Contributor I

Laughably buggy and poor Alexa and Sonos integration

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
October 5, 2017
28 replies
2200 views

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.

Fortunately the Sonos app itself still works fine and never lets me down.

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

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one2OMG

Lyricist III

Seriously though, who cares who done what?!
Just fix the issues. My Alexa (which is under debate right now as to be an ebay item or not) is useless with my Sonos system.

pwt

Virtuoso

The one major factor the analysis above ignores is Sonos's strategy to partner also with Google Home, and potentially other smart services in the future. This is characteristic of the agnostic approach they adopt with 3rd party services in general, evidenced by the large number of streaming services that integrate with Sonos.

This, among other things, is a differentiator for Sonos. Whether the strategy will prove successful is another matter; there is no commentator on this forum who can know.

Right now, for all the agitation around speakers from Amazon, Apple and Google, there is nothing from these companies that can replicate the experience I obtain from the Sonos equipment I own today.

Perhaps I should also note -- back to the topic of the thread -- that the Sonos/Alexa integration is working fine for me, but I agree that it is currently feature-sparse. The big effort with these integrations is getting the foundational pieces in place. There could be relatively rapid feature evolution from now on.

4 x P:5 | Sub | 4 x P:1 | 3 x Connect | 2 x Boost | Connect:Amp | 2 x One | Amp | Move | Port | Era 300

L

Lee_g

Lyricist I

I dont understand the anger people have with the Alexa integration. It's a BETA people! There are going to be issues. Companies release beta updates to allow users to report issues.
I have an issue in that when i name my device in the kitchen, 'Kitchen' i get all sorts of errors. If i rename it to 'Den' for example, it works fine. Did i cry and come on here reporting how rubbish the update is? No, i report it and help Sonos to iron out the bugs. Come on people, help out.

jgatie

I dont understand the anger people have with the Alexa integration. It's a BETA people! There are going to be issues. Companies release beta updates to allow users to report issues.
I have an issue in that when i name my device in the kitchen, 'Kitchen' i get all sorts of errors. If i rename it to 'Den' for example, it works fine. Did i cry and come on here reporting how rubbish the update is? No, i report it and help Sonos to iron out the bugs. Come on people, help out.

Meh, it's like this every major release. Some people live for new features, others live for tearing them down. There is something about knocking the efforts of large corporations and those who work for them that charges the juices for a significant portion of the populace. Most of the complaints are legit, but the loudest voices are usually those who wouldn't be happy if the CEO personally delivered a solid gold Sonos One to their front door.

Your point about the beta is correct, though. I'll never get over the fact people get perturbed by bugs in a beta. I've actually seen posters in a beta thread get mad because they are expected to test Sonos' product for them. Well . . . duh!

J

johncanter

Enthusiast II

How is this a beta? You opt into a beta. I downloaded my version 8 from the App Store which is therefore release candidate. If this is beta than give me the option to downgrade as it is awful. What they are really saying is that they have released a version full of bugs that needs to be addressed.

jgatie

How is this a beta? You opt into a beta. I downloaded my version 8 from the App Store which is therefore release candidate. If this is beta than give me the option to downgrade as it is awful. What they are really saying is that they have released a version full of bugs that needs to be addressed.

The Sonos release is general release, the Alexa skill is a beta, and is clearly marked as such when you choose to opt into it.

MikeV

The Alexa skill is a beta. It says it when you log into your Sonos account to enable it. It will have bugs. It will still have features that aren't fully polished. A few things...

Flash briefing/sports update and similar features... Amazon doesn't allow directing these to other devices. They will play on the device that the command was received on. It would be up to Amazon to make changes to these functionalities to allow them to be played through Sonos. For example, if they created a setting so that any audio commands on an Echo Dot could be directed to another audio device by default, that would likely make that work.

Devices/room names... if you have other devices with a room name - like Hue lights, Lutron switches, etc., you may want to change names a bit. Alexa isn't too smart if there are two devices with the same name. Example... a Hue room called Living Room and Sonos zone called Living Room... when you say "Play music in the Living Room" and you get "Living room can't play music", that's because the Living Room Hue room can't play music. Maybe make the Hue room be called "Living Room Lights" instead.... then you could go "Alexa, turn on Living Room Lights" and the lights will turn on... and now you should be able to "Play music in the living room" and it should also work.

Local library... there's a feature request for this, but IMHO it won't happen unless Sonos creates a secondary skill that requires being addressed (i.e. "Alexa, tell Sonos to play Don Henley from the music library in the Bedroom". Whether they can even make it work with that, I don't know. There might need to be info about your music library uploaded to Sonos and/or Amazon to make it work so it knows what's there and what isn't, so it can respond properly if something is asked to be played that doesn't exist in the library. Not sure how many want to do that though.

Spotify... in the works, as mentioned in the announcement.

All Alexa-supported music services... you need to make sure to set up your music service accounts through Alexa, even if you already have them added to Sonos. Alexa only knows about what you've told her. If you've added SiriusXM to Sonos but not Alexa, then Alexa doesn't know your account info to play stations from SiriusXM, even if you're asking for those stations to be played through a Sonos device.

Artists with unusual spellings... Deadmau5 (pronounced "deadmouse") is one... if you asked Alexa to play as it should be pronounced, she would likely look for an artist or album called "dead mouse". Chvrches (pronounced "churches" but spelled with a v instead of a u) would likely be another fail. Classixx (pronounced "classics") would probably be yet another. I'm sure there are plenty of these.

Volume... there are lots of variations to volume commands. Make sure to specify the room name though! Otherwise it will adjust the volume of your Echo Dot, not the music being played! "Alexa, louder/softer in the [room name]"... "Alexa, turn it up/down in the [room name]"... "Alexa, set the volume to 3 in the [room name]"... etc.

Even on the outside. MANY features have been added to Alexa as Sonos' development of the skill was going on. I'm guessing that many of those things will be factored into future updates of Sonos' skill, but only Sonos and Amazon know what's ahead. Grouping, for example, would likely be one of them, something that was recently added to Alexa's own devices.

The S in IOT stands for Security.

chicks

Working perfectly for me, fully meeting expectations. Only issue I've had so far is when i ask it to play albums that don't actually exist on Amazon Music. For example, asked Alexa to play the album Playboys by Art Pepper and Chet Baker. Sadly, Amazon only has it as a 2-fer with another album, so had to resort to the Sonos app to kick that off. It's been finding and playing most of the albums i ask for otherwise, to the Living Room or Office. Pretty slick integration, Sonos!

O

one2OMG

Lyricist III

The Alexa skill is a beta. It says it when you log into your Sonos account to enable it. It will have bugs. It will still have features that aren't fully polished. A few things...

Flash briefing/sports update and similar features... Amazon doesn't allow directing these to other devices. They will play on the device that the command was received on. It would be up to Amazon to make changes to these functionalities to allow them to be played through Sonos. For example, if they created a setting so that any audio commands on an Echo Dot could be directed to another audio device by default, that would likely make that work.

Spotify... in the works, as mentioned in the announcement.

All Alexa-supported music services... you need to make sure to set up your music service accounts through Alexa, even if you already have them added to Sonos. Alexa only knows about what you've told her. If you've added SiriusXM to Sonos but not Alexa, then Alexa doesn't know your account info to play stations from SiriusXM, even if you're asking for those stations to be played through a Sonos device.

Artists with unusual spellings... Deadmau5 (pronounced "deadmouse") is one... if you asked Alexa to play as it should be pronounced, she would likely look for an artist or album called "dead mouse". Chvrches (pronounced "churches" but spelled with a v instead of a u) would likely be another fail. Classixx (pronounced "classics") would probably be yet another. I'm sure there are plenty of these.

Volume... there are lots of variations to volume commands. Make sure to specify the room name though! Otherwise it will adjust the volume of your Echo Dot, not the music being played! "Alexa, louder/softer in the [room name]"... "Alexa, turn it up/down in the [room name]"... "Alexa, set the volume to 3 in the [room name]"... etc.

Thanks for pronunciation of the artists names... I was sick of shouting "Dead Mow Five" at Alexa...

My point was: Amazon Music doesn't seem to have Deadmau5 in its library (to name but a few), either that or Alexa can't match up with the very music library she was intended for. Either way - very poor.

Anyway, with all that you have pointed out, I guess Alexa just isn't for me. Off to ebay she goes!

And here endith my contribution to this thread. Balance is restored! 🙂

S

Steve113

Lyricist I

It is very confusing, rooms start playing randomly. Stations change on their own. Players mute with no commands. It appears to have been given a life of its own. It gets even more crazy when you choose multiple rooms. Far from the finished article or indeed useable at this stage.

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