SONOS ALEXA Integration?

An interesting apology from Bose, who apparently promised to deliver Alexa integration by a specific date, rather than Sonos' broad "some time in 2017" announcement. Sonos hasn't needed to apologize for Amazon holding up delivery of this API.
I don't think that Amazon developed this single-handedly. Announcing an allegedly joint venture a year ago and then waiting in idleness for Amazon to deliver the API would have been strange; to say the least – remember this promotion video?

You can be certain that Sonos, Bose, Denon, Samsung at the very least, were all involved with Amazon. Small wonder it took a year.

I'm hoping that they will be following through with their initial communication regarding the full integration with Alexa. I have a significant investment in Sonos and have 2 Echo's and 4 Dots in anticipation of the integration. Fortunately I have been able to use my Sonos with Alexa for a couple years via my INSTEON smart home integration. I'm able to turn on and off my Sonos system and identify up to 10 'preset' stations with music services. It allowed me to set up 'scenes' called Jazz, Pop, Classical, etc. and I can say 'Alexa, turn on Jazz' or 'Alexa, turn off Sonos' or 'Alexa, turn on volume up'

You can be certain that Sonos, Bose, Denon, Samsung at the very least, were all involved with Amazon. Small wonder it took a year.
I think they'll avail of the opportunity.
All of them are announcing Alexa-enabled products Q4 2017.

They're all announcing Alexa-enabled products, but very pointedly they are not all guaranteeing reverse compatibility for legacy speakers to be controlled by Amazon echo or dot or Apple & SIRI. I challenged Sonos on this on Alexa integration to have Echo or Dot control legacy speakers and got this reply:

We have not received information from our development team regarding how the implementation will work, however we are looking to have the third party devices work with the entire Sonos range, if possible.

Which is far from the confident assurance that seemed to be out there last year and that other still carry. As I said in my first post, it SEEMS increasingly obvious we're in for a let-down here. It doesn't take a year to sort out an Alexa skill. I still hope I'm wrong and unduly pessimistic.

Is this a bad news

http://gizmodo.com/amazon-s-echoes-can-finally-sync-together-to-play-music-1798535130/amp

Is this a bad news

http://gizmodo.com/amazon-s-echoes-can-finally-sync-together-to-play-music-1798535130/amp

Not really, if you love ❤️ the sound of "Echoes", if you want better sound, go get an Echo Dot and buy "Sonoes"

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.
Quoted is the reason why this post should be on a sticky in a prominent place on the forum, along with the caveat that voice control will still only work in the geographies where Echo/Dot works.

I think both Amazon and Sonos have had difficulties overcoming challenges in the two apps talking to each other, especially when you consider the Echo only supports Spotify and Amazon music, and must talk to the Sonos API and be able to play from all the sources available to Sonos.


No, Echo doesn't need to "talk to" the Sonos API. There is a brand new Alexa Voice Services Connected Speaker API that all the major wifi speaker manufacturers worked on with Amazon, which is currently in "developer preview" release, after a year of development. Sonos and their competitors will all be writing to this new Amazon API, not the other way around.

https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/7c9343ce-425b-4baa-ae63-49c36afb5341/giving-device-makers-more-ways-to-bring-voice-forward-music-experiences-to-their-products

Sigh.

Sigh.
Same sound I made when you predicted in this community that Sonos would announce Echo integration at the end of August.

I have yet to come across anything that is supposed to work with Echo that does not.
Have you set up the Echo from a Brazil located Wifi connection? I suspect that will not be possible unless Amazon extends Echo/Alexa to that geography.

Why did you not have to do the antics described here: https://beebom.com/how-to-set-up-and-use-amazon-echo-outside-us/

Why did you not have to do the antics described here: https://beebom.com/how-to-set-up-and-use-amazon-echo-outside-us/
The only "antic" other than the app problem I've already mentioned was assigning a US postal code. For me, this affects only weather reports, easily gotten around by saying "what's the weather in a Salvador, Brasil" instead of "what's the weather". Hardly a huge problem. However, as of a couple of weeks ago Alexa began allowing Canadian locations. I now use those. My time zones in both Canada and Brazil exist in Alexa, so, the article is incorrect. In fact, 11 global geographic regions exist in the Alexa time zone setup, with cities and time zones in each (Asia, Africa, Antarctic, Europe, Australia etc.) For Brasil, I simply picked Salvador as the time zone. If I so desired, I could have picked Fíji standard time, where I am certain Echos are not sold and are uncommon. As for the rest of what is described in the article, I have already indicated that I have a Brasil Spotify account that works, and the article makes it clear that any Spotify account should work. I subscribe in Brasil because Spotify here costs about half of what it does in Canada and the US. (Same for Tidal, by the way, and Deezer Elite is also considerably cheaper.) I may have missed something in the article, but I performed no special browser tricks or anything similar to conigure Alexa. In fact, I have never used a browser with Alexa. It seems the article you cite is incorrect and/or out of date. You are referring to something written six months ago. Alexa/Echo evolves rapidly and new features introduced almost weekly.

Ok, perhaps so, thanks for the clarifications.
My concern isn't about services peculiar to local geographies not being available - like weather or Uber which is understandable - but about a general inability to use a device like a Dot, if bought in the US for example, to use for Sonos voice control once it is released. My understanding was that even to do that, it would need a non Indian IP address or ID to get it going. If that has changed, it is good to know.

I think the biggest concern would be having an Amazon account, although as far as I can determine the country in which that account is based is irrelevant. My Alexa accont is linked with my Canadian Amazon account. Having said that, there may be a workaround of which I am unaware because I haven't had to use it. After experimenting for eight months I'm certain IP addresses don't matter. From time to time I set a VPN in my router to odd locations (Argentina is a favourite) and this has also never affected my use of the Dots. Just out of curiosity after reading your message I set my Brasil network VPN to a location in India and I still had full access to Alexa configuration in apps and my Echo Dots worked normally. Most of the time there is no VPN involved in my network, so it is either a Brasil or Canada IP, depending on where I am. I have homes in both countries, each of them with three Echo Dots. I set up Dots in Brasil, where I spend most of my time, before using them in Canada. They were all purchased in the US.