Naming Sonos Devices For Alexa Recognition

I have just bought a sonos one - When I want alexa to control that device - It references it as the Sonos - Kitchen - i want the device to be found as just Kitchen - is this possible?


Yes. In your Alexa app under settings, you can pull up the sonos one setting and change the name.


Finally I had a Sonos Play 1 in the kitchen and the Alexa doesn't forget that - Is there anyway to deregister that device so Alexa doesn't see it or try and find that?


Do you still have the Play 1, in a different room? You can change the name in the Sonos app, and then in the Alexa app under devices to be something different. I think Alexa allows you to disable devices, but not remove them entirely.



Ideally i want to just say Alex play music in my kitchen (through Sonos one) instead of Alexa play music in my Sonos Kitchen. I think this naming convention occurs because I had a device called Kitchen previously when I cannot forget in the Alexa app

Any Help would be appreciated

With the Sonos One, you shouldn't have to say 'in my kitchen' if you're talking to the Sonos One. 'In the kitchen' is needed when your telling an echo or some other device to get music playing in a sonos zone .

Hey Buddy - Thanks for the response it’s the phrase -Sonos Kitchen I want to lose. I should just be able to say Play Michale Jackson in the kitchen... for some reason it only works when I say Sonos Kitchen.

I have just bought a sonos one - When I want alexa to control that device - It references it as the Sonos - Kitchen - i want the device to be found as just Kitchen - is this possible?

Finally I had a Sonos Play 1 in the kitchen and the Alexa doesn't forget that - Is there anyway to deregister that device so Alexa doesn't see it or try and find that?

Ideally i want to just say Alex play music in my kitchen (through Sonos one) instead of Alexa play music in my Sonos Kitchen. I think this naming convention occurs because I had a device called Kitchen previously when I cannot forget in the Alexa app

Any Help would be appreciated

Open your Alexa App.
Select the Menu (3 Horizontal Bars)
Select "Smart Home"
Your options will be: Devices / Groups / Scenes

Note: It's advisable that your Sonos App and Alexa App reflect the same naming scheme for individual Devices (speakers)

After performing any of the below actions you must Save your changes. I also find it helpful to close the Alexa App and re-open it.

1. Select Devices to De-activate one. Select the Device you want to remove. It will still be there in case you want to re-activate it later on.
2. Select Devices to Change a name. Select the Device Click Edit - First option at top
3. Select Groups to Change a Name. Select the Group Click Edit - First option at top

After making the changes your command should just be: Alexa play music in Kitchen" Leave out the "my".

If I can add one more thing to Aj's good suggestions, the Sonos One has implied targeting. Which means that you should be able to tell the Sonos One (not the PLAY:1), Play Music and it should play without any room name issued. If you want to play in a different room, you would need to target that one, but again, you should be able to target it with just the name of the player.

If you're having trouble with the room names, I'd also suggest just saying "Alexa, discover devices." And on top of that, disabling the Alexa skill and re-enabling it is a great next step to take.

Thanks Ryan for adding that important suggestion to further assist zahidj 🆒

To zahidj or whomever may have a similar situation. It wasn't mentioned if the Play 1 replaced by the Sonos One was sold or just retired.

Unless someone is living in a one room flat the Play:1 IMO is the most versatile speaker in the Sonos lineup. It can be repurposed to another room; even the bathroom as it is moisture resistant. I say again moisture resistant...not water resistant

If repurposed and renamed to it's new location in the Sonos and Alexa Apps (same name of course) the Play:1 can be controlled via the Sonos One. Using the Sonos One (for example) I can now command Alexa to play smooth jazz on my Sonos Stereo setup (Play 5 -2nd Gen x 2 with Sub) / R&B on a Play 3 and Country on my two Sonos Ones in Stereo pair...SWEET!

That said if I have previously grouped rooms together in the Sonos App I can play the same music on every speaker via the Sonos One. It may...and I emphasize may...be possible via Grouping in the Alexa App (without having done so in the Sonos App prior) to play the same music in multiple rooms. I haven't experimented with that and my gut tells me no...but maybe someone else can shed some light on that possibility.

Bottom-line...the Sonos One with Alexa opens up many new possibilities to play music and control other IoT devices (i.e. Hue Lights for example) independent of direct interaction with the Sonos App. 🆒

That said if I have previously grouped rooms together in the Sonos App I can play the same music on every speaker via the Sonos One. It may...and I emphasize may...be possible via Grouping in the Alexa App (without having done so in the Sonos App prior) to play the same music in multiple rooms. I haven't experimented with that and my gut tells me no...but maybe someone else can shed some light on that possibility.

I can attest that this doesn't work actually and unfortunately. I have already tried this out with my Alexa to create a "smart home group". Let me explain my setup a little bit. Since i live in a apartment, i have my living room attached with my kitchen where i have an alexa dot in the middle where my desk is (inbetween my living room and Kitchen there is space for my desk), and i have another alexa dot in my bedroom, and then my bathroom with currently no alexa dot but will have a sonos one in the next few days. In the living room i have one sonos play 1, and the bathroom has another sonos play 1.

What i did was group my living room alexa dot with my living room sonos play 1, and i first got the problem with duplicate names. What i found out is you can't create a smart home group if any of your devices has the same name as the group. For instance most of us name our sonos speakers by the name of the room alone, so my play 1 in the living room is naturally called "living room" and furthermore as is the bathroom play 1 named "bathroom". This means that for me to create a home group i would have to rename my speakers. Now i went to try to do that via the sonos app, but simply appending the word "sonos" to the end of the room name didn't work as sonos has a character limitation. Therefore, what i found out is that you can rename the sonos speaker in the alexa app with a longer name even though it doesn't match what the sonos name is. I created then a living room smart group and added the now named "living room sonos" device to it as well as my alexa dot called "living room alexa echo dot". I also added my lights to this group. Now the lights work marvelously where you can just say "alexa, turn off the lights" and now if you are talking to your living room alexa she knows she is in the living room and she needs to turn off her lights not the lights of another alexa dot in the bedroom, for example. However, when i tried it for the speaker it didn't work.

After this i got the problem that no longer could i do short hand commands for my sonos or at least got inconsistent results. For instance, i would say "alexa, resume" and it wouldn't resume my music or once i got my music playing via either amazon music (which is the only way to start playing on sonos by alexa dot) or spotify (which you have to use spotify connect on your phone) if i would say "alexa, skip" she just response with "what do you want me to play next" meaning she doens't know she is already playing music in my sonos speaker... I hope that this is something that gets fixed. Right now the only way i can consistently change music is to always append "in living room" at the end of each command or whatever the room is that i want to control.

I also want amazon or sonos to fix the problem with naming for the smart home groups. I think it really is a quick fix if Sonos allows for a longer character to add "sonos" to each name but a more elegant solution is for amazon to distinguish between a smart home group name vs a smart speaker as in there should be categories set for lights, speakers, locks, etc vs the actual smart room. It makes no sense for alexa to think that living room is already taken when i have a living room speaker connected called "living room".

Bottom-line...the Sonos One with Alexa opens up many new possibilities to play music and control other IoT devices (i.e. Hue Lights for example) independent of direct interaction with the Sonos App. 🆒

I agree, but they really need to give you the full alexa experience like reminders and calling and messaging.