New to Sonos or Alexa? How to set up

So calling something "lazy development" or saying they "didn't have the skills" isn't belittling a developer? Gee, who knew? :8

But hey, glad to see my belittling of you got you to back off on them. Baby steps.

You will note, as you appear to hang on my every word with a desire to disect and analyse each one, that in my post on page 4 I offered my conclusion that this was a commercially driven decision. I was never on the developer.

The scenario of lazy or unskilled development was put forward as the only other alternative. Given that the developers are easily skilled enough to achieve the functionality, it somewhat validates my original conclusion.

When all other possibilities have been discounted, what remains however implausible or ugly, has to be the truth.

The reason we dont have these functions os down to finance.

Either they didnt want to spend more developer time doing the slightly more complicated stuff and had other priorities for them, or they saw these additions as a commercial conflict with their own music services, at least for a period of time.

Nice dodge. If you offered it as an alternative, then you offered it as a possibility. Admit it dude, you were taking cheap shots. You had the gall to say it then, so own it now.

Then again, don't own it. I think we all know what you are all about by now. :8

You can choose to interpret my posts to fit your own agenda however you wish. They are there in black and white for all to see. My first, and only conclusion was that these omissions are by design due to commercial reasons.

It was you who chose to latch onto the alternative and assume this was being put forward by myself as a valid justification and a cheap shot at developers. There is no dodge here my friend, just you choosing to ignore whats there in black and white and create a defence of these omissions by unjustly attacking other posters reasonable conclusions.

So, given they have the technical expertise to provide this functionality, and certainly have the time and budget to to do it. Why do you think that the owner of a streaming and music storage facility has not immediately rolled out the facility for customers to use their own free storage and existing music streaming service?

I think the hold up was Amazon, the recent release of their API for smart speakers is proof of that. I think the lack of local library support is due to the logistics of getting a copy of the local track index into the Amazon cloud and keeping it updated, and Amazon having no current functionality to access such data, so it must be manufactured from scratch. I think the delay in Spotify support is due to the fact that Spotify was also waiting for the Amazon API, and as such, they are delayed a bit compared to Amazon Music, who had the inside lane to the finish line.

I also believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, there is no Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, and space aliens have not implanted themselves in Donald Trump's brain (he actually is really that way).

Hi, working fine so far with Alexa over 4 zones.... stop, skip,continue, volume and band names etc .. trouble with her acknowledging my own playlists and my Napster content - any suggestions ?

It will be very interesting to see where this goes next and whether Sonos becomes little more than a "physical" add on for the likes of google/amazon and other voice assistants. Sonos are big, but google and amazon are serious heavyweights in comparison who could, if so inclined, launch their own speakers with their own technology built in, or perhaps move to acquire sonos or another speaker manufacturer in order to do so.

I think the additional functionality will depend on who blinks first with the competition and really how much of a priority this is seen as. Though having all options available to consumers, and all the grouping/ungrouping functionality etc before google home announces its colaboration with Sonos (if/when), would certainly be a coup for Amazon, so perhaps we will see these functions ooner than expected, but personally I still think Amazon aren't in a rush to deliver them whilst ever people with sonos speakers are now signing up for amazon prime music trials....

You're right on Oswald, Big Foot and Trump - but not nessie. 😛

Hi, working fine so far with Alexa over 4 zones.... stop, skip,continue, volume and band names etc .. trouble with her acknowledging my own playlists and my Napster content - any suggestions ?

Local music and Napster are not currently supported, though you can initialize playback via the Sonos app and then pause, play, skip, control volume and ask what is playing via Alexa. The full control services are as follows:

Amazon Music
Pandora
iHeartRadio
TuneIn Radio
SiriusXM

With Spotify coming soon.

Awesome update!
Is there anyway to toggle the ducking feature on/off?
There isn't, I can pass on feedback to the team about it for you. Would you rather it not work at all or just not drop as low? Or something else entirely?

Awesome update!
Is there anyway to toggle the ducking feature on/off?
There isn't, I can pass on feedback to the team about it for you. Would you rather it not work at all or just not drop as low? Or something else entirely?

Ideally it would be cool if it were more granular. If you could set different levels for different speakers or turn it off completely for speakers that would be awesome. It would also be beneficial if you could make it only happen when certain Echo devices are triggered. If I’m listening to my living room Sonos I wouldn’t want it to drop out because my girlfriend asked my Echo in the bedroom what the weather was. Thanks for passing the feedback along!

There needs to be a way to associate 1 or more Sonos zones with each Alexa device for the "ducking" functionality.
We have 11 zones in our house and all 11 zones should not be "paused" anytime you say "Alexa" on any one of the 7 Alexa devices in our house. Or at a minimum be able to disable the feature. Hopefully this is something that can be implemented very soon in the beta as the current "ducking feature" makes this new functionality of controlling with Alexa a nuisance in our configuration. :|

Adding some more details on what would really improve this service where multiple Sonos Zones and Alexa coexists.

Association Mapping:
Each Alexa device (Echo, Dot, embedded, etc) can be associated with one or more Sonos Zones (Amp, ZonePlayer, etc).
- Devices which are both an Alexa device and a Sonos Zone are shown as associated, but can not be disassociated.
- Associated Sonos Zones become the default target for command on the Alexa. "Alexa, play classical music" will default to the associated Sonos zones, but "Alex, play classical music in the Den" would apply to only to the specified Sonos Zone.
- Stretch Goal: A Sonos Group could be used as one of the Sonos Zones
This feature is needed in location that contain many Sonos Zones and Alexa Devices. It would not be desirable to have the music in the Kitchen Zone "ducked" when a query it put to an Alexa a bedroom.

Ducking:
Different sources may want a different effect; for example, streaming music could have the volume reduced to listen for the Alexa commands, but other sources such as Audio Books or PodCasts should instead be paused.
- "Ducking" will apply to all Sonos Zones by default unless there is a user created association. Devices which are both an Alexa and a Sonos Zone are not considered "user created" associations.
- When user created associations are created, only those Sonos Zones are Ducked.
- Stretch Goal: Allow the type of Ducking to be selected per service/source.

Alexa Service Responses:
Ducking should apply to both Alexa command inputs as well as service responses. Several Alexa services such as News ("Alexa, what's in the news?") may respond with audio (and video) from seconds to minutes. During the Service Response, "Ducking" of the associated Sonos Zones should be in effect.
- Stretch Goal: Optionally allow the Service Responses to be played in the associated Sonos Zones; i.e. hear the news audio stream over the Sonos speakers instead of the Echo Dot where the request was made.

Thanks for the feedback mhorn. I'll pass it on to the team for you. The line-in on the PLAYBAR and PLAYBASE already don't duck when you ask commands of Alexa on other rooms.

I'm really impressed with this. The downside side is I have to remember not to say music otherwise I end with some random amazon playlist (I use deezer)

I was was always dubious of how useful voice would be, but its amazing, good job sonos!!