[Deprecated] Ask Alexa 2.2.1

what do you mean by “standard sonos station” ?
so far I have tested with my music library (local disk) and spotify.

If you go to the Sonos app, then choose stations, choose, for example, “181.1FM Awesome 80’s”…play/pause it multiple times using the SmartThings app…when the control shows the name it has been ‘cached’…then go to Ask Alexa and add that to your memory slot.

From there you should be able to play that…if that works it means some of the ‘links’ provided from Sonos may not be presented to the SmartThings DTH properly.

I tried a station from Tunein radio. I stopped/started playing through smartthings several times. but it never appeared on memory slots of Ask Alexa.
what is missing ?

Again…don’t use any subscription services…just the standard item such as the one I recommended…I KNOW that one works.

And you did encounter one of the more frustrating aspects of the Sonos integration…it is NOT smooth and is (and shall probably always be) considered Beta. That means it may not always work. That being said, the recommendation I gave should work.

I dont have any standard services on my sonos app. if I dont add spotify, tunein or my music library, there’s nothing to play in sonos.
I don’t understand what you refer to as standard item.

You should have access to just regular streaming radio stations…I can’t send a screenshot right now, but it may be something you need to add…it is free. I will send one later, but see if you can find that.

maybe I am so dumb to see it. I really can’t find on my sonos app.
I just have “add music services” menu option and from there I can add many services. if I don’t add anything there’s nothing to play.
please send me screenshot and I can check further…

It might be the add music service…see if it says radio stations

And you aren’t dumb…computers are dumb :slight_smile:

there are many services. some are like spotify and tidal (paid services)
some are free services. tunein is a free radio service. there are others. but I don’t know which one is the one you are using.
:frowning:

Ah…Tune in is it…

ok. that is what I had tried and does not show up even if I start/stop it several times from smartthings.
I bet that’s not the one you have working…

now I gotta sleep (it is 1:05 am here and I gotta go work in the morning)
if you have other suggestions, I’ll try them later tomorrow…

Ok…When I get back to my Sonos devices I will test this one more time (it is subject to not working based on SmartThings), and then detail out what I did.

Ok…This DOES work, but SmartThings’ integration doesn’t make it easy…

First, I was using Tune in…if you can get this to work, but the others don’t work, then you have run into a limitation of the SmartThings integration.

First, play a song from Tune in using the Sonos app
Go to SmartThings…refresh the DTH until you see the name of the song
Go back into Sonos, play another song
Again, refresh the DTH
Now go into Ask Alexa
The two songs SHOULD show up when you are setting up your memory slots.
When you have the slots set up, be sure to add their names to the list of params in the developer slots
You SHOULD be able to toggle between songs.

Let me know if that works for you…I just tested mine and it works fine.

Edit: Also, one important thing…the song database is updated AFTER you successfully exit Ask Alexa. So be sure to click Done until you exit the app and I can walk you through the IDE to see if the data is present (if it still doesn’t work).

hi,

if we are talking about the same tunein, there is a problem.
tunein I use on sonos is all about radio stations. so I can’t play a “song” from tunein on sonos, I can only play a radio station.
and when I do that , there is no song name in smartthings DTH. there is just a string showing stream name like
"x-sonosapi-stream:s143416?sid=254&flags=8224&sn=0"

and this is not shown in “Ask Alexa” memory slots.

what is wrong with my setup ?

Sorry. Station is correct… However, it isn’t clear why the station won’t show up in the DtH…That is the most important part. Can you play and pause the station from the DtH? While tedious I would okay and pause it from the DTH a few times, change the song via the Sonos app, do it again and see what happens. None of the Ask Alexa stuff will work if the DTH isn’t picking up the station names.

Let me know if this works as I did test this last week in my system and eventually got the songs to refresh.

whatever I do , dth only shows stream code , no station name.
are you sure that on your setup you see station name , and no stream code like “x-sonosapi-stream:s143416?sid=254&flags=8224&sn=0” ???

Pretty sure:

The unfortunate part about this is that if you call support you will be told “Sonos are listed as ‘labs’ and we can not provide support on these devices”…This is why I am hesitant to add these items to any apps I create…their consistency is spotty at best. However, you could always contact support and you might get someone that knows the answer. Is the speaker actually being controlled by the DTH?

ok. this device type you use for sonos is the original sonos device from ST.
but I am not using it. instead I use the “media renderer” from @ule
but I was not aware of such a dİfference in this device type.
so it is obvious that the issues I have with Ask Alexa on my sonos speakers is because of the different device type I use.
I’ll check that in the corresponding thread.

thanks for your help…

one last question about Ask Alexa - Sonos implementation;
I would really love to be able to play a whole list from my sonos favourites instead of just a song. wouldn’t that be possible in any ways ?
just playing cached songs is not really enough. is there a way to cache playlists instead of song ?

The Sonos and SmartThings integration as it stands now doesn’t go out to the cloud to get the list, but looks at the devices and what they ‘remember’. So, unless someone knows of something that I don’t, that list things isn’t possible. Technically, if you are looking to play a list of cached songs that might be possible, but that is a feature of Ask Alexa and it is not on my roadmap to implement at this time.