Laughably buggy and poor Alexa and Sonos integration

Could it be because we are operating on a Sonos bridge?

No. Most unlikely

Probably worth ensuring you've done a system power down and restart (Turn off power to router, Sonos, Alexa, and ALL devices attached to your network. Then restart router, wait a few mins. Start Bridge, wait a couple of mins. Then Sonos units. Then the rest of your network devices.

Then have another play

Having similar issues. Sonos stated many times over the last year that they will not release this until it satisfies their usual quality and user experience standards but it couldn't have fallen shorter. Terrible, buggy and unusable as it stands. The lack of Spotify is utterly mystifying and can only be some sort of crazy Amazon stipulation. Poor form.

Hi guys, some really great Alexa and Sonos troubleshooting steps to start with here.

@scottreadman, if you missed it elsewhere, we're working with Spotify and Amazon Alexa teams to get voice control for them working on Sonos too. It's just not quite ready yet. We wanted to get this in the hands of everyone as soon as we felt it was ready to be seen. There are still the odd issue, but overall it's pretty great.

The integration will continue to improve over time.

Very disappointing Alexa integration with Sonos. I had high hope for this, fully expecting that the long wait for Alexa integration was so that Sonos could ensure the typical high quality experience I've gotten used to from Sonos. Didn't expect to be a beta tester. Issues include: 10 second volume decrease after Alexa command is processed, volume control for multiple rooms at one time non-existent, ability to change zones and add a zone not available, no Spotify, no ability to change source, no ability to access personal music files - and this is only after fiddling with this for 15 minutes! I thought that Alexa integration would breath new life into Sonos and keep it a dominant force in the smart home world with respect to whole house audio. The current Alexa integration has me second guessing this!

Hi guys, some really great Alexa and Sonos troubleshooting steps to start with here.

@scottreadman, if you missed it elsewhere, we're working with Spotify and Amazon Alexa teams to get voice control for them working on Sonos too. It's just not quite ready yet. We wanted to get this in the hands of everyone as soon as we felt it was ready to be seen. There are still the odd issue, but overall it's pretty great.

The integration will continue to improve over time.

I think you know from most of these posts its far from great.

Problems encountered so far:

1) Would not recognise my Living Room and play music then randomly did.
2) Says it cannot work in my kitchen even though works fine in Sonos App, and also listed in Alexa App.
3) When I say 'Play (artists) in Living room" it just plays the last song listed on the Songs App. No way at all to select artists via voice command.
4) When asking it to stop etc, have to shout at it.

I know its beta but this is unusable and not like a usual Sonos Beta- very poor quality needs pulling and sorting out first. Fault may be with Alexa which I have generally found next to useless, for example very poor at controlling my Nest Thermostat etc.


I've had a similar experience too, I'm afraid.

If it wasn't bad enough that this release has chopped the head off UK Music Streaming with Alexa, its the way that the lack of functionality makes it worse that when I had it hooked up to my Play: 5's with a 3.5mm jack.

Things like:

Flash briefing - it now comes through the Echo Dot and not Sonos.

Timers - exactly the same as above. It may sound like a small thing but while we cook in our kitchen we like to have our music on and the Alexa Dot cannot be heard over the Sonos.

Alexa - Has she gone deaf?! I asked for "Blur". It played Blur from Spotify on the Echo Dot. I asked again using Amazon Music and I got "Songs by Bullet", then "Belinda Carlisle". I gave up and asked for "Foo Fighters", which I got on shuffle but it played 1 song 3 times over before I had to say "skip".

Volume control - WOAH! WTF has gone on here?! It was so flakey, after 4 times of asking, I had to break the phone out to turn it down.

It worked better hard wired to the Play: 5's.

Please sort this out Sonos. This should never have been released like this.

Also - Amazon Music: I can't condone this as a music streaming service, it's so limited. "Play songs by DeadMau5e in the kitchen"... "there is no songs by DeadMau5e..."

:?

Whilst Ive bashed the release for lacking in areas such as local library and spotify, my personal opinion is that the development of these features was hamstrung by the accountants and not the technical ability of Sonos/Amazon.

The voice control adds functionality that we did not have before. Personally its improved our household just by the wife being able to ask alexa to play a radio station on a group of sonos speakers. As she does not always have her phone to hand when she wants to do this, the ability to do it via voice is a big improvement for her.

The lack of grouping via voice seems an omission, but is probably lower down the list of priorities given to the developers.

Spotify and local library imho is a different matter.

Why did Sonos and Amazon partner? Just for the good of the users? Hardly. They believed by partnering they could work together to provide products and services which would be of mutual commercial benefit. The PlayOne is the physical manifestation of this.

People who fill their homes with sonos like their music. People who filled their homes with echos and dots like their technology/smart homes. This coming together was an opportunity to cross sell, and nothing more.

However there are issues with that. Both sides had or have existing offerings that conflict with the other sides business model. This is why in my opinion the coming together of the technologies resulted in some lost features, at least for now.

Why put development effort into retaining the ability to play your local music, when one of the partners sells customers the ability to upload all their music to their service for a mere $25? Same with the spotify feature. Whilst individually the companies offered access to spotify, why bother putting the effort into having this available at release when one partner offers a music stremaing service of their own.

I have no doubt these features will come, but imho they will come when the orders for amazon music dry up from sonos owners, or the competition decides to offer it (google home). Though with google having their google play music service, they may decide to go the same route. There may even be commercial negotiations ongoing with Spotify which are preventing this feature being immediately available, voice control access to spotify via alexa and sonos has to be a big draw for spotify? Perhaps Amazon/sonos want their pound of flesh from spotify in order to bring this online for consumers? Whether this sounds like a conspiracy theory or not, it is entirely plausible imho.

Dear Lord. :8

Whilst Ive bashed the release for lacking in areas such as local library and spotify, my personal opinion is that the development of these features was hamstrung by the accountants and not the technical ability of Sonos/Amazon.

The voice control adds functionality that we did not have before. Personally its improved our household just by the wife being able to ask alexa to play a radio station on a group of sonos speakers. As she does not always have her phone to hand when she wants to do this, the ability to do it via voice is a big improvement for her.

The lack of grouping via voice seems an omission, but is probably lower down the list of priorities given to the developers.

Spotify and local library imho is a different matter.

Why did Sonos and Amazon partner? Just for the good of the users? Hardly. They believed by partnering they could work together to provide products and services which would be of mutual commercial benefit. The PlayOne is the physical manifestation of this.

People who fill their homes with sonos like their music. People who filled their homes with echos and dots like their technology/smart homes. This coming together was an opportunity to cross sell, and nothing more.

However there are issues with that. Both sides had or have existing offerings that conflict with the other sides business model. This is why in my opinion the coming together of the technologies resulted in some lost features, at least for now.

Why put development effort into retaining the ability to play your local music, when one of the partners sells customers the ability to upload all their music to their service for a mere $25? Same with the spotify feature. Whilst individually the companies offered access to spotify, why bother putting the effort into having this available at release when one partner offers a music stremaing service of their own.

I have no doubt these features will come, but imho they will come when the orders for amazon music dry up from sonos owners, or the competition decides to offer it (google home). Though with google having their google play music service, they may decide to go the same route. There may even be commercial negotiations ongoing with Spotify which are preventing this feature being immediately available, voice control access to spotify via alexa and sonos has to be a big draw for spotify? Perhaps Amazon/sonos want their pound of flesh from spotify in order to bring this online for consumers? Whether this sounds like a conspiracy theory or not, it is entirely plausible imho.

Excellent analysis.

Why did Sonos partner with such an obvious competitor?

Sounds like corporate suicide.

It could have something to do with Sonos not having to think to much about the competition in the past because it just wasn't there.

Unfortunately it's breathing down their necks and they are in bed with one ofthe biggest and most capable.

There is the possibility that it was Amazon that courted Sonos for a partnership.

Think abaout it from Amazons perspective, they developed Alexa and Google were hot on their heels with their home assistant. What would have happened to the Amazon Alexa market if Google partnered with sonos first? With Googles voice recognition, search engine and multiple other platform backends, if they broke into multiroom home audio by partnering with Sonos, then Alexa would suddenly look quite isolated in the market.

Sonos already had an established userbase and certainly a product line up that provided good quality multiroom home audio. Rather than develop ther own line of competing speakers, it makes more sense to partner and push your technology into that existing userbase.

How many households with multiroom sonos are currently without any form of voice assistant?

How many households are early adopters of the alexa/echo/dots but have not invested in true multi room audio to date?

These companies can now cross sell to each others user bases - and for those that fit into neither household above, we have the first born device of the marriage, the PlayOne.

I wouldnt be surprised if there were some form of contractual arrangement or exclusivity which bars the sonos tech from working with google home for at least a period of time, probably the same period of time that will see the alexa/sonos integration without access to spotify. What better time to draw in a load more customers from spotify than just before your competitor announces they have a voice controlled multiroom audio solution. No thanks Google, Ive already invested $X,000 in alexa and sonos. Thats what I think their plan is.