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imodude
Contributor I
Dec 31, 2017 5:09 PM UTC

Playing from local music library not possible using Alexa/voice control

I have checked with Sonos, and they have confirmed that you cannot ask Alexa to play tracks from your own library.
Further, they have no plans to support this.

As much as I love my existing Sonus setup, and as much as I want to try Alexa out, I do NOT want to sign up to a music service when I have a large quantity of my favourite music already in my home Sonus library.

I have no idea of the technical challenges involved with this. Given your voice command is uploaded and parsed somewhere else, it may be too difficult to send back the results to the sonos controller to access the local library.

None the less, I wanted to start a conversation to see if I am alone, or if this is something a lot of people want.

Regards, Ian
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    UKMedia
    UKMedia
    Apr 29, 2018 8:29 AM UTC
    I would certainly be interested in having voice control to my local NAS library of music. No way I will buy a streaming service for music. Also happy to use voice control to control TV volume and channels.

    Sonos CEO has confirmed this will be delivered but no timescales as yet.
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      Chris
      Chris
      Lead Maestro
      Apr 29, 2018 3:14 PM UTC
      He did? Do you have link...I’m curious about.
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      Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
      Master T
      Master T
      Prodigy I
      Apr 29, 2018 6:30 PM UTC
      From: https://www.recode.net/2018/2/15/17017468/transcript-sonos-speaker-patrick-spence-too-embarrassed-to-ask-google-voice-assistant-alexa-amazon

      KS: Speaking of which, there’s a second question from Eric Johnson here, just slip one in. “I bought a Sonos One speaker which works with Alexa, but I can’t play music from my local iTunes music library, even though the Sonos app can. Why is that, and when will that be possible?”

      PS: Ah, yeah. I suspect he’s referring to through voice. We use the services that Alexa ties into today, but we are doing work on the ability to tie into all the services that Sonos supports. That’s something that we’re hoping to deliver later this year as well.
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        Chris
        Chris
        Lead Maestro
        Apr 29, 2018 6:40 PM UTC
        Interesting. I’m sceptical but if they say so.
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        Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
        Darren Coleman
        Contributor I
        May 22, 2018 10:52 AM UTC
        I am with everyone else who listens to their own music and not always stream. I Dont understand why i would pay money to stream when i have a large selection of my own. It does annoy me that sonos keeps putting effort into streaming services but has forgotten about the people who have their own collection.... we are still a big slice of the market share!

        On the issue with alexa voice control NOT being able to control the sonos libraries or even my favorites or streaming services is a little annoying. I have just purchased a pair of ones and while it works quite well, it is annoying i cant tell it to play my sonos playlist even. It seems a total waste of money and time having to purchase or setup 3rd party apps just to do something sonos application has already got setup.

        I really hope sonos does improve this area.
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          Chris
          Chris
          Lead Maestro
          May 22, 2018 11:51 AM UTC
          Alexa has no ability to index your local files. Supposedly Sonos is working on way to do it though. That doesn’t mean they have forgotten local music if they are devoting resources to.
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