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Cladner
Contributor I
May 11, 2017
Answered

SONOS ALEXA Integration?

Been waiting to hear news about when this will happen and am starting to think it never will. I have Sonos and Alexa in every room. I did this with the assurance that Sonos and Alexa are going to work together. There has been next to no news regarding integration for the past 6 months.... When can we expect to hear about Sonos and Alexa integration? Is it still happening? Please any update would be appreciated.
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    Ryan S
    Ryan SAnswer
    Retired Sonos Staff
    August 31, 2017
    Hi everyone, there's a lot of interesting discussion going on here and I love the energy you all have around voice control and Alexa. My message from way earlier in this thread is still very much still the case, so I'll quote it here:

    Thanks for jumping in everyone. Great answers already. As suggested, I can't really provide any extra details today, but I assure you, we're as excited about this as you are. It is coming. We'll let the world know as soon as there's more to say, and we'll announce here on the community (and elsewhere) if there are any opportunities to help us beta test.

    On top of that, I just want to take a moment to make sure everything is clear about a few things. First off, to use voice control with Sonos, you will need to have a device with Alexa built in. We're largely talking about Amazon Echos and Dots here, but you never know what other fun gadgets may work as well, at launch or after it.

    Second, once the software is live, it will work with every updated Sonos component. As long as you already have an Alexa-enabled device, you aren't going to need to buy any new hardware to use Alexa with Sonos. Just make sure your players are updated to the latest version of the Sonos software (when Alexa control comes out for Sonos), you will be able to take advantage of the voice commands sent by your Alexa-enabled devices. We're not going to go into the magic right now, but there have been some pretty good ideas here in the thread already.

    That's all for now. More to come later, so stay tuned!
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    266 replies

    Trending Lyricist I
    July 17, 2017

    The irony here is that the Echo can't recognise the Sonos mesh and so I have to use a mobile hotspot device for Alexa to work. I just hope the integration Sonos has in mind will allow it to connect directly to their own mesh network which is fundamental to my internet access (albeit it's probably an unusual setup).


    You could probably just plug a Wifi A/P or an old router to the ETH port of your play 5 to extend the (non-mesh) wifi network from your satellite broadband directly to your Echo.
    Trending Lyricist I
    July 17, 2017
    All. Keep in mind that if you happen to be using a Logitech Harmony control system which Alexa fully integrates with, it does provide fairly decent control of your Sonos system from Alexa. This is not an integrated solution as you still have to plug your echo into the line input of a device to get it in the system if you want to actually hear the Alexa response in your Sonos system. The line input is not necessary if you just want to control Sonos through Alexa. I most often use this to control volume. It's a little bit of a long path as you state "Alexa tell Harmony to turn up the volume". But it does work well.
    melvimbe
    July 17, 2017
    Regarding bluetooth, I don't think it's that uncommon for products to leave out certain technologies if using that technology doesn't show the product at it's best. Sonos can't demonstrate it's sound quality over bluetooth, and I can understand why they don't want customers concluding that Sonos doesn't have better sound because they are using bluetooth. Many customers won't know that bluetooth is the limiting factor, not the quality of the speakers.

    A good example of this, I think, was Apple's decision several years ago, not to include Adobe Flash in their browser, even though it was commonly used at the time. They felt that the tech wasn't good, and wanted to push for HTML 5 instead.

    I'd say a company has to decide between giving customers what they want, giving them what they actually need, and pushing customers to using the product at it's best experience.

    I do think Sonos would opt to include bluetooth if they ever came up with a product designed to be used away from your home network, where streaming music directly isn't an easy option. That's a bit of a departure for Sonos though, so I wouldn't expect that anytime soon.
    Danny
    Lyricist III
    July 19, 2017
    Ummm...just integrate SONOS and ALEXA please. NOW!
    bockersjv
    Local Superstar
    July 19, 2017
    :8 Thank you for that intelligent and vital addition to this thread.
    Lyricist III
    July 19, 2017
    Less is more.
    Enthusiast II
    July 19, 2017

    The irony here is that the Echo can't recognise the Sonos mesh and so I have to use a mobile hotspot device for Alexa to work. I just hope the integration Sonos has in mind will allow it to connect directly to their own mesh network which is fundamental to my internet access (albeit it's probably an unusual setup).


    You could probably just plug a Wifi A/P or an old router to the ETH port of your play 5 to extend the (non-mesh) wifi network from your satellite broadband directly to your Echo.


    Hmm. I can see the sense, especially as the Play 5 is the most centrally located Sonos kit, whereas the satellite cable comes in via a remote corner, feeding into their passive (no wi-fi) modem/router thingy. I guess i had just been used to the mesh getting wi-fi to all other parts of the house without resorting to a conventional wi-fi router and several repeaters.

    There must be other users who distribute wi-fi via Sonos hardware, so it would be nice if it were visible to Echo and especially the Alexa app on an device already getting wi-fi from the Sonos hotspot.
    18 zones, 29 devices and counting
    Contributor I
    July 21, 2017
    Yeah...

    I'd bet this isn't anything to do with a technical or development issue (it's not that complicated). SONOS is trying to figure out how not to be commoditized by Alexa, Apple, Google, etc. Once they hand over the actual controls to Alexa, they are just speakers/amps.

    I really want this feature, and I love my SONOS system, but I think they're dragging their feet while they figure this out (or negotiate).
    Smilja
    July 21, 2017
    Yeah...

    I'd bet this isn't anything to do with a technical or development issue (it's not that complicated).

    Yeah... I'd bet you know this because you are a technician with many, many years of experience in multi-room audio engineering.
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    Stuart_W
    World-Class Superstar
    July 21, 2017
    Yeah...

    I'd bet this isn't anything to do with a technical or development issue (it's not that complicated).

    Yeah... I'd bet you know this because you are a technician with many, many years of experience in multi-room audio engineering.


    Yeah, and creating the world's first multi-room audio solution controlled by voice is easy!
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