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SONOS ALEXA Integration?



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Yes, I know. Was hoping to lead a horse to water 🙂
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I can't wait for integration either. We just picked up an Alexa and we have a sonos, but the Alexa is already playing more music in my house just because it's so much easier for my wife to just ask it to play something. It drives me nuts because teh Sonos Play 5 is sitting right next to it, quiet, but she just wants the song to play.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/control-sonos-speakers-with-alexa,news-24892.html


There is also an FAQ from Sonos which I find easier to understand :

https://sonos.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4158/kw/alexa


Thanks, we just got the alexa a few days ago and while missing some bass it sounds better than I expected it to.

I'll try the Dot suggestion with my play:5. I didn't realize there was an auto setting to pickup line-in activity.
The auto-play line in feature is both a curse and a major benefit to me. I've got my Mac hooked in to my Play:5 so that I can listen to TuneIn premium baseball games. But when I'm just messing around with my computer and listening to music, the autoplay videos on all these silly websites will interrupt my music enjoyment. I can think of two ways for me to fix this, but I'm lazy. It certainly isn't Sonos' fault, it's entirely on me. 🙂
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I'm pretty sure that 2 play 1s will beat homepod. The sterio seperation and clarity of play 1s is brilliant. The build against obsolescence is where Sonos will win. After care is second to none. Massive Sonos fan and likewise I bet for majority of Sonos owners
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I've just replaced a Bluetooth receiver connected to my old Play 5 with an Echo Dot. Because of my location, conventional broadband at just 200k won't support most music streamed over Sonos so I have to use 10Gbit satellite broadband. My 20Gig monthly allowance is mainly used for this; but the beauty of Sonos is that I can use the mesh network to distribute wireless internet throughout the 15 or so zones (old, old setup with several CR100s still hanging on).

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).

And without internet, my NAS works fine when the satellite or mobile signals don't allow streaming, but I'm considering adding a Brennan B2 if anyone's got any experience they can point me to...
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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.
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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.
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.
Ummm...just integrate SONOS and ALEXA please. NOW!
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:8 Thank you for that intelligent and vital addition to this thread.
Less is more.
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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.
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).
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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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!
Hey Smija, Stuart_W

I probably shouldn't have started my post with "Yeah..." 🙂.

As I said, I love my amazing 8-zone SONOS system. And I can't wait for Alexa integration.

I am in fact a technician (with many, many years, etc.) and I am somewhat familiar with the Alexa and other APIs -- there's no need for audio engineering skills since, thankfully, SONOS has already implemented that (better than anyone else).

But as far as integration goes, this should be a weekend project. Out of the box, Alexa supports voice control for selecting music, playlists, etc. Where do you think the complexity comes from? (Genuinely interested in your perspective -- let's move out of the flame mode I started).
The complexity comes in the grouping and ungrouping, moving music from one room to another, the access of music services on the Sonos device, not on Echo, etc. Also, Sonos has stated this is not going to be an "Alexa, tell Sonos to . . ." type skill. Rather, it is a full integration between the two, with Sonos effectively becoming the music center of the home, and Alexa only a controller. All Alexa's audio controls are for playing her own music, and aside from the rudimentary external audio controls (stop, pause, skip, etc.) announced for a few pieces of 3rd party hardware, Alexa does not have near the capabilities needed for full Sonos multi-room control. They had to be developed from scratch.
Go watch this video, which is about just the data gathering piece for analytics, then come back and talk weekend projects. The voice integration is no doubt even more complex.

https://youtu.be/-70wNNrxf6Q
It's about time. This honestly made me rethink purchases while I could have added Sonos speakers in more rooms.

http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/sonos-alexa-beta-test-1202423809/
for those who cant wait, may i suggest looking into Emby? there is a Alexa plug in that works well for playing your local music over all of your Sonos zones

as Amazon Prime Day half price big echos so ill just get one of those and sell the Sonos. I dont need wireless to play music. I dont need bridges to play music etc etc Not having bluetooth in all Sonos is stupid. Its a pretty useless expensive speaker if you dont have wireless! Time to get rid tbh. Tired of hearing excuses or actually not hearing anything its arrogant for Sonos to think its OK.

Good idea, because Sonos isn't the solution for someone that has your kind of needs as outlined above. The nice thing for you is that you will get good resale prices on the kit you sell. Sonos holds resale value better than any other brand.
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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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Just use Yonomi - it's epic and works brilliantly with Sonos / Alexa. Been using it for an hour and can turn on and off rooms, play the radio station of my choice and Spotify playlists etc all with my voice. It really is amazing and easy to set up. "Alexa, turn on Radio 2 in dining room "..... sorted!!:D
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Ummm...just integrate SONOS and ALEXA please. NOW!

Check out https://yonomi.co/supported-devices/

I can now control all my sonos rooms, selecting playlists and radio stations, turning up/down/on/off - all with Alexa. Seemless.
You may mean "seamless". Just guessing, of course.