SONOS ALEXA Integration?

Thankyou for that correction. It means a lot to me, and has added to everyone's understanding. I shall endeavour to be more careful in the future. Many thanks.

Hey Smija, Stuart_W, jgatie,

I agree that full management of every aspect of SONOS isn't trivial, but I don't see why you'd want to do all of that via Alexa.
I already use Alexa with Spotify -- what's so complicated about doing the same and just adding the room name?

https://www.spotify.com/us/amazonalexa

Alex, play The Beatles in The Kitchen.

RB

Hey Smija, Stuart_W, jgatie,

I agree that full management of every aspect of SONOS isn't trivial, but I don't see why you'd want to do all of that via Alexa.
I already use Alexa with Spotify -- what's so complicated about doing the same and just adding the room name?

https://www.spotify.com/us/amazonalexa

Alex, play The Beatles in The Kitchen.

RB

Because that functionality doesn't exist yet, that's why. Whatever you can currently do for an Echo to play means nothing to a 3rd party device's API. Do you think going from playing on itself, to controlling many 3rd party devices from a single Echo is trivial? It's like the difference between two tin cans and a string, and a telephone switchboard., or playing a solo instrument and conducting an orchestra.

So I have been waiting 1/2 year. I have six Echoes, and approximately 20 SONOS speakers ( big house). I bought my first Sonos roughly 15 years ago ( early adopter ). I also like Apple products. If Apple delivers a voice-controlled high-quality speaker before SONOS, I'm a buyer. Simple. Too bad for SONOS. It's taking too long. I'm a little bit sad.

I "ECHO" your sentiments!!!!

Sonos is notorious with their inability to follow through with their promises and to give what their consumers want, or need. I have 12 Sonos speakers and six echoes split between two houses. We have been requesting an outdoor Sonos speaker for over seven years. (Que the Sonos crickets) Chromecast is looking better and better as a more practical option for my next home.

I "ECHO" your sentiments!!!!

Sonos is notorious with their inability to follow through with their promises and to give what their consumers want, or need. I have 12 Sonos speakers and six echoes split between two houses. We have been requesting an outdoor Sonos speaker for over seven years. (Que the Sonos crickets) Chromecast is looking better and better as a more practical option for my next home.

Could you name one promise Sonos has made to consumers and failed to follow through?

Pretty sure Sonos never said they were going to make outdoor speakers. I don't see how that's a promise broken.

As for the required work to get the integration done, I think you also have to consider that a thought must be put into which design will work best and allow for future enhancements. You also have to consider which parts of the integration will be done on the Sonos or Amazon side, and which design will port over to Google or Apple better. It's not just a matter of doing the work, but figuring out what work to do.

Just look at the "in the kitchen" part of the command. Alexa doesn't know what speakers are in the kitchen. Does it need to? Should Alexa be upgraded so that you can specify what speakers or other devices are located in the kitchen? Or should that part of the command just be passed to Sonos? And what if the zone was labeled just 'kitchen', not 'the kitchen'? Should Alexa strip out 'the' or add 'the' as needed? Should 'the' simply be ignored? Should the command just fail and make the customer get an exact match? Will customers get annoyed with having to say 'in the kitchen' when they are talking to their kitchen echo to play music on their kitchen speakers? Shouldn't that just be assumed?

To continue the theme . . .

Should an Echo be assigned to a particular Sonos Room, something which does not exist in the Echo ecosystem now? Should this be optional or forced? What about portable Alexa devices such as tablets? These shouldn't be assigned to a single Sonos (or should they? Or could they?). What about Grouping? Should the Kitechen Echo know about the Living Room Echo? What about if the Living Room and Kitchen are Grouped? Which "assigned" Echo controls each (or do they both? Can they both, given the limits imposed by the possibly "forced" assignment above?).

It doesn't take long to see that the logistics of a mere thought experiment make for a difficult design path, never mind the actual engineering involved. And for those who say "I don't want it to do all those things!", there are just as many (if not more, probably with a great deal of overlap with the "I don't want it to do all those things!" set, lol) that really do want those things, and would call it a half-assed implementation if it doesn't.

By the way, I've been waiting to use the phrase "Echo ecosystem" for a while. Finally got to slip it in. 😉

And just because I like talking about it, all of these questions need to be decided by both Sonos and Amazon management, who like don't agree on all the questions. So you have negotiations and use of leverage everywhere.


Should an Echo be assigned to a particular Sonos Room, something which does not exist in the Echo ecosystem now?

And this is an even bigger question than you think. Because if you can tie a sonos zone to a particular issues, the question suddenly applies to other smart stuff in your home. They've open up a new box of issues. If you don't have to say 'in the kitchen' for a speaker, why do I have to say 'kitchen light' and not just 'light'? Perhaps Amazon sees the desire to move in that direction for all things, but isn't ready at this time. Therefore the design for Sonos has to be flexible so that it can adapt to that functionality when the time comes.

I don't know but based on the way Alexa handles smart home devices I would speculate that there will not be any assignment of a given echo to a particular Sonos speaker. Room names, speaker names, and Echo names are likely to remain simple labels as far as the logic goes. Any Echo will be able to operate any Sonos speaker by name and will not know or care if it is in the same room or not.

I am curious to see how this will apply to grouped speakers. I'm guessing a command to any speaker in the group will apply to the whole group unless it is a volume command? Or maybe the integration will allow defined groups with unique names so a group volume command can be distinguished from an individual speaker volume command?

I don't know but based on the way Alexa handles smart home devices I would speculate that there will not be any assignment of a given echo to a particular Sonos speaker. Room names, speaker names, and Echo names are likely to remain simple labels as far as the logic goes. Any Echo will be able to operate any Sonos speaker by name and will not know or care if it is in the same room or not.


Agreed. That does mean that echo can't mute or pause sonos when it's listen for a command, since it doesn't know which speaker to pause. And, this little detail would likely go over very well with Echo's customers. I personally have 5 echos and about 20 or so smart lights. It would be darn nice if Echo had some location awareness. This also would be a big plus to their calling/intercom feature. If I want to speak to my daughter on the echo in her room, I don't want my son picking it up in his room.


I am curious to see how this will apply to grouped speakers. I'm guessing a command to any speaker in the group will apply to the whole group unless it is a volume command? Or maybe the integration will allow defined groups with unique names so a group volume command can be distinguished from an individual speaker volume command?

I would guess, yes to the first and no to the 2nd. Although there should be an option to turn down the volume of the whole group as well.