone why not alexa??

So the integration is fairly useless i would say. Pull your finger sonos. If i can access my libraries from my iphone why not alexa??

Because all Alexa processing is done in the cloud, and unlike streaming services, there is no index of your local music available in the cloud, nor any existing way for Alexa to query local music. Sonos and Amazon would have to allow for storing a local index in the Amazon cloud, or develop a sophisticated back and forth between Sonos and Alexa to enable Alexa to query Sonos about its index, all while maintaining a short response time when requesting music. Not at all easy, nor (I imagine) a priority for Amazon at this time.

This obviously has a ways to go before it's ready for prime time. You're basically saying that currently Sonos is nothing more than a really expensive set of external speakers for Alexa. For it to do what I want, Alexa doesn't need to have a way to query my local music or have a sophisticated back and forth between it and Sonos. It just needs to pass the request off to Sonos. "Alexa tell Sonos to play My Favorites in Living Room". Alexa doesn't need to know anything in request, other than to pass the command to my Sonos and potential receive a response back if Sonos is unable to do what is asked.

Sigh.

Sigh.You may well sigh, but what you keep saying isn't quite true is it?

If *all* processing is done in the cloud and there is no way to query local music then how can Alexa know what is playing on a Sonos speaker when playback from the local library is initiated outside of Alexa control and not via any service Alexa has knowledge of?

Clearly there is a way for Alexa to query the local speaker to get what is playing from it, and if it can do that it's not unreasonable to expect that Alexa could also query and process the library index held on each speaker as well...

Not unreasonable at all. I never mentioned anything about it being reasonable. Matter of fact, it is quite reasonable for a user to expect this type of functionality. Certainly I did, and you can search my past posts to prove it.

However, reasonable or not, that particular status has no bearing on a status of not yet implemented, more difficult than the current implementation, more man-hours to implement, not high in priority, or possibly even not in the plans.

Oh and the sigh? It was to your "not ready for prime time" comment. It's a freaking beta! By very definition it is not ready for prime time!

Sigh.You may well sigh, but what you keep saying isn't quite true is it?

If *all* processing is done in the cloud and there is no way to query local music then how can Alexa know what is playing on a Sonos speaker when playback from the local library is initiated outside of Alexa control and not via any service Alexa has knowledge of?

Clearly there is a way for Alexa to query the local speaker to get what is playing from it, and if it can do that it's not unreasonable to expect that Alexa could also query and process the library index held on each speaker as well...

I'm no expert, but isn't that logic the same as saying Shazam can tell me what's playing but not necessarily what's on my computer? I truly have no clue how Alexa figures out what's playing from a local source, but it could be something sent from the local system's player as it does from MP3 in automobile USB systems? (yes, I know USB in the car is old-school!)

I'm no expert, but isn't that logic the same as saying Shazam can tell me what's playing but not necessarily what's on my computer? I truly have no clue how Alexa figures out what's playing from a local source
I too would like to have Alexa initiate play from my NAS, not just do the subsequent stuff. But when I think about it as a layman, how it figures out what is playing from my NAS is in the realm of magic. But then I am easily impressed.

I bought the Amazon dot at half price anticipating that I would have voice control over my library.

Very disappointed.
I have owned a Sonos system for 6 years and run it in four rooms. I expected that I could ask Sonos to transfer my music requests from room to room. I expected that I could ask it to play a specific album from my library. I expected that it would be implemented to the high standards that Sonos has provided in the past. I did not expect Sonos to be brought low by Amazon.

I do not wish to stream music. I am retired. I have spent thousands of pounds over the years building a music collection and do not wish to change it.

Please, please Sonos find a way to improve this system. It is obvious that it is not in Amazon's interest to improve your systems.