SONOS ALEXA Integration?

An update from the Sonos folks would be appreciated. I love my Sonos equipment, and continue to invest (I have 2 play 5s, 3 play 1s, soundbar, subwoofer, a connect, and a connect amp). As a paying customer whose been told this feature is coming, at least SOME sort of an update would be appropriate.

Where does the API reside? Is this within Alexa?

Yes: https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-voice-service/reference/audioplayer

To use this with Sonos today you would need to provide a "fake" silent mp3 stream to "play".

Yep, those of us who've been involved with large scale, multiple vendor systems integration projects know how complex and time consuming they can be. Software Engineering has improved a lot over the years, but any project of this scale and scope takes a huge effort just to get through the beta stages. Then there will be ongoing updates and support for years to come, on top of the existing updates and support. Keeps lots of people employed, for sure.

For those who think it's easy, here are the docs. Have at it! Lol

https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-voice-service/content/avs-api-overview

I believe that Philips, Logitech, Nest and the others you speak of all have a 3rd party server outside of your internal network. If you can control your lights and things while outside of your network, it almost certainly does. Notice that you cannot access your Sonos system from outside your network.

Philips and the like had good reason to setup those servers, as it was key to functionality to their products. It's way more useful to be able to turn on/off your lights when you aren't there, so it was needed. That was designed before there was any voice control. However, it wasn't as necessary for Sonos, since people don't typically don't listen to music when they aren't there to hear it. So in way, besides lights being easier then audio to control, they had a head start with the integration. Besides that, we don't know how long Philips and Amazon were working on their integration since it was there when Echo was introduced.

Then again, I imagine these smartskills work differently then what I described earlier. Seem to anyway.

When Echo controls without a hub, it's only for some basic things over wifi protocol. Many lights don't use wifi, they use zee wave, zigbee, clear connect, etc, so your Echo doesn't know how to talk to them.

The "Alexa, stop" would not require "tell Sonos" if Sonos uses the audio-API set, and Sonos was the most-recently used audio skill.

Where does the API reside? Is this within Alexa? I'm kind of surprised that it even exist right now, as I was not aware that Alexa was aware of any other audio then it's own. I was assuming that any APIs on the Alexa side would be rather generic, leaving the 3rd party skill to figure out what it is, or what to do with it. However, I can see where leaving off the "tell" command would prompt Alexa to assume you are referring to the same skill previously. I just figured a typical audio command like 'stop', 'pause', 'play' would be assumed to refer to the Echo's speakers, not a skill.


However, the current audio-API set has a poor extension model, so cannot add "in the xxx-room" to commands. It appears that the Sonos/Alexa features as described publically require a bunch of new features in the Alexa infrastructure itself, and Amazon are very slow at rolling out such updates.

Again, assuming you are talking about an API on the Alexa side, isn't there a generic API that Alexa doesn't try and interpret at all, just simply pass to the 3rd party skill? I don't know why you would need a specific audio-api, accept that it could make life a little easier for the 3rd party skill developers.


"Indignant posters" aka frustrated Sonos customers. Frustrated customers voicing their concerns are not the problem, that's called "feedback". It's when we stop caring that it becomes an issue.


If 'we' means Sonos, then I agree to an extent. How much is up to them. "We ', meaning the other customers in this forum...I don't see why we need to care.

I personally would agree that voicing frustration and concerns is positive. But it's not productive when customers threaten to sell their stuff if demands are not met, repeating inaccurate rumors, generally assuming that this is all easy, and Sonos doesn't care.

The only bad blood I see is from a couple indignant posters. Most are waiting patiently for what was promised to be delivered 6 months from now, as should be expected.

"Indignant posters" aka frustrated Sonos customers. Frustrated customers voicing their concerns are not the problem, that's called "feedback". It's when we stop caring that it becomes an issue.

Look, I know we'll get it when we get it and customers should just shut up about it, but six more months will make it almost 3 years since it was suggested as a feature. I'm reminding Sonos that I've wanted this feature for years and I still want it. They say they've been working on it for years. The next question becomes, ok, so where is it? Maybe requesting an update is out of line, but I don't think so.

Customers that don't care don't bother posting they just move on and buy something else.

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.

Steve_199, I'm no expert, but I think I understand the framework of how Alexa works pretty well. What you think of is pretty easy...really isn't all that easy.

Your typical Alexa skill works as such.
1 - local Echo dot hears a command.
2 - local Echo dot sends command to Alexa servers that converts voice to text, then determines what to do with it.
3 - if the command is for a 3rd party skill, it sends the skill to the 3rd party server for processing
4 - 3rd party server processes and performs action and gives Alexa servers a response.
5 - Alexa 3rd party servers give a response to your local Echo.

So it's somewhat complicated, but beyond that...Sonos doesn't have a server out there to act as a 3rd party server in this scenario. It would have to set that up in order for a basic 'Alexa tell sonos to play xxx'. On top of that, your sonos system doesn't have a presence outside of your local network. There has never been any sort of registration process of such where the Sonos server (that doesn't yet exist) could no one zones you have in order to command it do something.

That said, there are some work arounds. Your local echo isn't completely dumb in that it can do some actions on it's own. That's why there are some bulbs that work with Echo without need for a smarthub...or work with a smarthum. Most of the time there is a smarthub. So if you have smartthings for example, your Echo knows to send a particular command to your local hub for processing. FYI, there are some hubs that can control sonos, and are setup with Alexa. Therefore you can control Sonos from an Echo by way of a hub...but the functionality is limited.

And I think your statement about simply saying "Alexa, stop" brings up another point. With all of the above mentioned, that command won't work...because you didn't tell it what to stop. You would have to say "Alexa, tell Sonos to stop". And Sonos management has seemed to acknowledged that that is far from ideal. Annoying perhaps. Hence, they want to spend the time to get tighter integration so that when you say stop, Alexa knows it's playing music on Sonos and that must be what you want to stop. Or perhaps when you ask to start music, it knows you mean in the sonos zone you're currently in, and not on the echo's speakers.

And sure, they could have gone with being able to drop the whole 'tell Sonos' at a later date, but the development work for going all the way can't be built off of going halfway. So why not just go all the way.

Again, not an expert, but that's what it seems like to me.

I think Sonos might have been too ambitious on this idea. They seem to want to be everything to everyone which will usually leave everyone disappointed.

All I want is to say "Alexa, play my 80's rock station on my living room Sonos" and hear her say "ok". If they could have rolled out a few simple skills while they were working on their plan for world domination, they could have avoided a lot of the bad blood.

For those concerned about not being heard over the music, just say "ALEXA, STOP" in a loud voice. She will usually respond to that and stop the music. Then you can give your next request. Just don't scream it too loud or your neighbors might think someone named Alexa is trying to kill you.

Maybe you have identified the niche use case where Homepod really would be a better choice. On the other hand an ipod loving apartment dweller can use Bluetooth with an Echo Look or Echo Dot connected to some nice powered speakers and save some money by ignoring the Homepod vs Sonos battle completely. It will be interesting to see what ends up appealing to this group.
Yes, it will be interesting though I can't help thinking that in addition to the above, if the Alexa integration is done well, that will be one more effective barrier to adoption of Homepods.

The question I keep asking myself is, what would I recommend to someone who loves their ipod, only cares about music in a small space like an apartment, and has no interest in tv integration.

You kind of need a whole house to get full value from a "whole house" music system like Sonos.

You can use a single Echo in an apartment but you really get more value if you have room enough for multiple Echos for intercom and "whole house" automation.

Maybe you have identified the niche use case where Homepod really would be a better choice. On the other hand an ipod loving apartment dweller can use Bluetooth with an Echo Look or Echo Dot connected to some nice powered speakers and save some money by ignoring the Homepod vs Sonos battle completely. It will be interesting to see what ends up appealing to this group.

@Pete, I think your underestimating the HomePod a bit. I imagine there are plenty of people out there who will buy Apple just because it's Apple. They may already have an Echo but wish to upgrade to what they believe will be better.

As far as the cost comparison, Apple is saying the sound is comparable to the PLAY:3, so really the pricing is around the same. But yes, you could opt for the PLAY:1 to greatly reduce cost, or you could already have Sonos or Amazon products, like much of the people on this board.

The question I keep asking myself is, what would I recommend to someone who loves their ipod, only cares about music in a small space like an apartment, and has no interest in tv integration. A part of me wants to recommend Sonos/Alexa for future proofing, but I can't say Apple isn't a bad choice for them.