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brilliantb0y
Contributor I
October 21, 2017
Answered

Sonos One not playing Alexa output

  • October 21, 2017
  • 69 replies
  • 20443 views
I am using the Sonos One I received today. I’ve got everything set up properly I believe but here’s the issue I’m having... the music plays fine through sonos app and commands but any non sonos commands aren’t outputting through the speaker. For example, if I ask for the flash briefing it will tell me “here’s your flash briefing” and then nothing will come out of the speaker. Same for “sleep sounds.” If I ask it to play a sleep sound it will say it’s playing but it won’t actually play. Seems to be the skill outputs but I could be wrong. My echo dot is working fine.
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    Best answer by Ryan S
    I did some searching and found on a review of the Sonos One on "the-gadgeteer" that:

    "At present, not all of Alexa’s voice commands work with the Sonos One, such as asking Alexa for a flash briefing, but an update will address this soon. "

    That describes my issue. Certain skill commands are not working like the flash briefing or sleep sounds. So I will hope that info above is correct and an update will address it soon.

    I will say I'm not having the same problems others are describing above like music not playing at all, or nothing after one song or problems with targeted commands like play music in kitchen. I have a Sonos Play 1, Sonos One and Echo Dot.

    I can confirm this, some of the Alexa Echo abilities aren't working on the Sonos One right now. Flash Briefing is one of the ones that we're hard at work on and should have brought to the Sonos One as soon as we can. Some features are Echo only right now, and might not be available on the Sonos One, like the Messaging and Calling features. That may change in the future, but we don't have any specifics to share.

    69 replies

    zadi
    Contributor I
    October 21, 2017
    I have the same problem. I ask alexa to play Thriller and it says "Playing Thriller in the Bedroom" and then nothing happens.
      brilliantb0yAuthor
      Contributor I
      October 21, 2017
      Tried resetting and stuff but still no luck. It’s like the Echo in the Sonos One doesn’t know it has speakers attached to it to play all of the amazon service related things to it.
        homebrew
        Lyricist I
        October 21, 2017
        I have 2 x Play 1's & The Playbar in a surround setup located in the living room. I have an Echo Dot in the living room also and one in the bedroom. Following the release of the Alexa/Sonos integration, I set it up and it worked once, maybe twice. It then stopped working i.e. Alexa will say "playing ... in the living room" but no audio will play.

        The apps and devices are up to date and I have rolled back the integration, forgot the devices and reset it, but still the same issue occurs. I even tried renaming the group in the Sonos app and retrying with that.

        Massively disappointed with the experience so far. Tell me this is a beta release??
          jgatie
          jgatie
          October 21, 2017
          Yes, the Sonos Alexa skill is currently a public beta.
            homebrew
            Lyricist I
            October 21, 2017
            Yes, the Sonos Alexa skill is currently a public beta.

            Thanks for the response. Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon!
              zadi
              Contributor I
              October 22, 2017
              I tried switching my default music service from Spotify to Amazon Music, but the problem persists.
              zadi
              Contributor I
              October 22, 2017
              I got a solution that worked for me from another forum:

              Login to the Alexa portal on a computer (not a mobile device);

              alexa.amazon.com
              alexa.amazon.co.uk

              Pick the one that's correct for your region.

              With the 'Smart Home' section, select devices. In this section find any Sonos products and hit the forget button. Then move back to the Smart Home section and select smart home skills which is located at the bottom. Next to Sonos select Disable.

              Once this is done, open the Sonos app;

              More > Settings > Room Settings > Select the room which contains the ONE > Voice Services (might ask you to login) > Amazon Alexa > A pop up will appear > Remove Amazon Alexa from this room > Once removed select the MORE tab > Voice Services > Follow the install steps again.

              Once that's done, move back to the Alexa website portal and select SKILLS. Search for SONOS, enable the skill. Once done search for devices. Check within the Smart Home section under devices that all your Sonos products are showing. Then give the speaker a go.
                caesar327
                Prodigy I
                October 22, 2017
                I am using the Sonos One I received today. I’ve got everything set up properly I believe but here’s the issue I’m having... the music plays fine through sonos app and commands but any non sonos commands aren’t outputting through the speaker. For example, if I ask for the flash briefing it will tell me “here’s your flash briefing” and then nothing will come out of the speaker. Same for “sleep sounds.” If I ask it to play a sleep sound it will say it’s playing but it won’t actually play. Seems to be the skill outputs but I could be wrong. My echo dot is working fine.

                Isn't this intended? I thought all the professional Sonos One reviewers said that "flash briefing" was one of the things that Alexa would not do through the Sonos one (they made it sound like it was a purposeful limitation -- not a bug).
                brilliantb0yAuthor
                Contributor I
                October 23, 2017
                I am using the Sonos One I received today. I’ve got everything set up properly I believe but here’s the issue I’m having... the music plays fine through sonos app and commands but any non sonos commands aren’t outputting through the speaker. For example, if I ask for the flash briefing it will tell me “here’s your flash briefing” and then nothing will come out of the speaker. Same for “sleep sounds.” If I ask it to play a sleep sound it will say it’s playing but it won’t actually play. Seems to be the skill outputs but I could be wrong. My echo dot is working fine.

                Isn't this intended? I thought all the professional Sonos One reviewers said that "flash briefing" was one of the things that Alexa would not do through the Sonos one (they made it sound like it was a purposeful limitation -- not a bug).

                If it’s intended, it appears broken. The Sonos One will say “here is your flash briefing” but then nothing after that. If the flash briefing doesn’t work then it should probably tell you that. But it’s not just the flash briefing anyway. Not sure why this would be by design.
                  Hey19
                  Lyricist I
                  October 23, 2017
                  I am having the same problem but found a possible work around. In frustration, I just asked alexa to play smooth jazz (from echo device). She said "Amazon music is streaming on another device, would you like to stream on this device instead?" (or very similar). I said yes and she played music out of the echo. I then told Alexa to stop. Then I said "play smooth Jazz from kitchen speaker (play 3 stereo pair in kitchen) and it worked! Prior to this solution, I couldn't find any music streaming on any other device so not sure what that was about.
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