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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

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    barry2015
    Contributor I
    October 27, 2017
    Ok, I’m afraid that I have drawn the conclusion that the Alexa part of the Sonos One is utterly useless, it doesn’t hear me unless I’m almost shouting at it, at which time other Echos pick up the message. Loads of the skills don’t work and I can’t get my flash breifing. So I’m going to have to go and buy another Echo to use in the same room as the Sonos. Disappointing!!!! I expect that they will sort it out but in my opinion they shouldn’t be selling the One until it does work. On the plus side Alexa through Amazon products does seem to work with Somos speakers.
      djenders
      Contributor I
      October 30, 2017
      Finding similar problems as people in this thread are. There certainly seems to be an issue with the Sonos One always recognizing the "Alexa" wake word. I'd say I'm having about 75% success rate at best.

      Running tests throughout the weekend it also seems very bad at picking up the wake word if the TV is on or I need to be yelling at the device.

      Also noticed issues with some built in commands. Namely news not playing and with the Halloween weekend I tried saying "Happy Halloween" to the device. I got no response from the Sonos One whereas you get a response from any other Amazon device.

      I had high hopes for this, especially with multiple integrations with Google, etc. But right now, as much as I like the playback sound of music, I've been trained by Amazon that Alexa will always respond accurately. Not so much here.

      And as of this morning I think I learned that the Sonos One won't take advantage of Voice Profiles.

      Worse yet, I've gotten nothing from Sonos outside of a tweet. It would sure be nice to know what commands work and what don't.
      barry2015
      Contributor I
      October 30, 2017
      People would be less frustrated if Sonos told us what was happening. There have been comments on these pages but they are limited to ‘its software and it will eventually work.’ But when??? It isn’t really good enough to sell a product that is not working properly yet. I didn’t see in any of the literature that the Sonos One will not perform as well as an echo dot!

      Cone on Sonos, tell us when you will start to send out software updates so we know when things might start to get better. Even if it is just a step in the right direction.

      Great speaker, useless communications from Sonos and and utterly useless Echo.
        djenders
        Contributor I
        October 30, 2017
        People would be less frustrated if Sonos told us what was happening. There have been comments on these pages but they are limited to ‘its software and it will eventually work.’ But when??? It isn’t really good enough to sell a product that is not working properly yet. I didn’t see in any of the literature that the Sonos One will not perform as well as an echo dot!

        Cone on Sonos, tell us when you will start to send out software updates so we know when things might start to get better. Even if it is just a step in the right direction.

        Great speaker, useless communications from Sonos and and utterly useless Echo.

        Totally agree. All we are looking for is some truth and transparency here. I'm willing to hold the product if we know this is being fixed. If not, it's time to return it.
        Ryan S
        Ryan S
        Retired Sonos Staff
        October 30, 2017
        Hi guys, most skills should work perfectly fine with the Sonos One, though some of them have some weird calls to services that it might not be able to answer. As an example, the app might play a sound that comes from Spotify. So if the Sonos One tries to play it, nothing will happen since the Sonos One can't access Spotify yet (coming by Christmas). The same would be true for another source we don't have access to.

        The flash briefing is coming really soon. We haven't shared the official release date yet, but it's the top of our list right now, so you'll see it soon.

        The longer the Sonos One is out, the better the voice analysis will get, as we fine tune it to pick out different voices and train it to ignore background noises.

        The team here and at Alexa is constantly making improvements and working on the skill and the Sonos One, so you're going to keep seeing it improve over time. Some things will be faster than others, a few might not be possible. But it's an integration we're building on, and adding to, all the time.
        Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.
        dhandler
        Lyricist I
        November 2, 2017
        Sonos one keeps saying flash briefing is not enabled even though i enabled it. I even did so by telling alexa, and it says i can access by asking for flash briefing. I also installed on the app. If this thing can only play music I have no use for it. I have built in speakers connected to sonos in every room. I wanted alexa functionality but this is just a speaker. Waste.
        jgatie
        jgatie
        November 2, 2017
        Sonos one keeps saying flash briefing is not enabled even though i enabled it. I even did so by telling alexa, and it says i can access by asking for flash briefing. I also installed on the app. If this thing can only play music I have no use for it. I have built in speakers connected to sonos in every room. I wanted alexa functionality but this is just a speaker. Waste.

        As announced by Sonos, the flash briefing and other news functions are a top priority and will be coming to the One soon.
        ROBBSKI
        Enthusiast II
        November 2, 2017
        [/quote]
        As announced by Sonos, the flash briefing and other news functions are a top priority and will be coming to the One soon.[/quote]

        I really wish Sonos would give us THEIR definition of what "soon" is. My ONEs are going back to Best Buy today for the cheaper Play 1's (match Amazon's price). The money I save on the Play 1's will pay for an Echo Dot, so my problem is solved. 😃
        hosono
        Lyricist I
        November 2, 2017
        It’s a little frustrating and disappointing that you brought a product and market which does not have all the features of my Alexa Echo without disclosing this. Also the repsponse time on Sonos One is significantly slower than my gen 1 Amazon Echo. Your other products, however, have delighted me since you first launched.
        jgatie
        jgatie
        November 2, 2017
        It’s a little frustrating and disappointing that you brought a product and market which does not have all the features that my Alexa echo has

        Prepare to be more disappointed in the future. Amazon has designated some functions to be Echo only. Calling and Drop In are two such functions; they don't even work on Amazon manufactured Alexa devices like Fire TV and Fire tablets. Nothing Sonos can do about it until Amazon extends the capabilities beyond Echo, so your disappointment should be with Amazon, not Sonos.
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