Trending Lyricist I

Soundscape Skills Not Functioning

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
November 22, 2017
38 replies
5035 views

I call them "Soundscape Skills" - like "Relaxing Nature Sounds", "Ambient Sounds: Cricket Sounds", "Rain Sounds", etc. There's hundreds of them. On my Sonos One, perhaps only one in ten works properly. If a Soundscape Skill doesn't work properly, the symptom is that I hear nothing at all. Evidence seems to point to the fact that Alexa thinks that the Soundscape is playing, but nothing whatsoever is audible at any volume level. I tried dozens upon dozens of these late last night, and only found a handful which worked properly. Alexa otherwise seems to be performing perfectly well.

I am working with Sonos tech support on this, but since the diagnostic reports look absolutely fine, it's difficult for support to troubleshoot this problem. My question is, am I the only one with this symptomatology?

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kbdoran

Lyricist I

I am also having problems with all Alexa audio skills through my Sonos One, although I can go in another room to my Echo dot and tell it to play on the Sonos One and it will. When I speak directly to the Sonos One Alexa, she sets it up and then silence. Like others, I'm looking for guided meditations and ambient sounds. Any updates on when/if this will be resolved?

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Phillygh

Lyricist I

Hi, I'm in the UK and having the same issue. Haven't been able to find an ambient skins skill which will play on sonos one. No problem on my Echo Dot. Another annoying thing is that music alarms are not supported. On reading another forum, it seems this now works in the States but, unfortunately not on this side of the pond... Yet! Hope there's soon to be more functionality.

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Pfrancotx

Lyricist I

I’m getting the same issue with my brand new Sonos One. Sleepsounds skills are not playing by, even though Alexa blinks and responds like she is starring the skill.

@Sonos: Will this be addressed?

5

5inn

Lyricist I

Convinced the wife to upgrade to the Sonos One instead of picking up another Echo Dot or Echo 2nd generation. A couple days after getting it she mentions that it's broken. I did buy it via Amazon Warehouse deals, so I was hoping it wasn't actually broken, but she mentioned it wouldn't work with any of the meditation/white noise/soundscape skills she has used on our old Echo Dot or any new ones she tried.

I said a few commands to try some other skills. Reuters Flash Briefing, Jeopardy, and Heads-up all work without issue. Saying the command to start most of the 'soundscape' skills she installed resulted in nothing more than a flashing white light with no response from Alexa whatsoever. I was able to get one of them to open and list off all of the different sounds it can play, however when you ask it to actually play a specific sound, Alexa returns with just a flashing white light. Bummer.

There's a slight way around this was to ask Alexa to 'Play White Noise Sleep Therapy' which is an album on Amazon Music (included with Prime). That shuffled the album of relaxing noises/sounds.

I'd really like to get a skill to work for this. Has anyone found a 'soundscape' like skill that works with Sonos One?

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ultramagnus

Lyricist III

I downloaded three of the Ambient Sounds (rain, ocean and rainforest) scapes and none of them worked - argh! - ....UNTIL reading the second/third post on this blog and started adding "playlist" at the end of each comment. So, "Alexa, play rain sounds playlist" - and hey presto - they all work! Hope that helps. Simple but effective - fingers crossed. 😉

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Herbalist

Lyricist I

Thanks for this thread. Was frustrated by the lack of soundscape functionality too. Based on the insight that invoking the skill from an echo to execute on a Sonos one works, I tried this on my Sonos one (assigned the name "Kitchen" in the Alexa app):
"Alexa, play heavy rain sounds on kitchen"
Which works.

It's strange to refer to the Sonos one by name when you're querying that specific one, but hey, got my ambient sound back.

D

desecho

Lyricist II

It actually does work only sometimes for me if you say something like Play X in Y

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neatdesignpdx

Lyricist I

*FIXED* I was having the same problem with the soundscapes not playing. I tried saying "play [name of sound] in [name of room]" and it worked! I tried using words other than play (open, loop, etc) and it didn't work. Adding the name of the room is the key!

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