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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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.

To add to my previous. It is now very annoying. It won't connect in any room, Wonder if there is a way to undo the last update so I can get back to what I had. If anyone from Sonos monitors this, I must say that it is rubbish and needs sorting out quickly.

jgatie

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.

To add to my previous. It is now very annoying. It won't connect in any room, Wonder if there is a way to undo the last update so I can get back to what I had. If anyone from Sonos monitors this, I must say that it is rubbish and needs sorting out quickly.

You may not be used to the instability and bugs present in a beta release. That's ok, beta is not for everyone. Disable the beta Alexa skill and you will be back to the general 8.0 release. No way to go backwards from the general release, but at least that is fully tested.

jgatie

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! :)

I would hold off on the ebay. Alexa may be for you, you may just be frustrated with the beta. Wait for the general release before losing money on your investment.

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DarwinOSX

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.

How could you have possibly missed that Spotify integration is expected soon?

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terrwils

Lyricist I

Damn, some people cannot be satisfied. You were GIVEN a new FREE functionality with your existing Sonos speakers, and you find every which way to complain that Sonos F'd it up. So then go back to using the Sonos the "old way" and pretend like it never rolled out. Will you be happy then?

Oh, and please tell us which alternative is out there to get Wifi whole home audio that has perfect Alexa integration? Any? No? Ok.

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stupid_alexa

Lyricist II

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!

Oh man, are you kidding? First of all, I want to stream my personal music, not some 56kb crappy Amazon stream from a very limited collection.

You're kidding, right?

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stupid_alexa

Lyricist II

Damn, some people cannot be satisfied. You were GIVEN a new FREE functionality with your existing Sonos speakers, and you find every which way to complain that Sonos F'd it up. So then go back to using the Sonos the "old way" and pretend like it never rolled out. Will you be happy then?

Oh, and please tell us which alternative is out there to get Wifi whole home audio that has perfect Alexa integration? Any? No? Ok.

Whoa! Why so emotional? Are you a Sonos or Amazon employee who can't deal with honest feedback? Otherwise, I can't see why you're acting like people are talking about you personally.

Ken_Griffiths

I’m with Chicks here, having learned the Alexa voice commands for Sonos a long long time ago and used it for many months now, I think the Alexa service works great with Sonos. I have Alexa and Sonos in most of the main rooms of my home and there are no complaints from me.

I can play my own music library 25000+ tracks and playlists, because I have uploaded the lot to my Amazon cloud. Apparently the required annual subscription service for that, ends sometime next year, but Amazon say that I can keep my own music in the cloud indefinitely, whilst I continue to subscribe to one of their music streaming services... I presently pay my streaming subscription annually too, as that works out to less than £80 per year. I used to spend far more than that on CD's when I was younger.

In fact I now subscribe to both Amazon Unlimited and Spotify Premium and use the free Google Play Service too, which also holds my music library.

I do have my own music stored on a local NAS box aswell and even that music can be voice controlled, once I have initially loaded a playlist to a room (or grouped rooms) queue.

People here can moan/groan all they like, but the Alexa and Sonos integration really does work well for me and the whole family.

Friends, family and visitors to the house seem to love it and they particularly like how I have associated some different room 'mood lighting' using Philips hue to saved genre-based Playlists on the 'My Sonos' (favourites) tab, using other Alexa Skills, like Yonomi.

I also use the tvOS App called TunesMap that 'works with Sonos’ and it automatically identifies the music that is streaming on a chosen Sonos Speaker/or Spotify Connected device, and displays terrific Art/Culture on the TV screen in a room, in the context of any Artist that is currently playing. It’s nice to see the Album Art and other scenes change as the music changes.

So in addition to the Alexa voice controlled music via Sonos speakers in a room the guests experience different mood lighting and artistic displays on screen... All using some very simple and basic voice commands.

I think Sonos have made a great decision here to enter the voice controlled smart-home market. It presents some great opportunities both for Sonos and their forward-looking customers.

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