Best answer by Ryan S
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SONOS ALEXA Integration?
Userlevel 3
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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Good point. None of my Dots hears me when music or the TV are playing.
Both my Echo and my Dot hear me just fine over the TV. I think a lot has to do with placement; both are within 5 feet of me, and more than 12 feet away from the TV.
I'm sure that's true. But one of my Dots is currently hooked up to my Sonos Connect in a small room. For that reason it's difficult to move it far away from the music/TV sound source. I guess I'll just have to experiment with better placement once it no longer needs to tethered. Also, one of mine is near an open veranda (I'm in Brasil, so it's always open), and on windy days it doesn't work nearly as well. I assume wind causes problems for the microphone.
Castalla...interesting find. It could be photoshopped or mean nothing is imminent. However, that is a logical place for the Sonos setup in the Alexa app.
As far the Dots picking up voice while music is playing, I've seen a little bit of this as well. However, it's actually another reason too integrate if you think about it.
In the case where your listening to sonos and want to talk to Alexa and they aren't connected, Sonos will drown out your voice. If you were only listening to your music through Echo currently, the dot will immediately pause the music when it hears the wake word, 'Alexa'...so that it can hear you better. So in the case where Sonos and Alexa are integrated, Sonos should hopefully automatically pause when the wake word is spoken as well.
Of course, that might not work so well if Alexa is just a source for Sonos. So if you're listening to another source, say the tv, Sonos might not know if should pause. As well, if Alexa is a source, you wouldn't want Sonos to switch the source and kill whatever you were listening to...particularly if it's audio from the tv. Hopefully they get this worked out and everything is truly in sync and you can get a mute/pause without force a source switch on you. Ideally the tv would pause too, but I think that would be a ways down the road.
As far the Dots picking up voice while music is playing, I've seen a little bit of this as well. However, it's actually another reason too integrate if you think about it.
In the case where your listening to sonos and want to talk to Alexa and they aren't connected, Sonos will drown out your voice. If you were only listening to your music through Echo currently, the dot will immediately pause the music when it hears the wake word, 'Alexa'...so that it can hear you better. So in the case where Sonos and Alexa are integrated, Sonos should hopefully automatically pause when the wake word is spoken as well.
Of course, that might not work so well if Alexa is just a source for Sonos. So if you're listening to another source, say the tv, Sonos might not know if should pause. As well, if Alexa is a source, you wouldn't want Sonos to switch the source and kill whatever you were listening to...particularly if it's audio from the tv. Hopefully they get this worked out and everything is truly in sync and you can get a mute/pause without force a source switch on you. Ideally the tv would pause too, but I think that would be a ways down the road.
The SB skill cuts the player volume to 20% for a few seconds. It sort of produces a jerky effect compared with remote or app control. But that's how Alexa is in any case - hardly smooth for fine control.
Userlevel 7
+23
In my experience Alexa does a pretty awesome job of picking up my voice requests for Sonos when music is already playing. It only fails when volume is seriously loud, or when the TV news is on (as the speech-only from the TV gets mixed in with what I am saying). TV shows fare better as there is often other noises (music/foley) going on. I think Amazon have done a bang-up job of extracting voice data from an audio stream that includes music and background noise. It probably also helps that my Alexa hardware is not adjacent to my Sonos hardware.
Sadly, because your skill is USA only I can't provide any empirical feedback on your assertion! - beats me why USA skills can't be easily converted to UK use - is it a case of 2 countries separated by a single language?
Userlevel 7
+23
It is because Amazon don't support many features outside of the USA: read this for more info: https://forums.developer.amazon.com/questions/75737/when-is-en-gb-going-to-get-built-in-intent-support.html
This is going to be a big problem for Sonos, as they are a global company. Amazon Alexa is effectively US-only, with a tiny bit of UK and Germany thrown in.
I was aware of the intents issue .... maybe Sonos will just plough on and release the alexa integration for US only. Or maybe Amazon will wake up and release the intents library for UK use.
@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.
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.
Userlevel 1
Oh, I agree. I work in a company where I fully expect a HomePod on most of the Exec desks the day it's released, even more so if it's conference-call capable. And generally I recommend iPhone and iPads to family members because they just work, and I don't have constant support issues 🙂 But, most of my family don't use Apple Music, so unless they announce other integrations, that'll be a big roadblock for many people. Most of my family do have an Alexa of some sort though, so they're already on the ladder.
It's certainly a marketplace that been waiting for a decent competitor, and if nothing else, HomePod will hopefully light more of a fire under Sonos. Apple's weakness, potentially, will be its obsession with keeping people in their ecosystem. They've already precluded Android users, and potentially Pandora, Spotify, Slacker etc etc, although I'm fairly sure they'll support the other services if not from launch, very soon after.
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.
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.
How can i get on the Beta tester for Sonos and Alexa?
I have two Sonos Connect:AMPS will be adding 4 more shortly, i also just got my hands on a Amazon Dot. would really love to test this out...🆒
I have two Sonos Connect:AMPS will be adding 4 more shortly, i also just got my hands on a Amazon Dot. would really love to test this out...🆒
I just installed MySpeaker and its skills to control my Sonos System via Alexa. So far it works pretty good. One bad is that its application must be running on a PC or Laptop connected to the same network as Sonos.
Userlevel 4
+2
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.
Thanks for that, I think you're more of an expert than you let on.
My thoughts are, Philips has a hub and different zones and Alexa works great with it. Logitech Harmony has a hub and I can control my TV through Alexa voice commands. My Nest thermostat works directly with Alexa voice commands. If Philips, Logitech, Nest and others have figured out the integration (some with a hub, others without one) then why can't Sonos? Sonos, of course, can work with a Bridge or directly through wifi so that give them two possible starting points. I'm absolutely not an expert and there's likely a great reason why they can't get this done. I just like to know what the sticking point actually is.
Btw, the "stop" command thing was for the posters saying Alexa couldn't hear them over loud music that was playing through the Alexa app. Otherwise, yes, you'd have to be more specific about what you wanted to stop.
Also, Alexa was designed with existing WiFi lights, thermostats, garage door openers, etc., in mind. As mentioned before, the ability to control anything other than rudimentary external audio devices was not there. Certainly not multi-room speakers with grouping, multiple sources, multiple volume controls, etc. All this functionality had to be designed and implemented, and if one thinks about, it doesn't take long to run into logistical problems that need to be solved in order to offer a seamless experience. This also has to be done in conjunction with Amazon, who may or may not be on the same set of priorities or timetable.
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
Involved in one right now. Multiple vendors running the same single vendor app on different POS hardware using a dozen different device drivers, connecting first to a 20 year old legacy OLTP system, then to a brand new, state of the art OLTP host. Dual site locations, 4 redundant hosting systems, countless peripheral systems for operational control, security, web hosting, mobile app data, archival data, reporting, etc. Base software already written, but the timeline is still over 2 years from design to completion for the site specific customizations.
Userlevel 7
+23
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".
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.
It would appear that some info is leaking out. See http://www.aftvnews.com/beta-testers-can-now-control-sonos-speakers-through-any-alexa-enabled-device/
Just piling on. When the press release (almost a year ago) states "the companies will begin rolling out the experience through an invite-only beta test later this year, with general availability in 2017.", it leads you to believe early 2017. And with no announced date, I am growing skeptical myself. I've been a beta multiple times before, it doesn't take this long and I've heard no chatter from beta users. If the intent was to boost holiday sales with a something far far away, Amazon hit with me, Sonos did not. With 7 zones already, I am fully invested in Sonos but I did drop coin on a six pack of dots with the primary purpose to voice enable Sonos throughout my home. Will it ever really happen? Or do I need to rethink how I voice enable sound in my home?
The majority of sales of electronic devices happens once per year: the Christmas shopping season. You can be quite sure that the Sonos/Alexa integration will be finished, and most likely in its second or third iteration, by then.
Sonos, a normally tight-lipped outfit, has repeatedly stated the project is being worked on and is on track for release this year. They have never stated anything else, though some (including myself) assumed the development cycle was shorter. I was wrong, as were others.
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