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jmhoye
Contributor I
January 18, 2018
Answered

Sonos One not playing certain skills such as Sleep Sounds

  • January 18, 2018
  • 19 replies
  • 3372 views
Sonos One is not playing certain skills such as Sleep Sounds (and other similar ambient noise skills). You ask it to open this skill and it does nothing. If you give it a further command in the skill it responds saying "you're currently enjoying Sleep Sounds, etc..." so it thinks it's playing it but it's clearly not.
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Best answer by Keith N
A reply from somebody at Sonos ( @keith ) with even a rough timescale would be appreciated.
jgatie is right about this. Given the generally tumultuous and fickle nature of software development, it would be unfair to set an expectation publicly when we cannot guarantee it's delivery. We'd much rather set the correct expectation, one time, rather than constantly revise previous statements and reset expectations.

However...

Ryan S has recently posted a helpful update from the team about this. Rest assured, the team is actively working to continue enhancing and bringing the best of Alexa to Sonos.

Thanks for keeping the conversation going!

19 replies

Keith N
Keith N
Sonos Staff
January 18, 2018
Hello there, jmhoye. Thanks for posting and welcome to the Community. We are aware of some audio skills not working on Sonos One. While the team is hard at work on a solution, I have no other information to share. Thank you for the feedback and patience.
Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.
    jmhoyeAuthor
    Contributor I
    January 18, 2018
    Thanks Keith, does the team feel there is a high probability they can fix it? I only have 3 days left to return the product.

    Thanks
    Keith N
    Keith N
    Sonos Staff
    January 18, 2018
    No worries. It's on our list to bring full audio skill support to Sonos One.
    Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.
      jmhoyeAuthor
      Contributor I
      January 19, 2018
      Here's a workaround for those interested in having some white noise while sleeping. If you are a Spotify user search for an ambient noise sound track (there are plenty of them) and select one. Create a playlist with that one track. Turn on Cross Fade in Spotify (Settings --> Playback --> Cross Fade) and adjust the timing of the fade. I chose about 3 seconds (this is so that when it gets to the end of the track it doesn't abruptly stop and start. Rather it fades). I think you can cross fade in the Sonos app as well. When ready to play it say "Alexa play my [ambient noise playlist name] playlist" and then say "Alexa loop" This will loop the track indefinitely. To stop the playing just say "Alexa Stop". Hope this helps.
        Keith N
        Keith N
        Sonos Staff
        January 19, 2018
        Creative workaround, jmhoye! Thanks for sharing. Will definitely be sharing this with the technicians.
        Building community is like building a garden. You build the frame, till the ground, plant the seeds, feed the plants & sometimes you gotta pull the weeds.
        MikeV
        MikeV
        January 20, 2018
        Yeah, most of the on-demand music services do have albums of nature and sleep sounds too... I've seen some in Google Play Music as well... just can't voice control that one yet. 🙂
        The S in IOT stands for Security.
        grumpysausage
        Enthusiast I
        January 28, 2018
        I've found that it's not playing ANY third party sounds added to Alexa skills, not just certain ones. I can only get the 'native' applications like Pandora and TuneIn to work properly. Apple Music isn't supported via Alexa, neither is Pandora, so it's really inconsistent in regards to what you can do via voice as opposed to the apps. 3rd party Podcast apps, like Overcast not being supported seems like a bit of an odd decision too. And then there is Airplay... I hear Airplay 2 is coming, but no date

        I get this is a new product and software is still maturing, but being able to play skills added to Alexa seems pretty basic. I'd also love to know when this will be addressed.
        summadeamundi
        Lyricist I
        January 30, 2018
        I'm in a similar boat as @jmhoye. Certain skills start up just fine, but no audio is played. In no danger of abandoning the Sonos Ones that I have (there are 3), but really would love to see this functionality improved ASAP, particularly for skills like Headspace.
          Rush21479
          Lyricist I
          January 31, 2018
          I'm in agreement with everyone here. I just wrote tech support on a solution and there isn't an ETA but referred me to the community board. I like Sonos's quality but you're competing with Apple now (and hence the special) so I would hope that you would address the functionality issues. Thanks
            chicks
            chicks
            January 31, 2018
            No worries. It's on our list to bring full audio skill support to Sonos One.

            Must be a bit embarrassing for Sonos that a $49 third-party Alexa device for the car fully supports these, as well as Audible. I have one in my car, works well, even though I do sometimes have to shout “Alexa!” at it.

            https://goroav.com/pages/viva
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