Canadians can now use Alexa to issue voice commands to their Sonos One smart speaker. In February Sonos expanded the availability of its Sonos One Alexa voice control to its Canadian users.
Alexa integration enables voice control for smart home accessories and all the Alexa capabilities, plus audio command for streaming services including TuneIn and Spotify.
To enable Alexa’s voice control, all you have to do is download a free software update to your Sonos speaker, and make sure you have the Alexa app installed on your smartphone or tablet.
Is Sonos One compatible with all music services?
Sonos One is currently fully compatible with Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Spotify and TuneIn. For the rest of the more than 80 music services that the speakers support, including Apple Music, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, you can still use voice commands to control playback (using commands like “volume up” or “volume down,” “pause,” and “skip”), you just need to first queue up the tune using the Sonos app.
Sonos recently announced that it is now compatible with Audible in Canada, so now Sonos can also read you your favourite bedtime (or other!) story as well.
For those with older Sonos speakers, it is possible to control those as well using Alexa. However, they will need an accompanying Sonos One unit or one of Amazon’s Echo speakers. As with other smart devices with Alexa, the Sonos One is entirely compatible with all the other skills that Alexa possesses, which means Canadian users can ask her for the breaking news, traffic reports, weather forecasts and more. Previously, Alexa voice control was only available on Sonos One units in the U.S., U.K., and Germany.
Sonos is planning to update Sonos One to support Google Assistant later this year. AirPlay 2 support is coming too.
“We are all about giving customers the freedom to choose the streaming services and voice assistants they want in their homes, and bringing Alexa to our entire home sound system in Canada is a big milestone for us,” said Antoine Leblond, vice-president of software at Sonos, in a press release.
“With the Sonos One, we took everything people love about Sonos – an agnostic approach with streaming partners, amazing sound quality, flexibility with multi-room or stereo-pairing capability, a thoughtfully designed speaker that’s easy to use — and added voice as another means to getting music lovers to the songs and sonic content they love.”
At this point however, the French speaking Canadians will have to wait because Sonos supports English only.
Here are some voice commands you can use for your Sonos One
Alexa, pause/stop/resume in the [room name].
Alexa, pause/stop/resume the music in the [room name].
Alexa, skip/next in the [room name].
Alexa, play the next/previous song/track in the [room name.
Alexa, pause.
Alexa, resume on [room name].
Alexa, next song/track.
Alexa, previous song/track.
Alexa, stop.
Alexa, skip.
Alexa, skip song/track.
Alexa, what’s playing in [room name]?
Alexa, what is this song?
Alexa, who’s the lead singer of this band?
The price for Sonos One in Canada is $249. It comes either black or white. You can order it via amazon here. To see other Alexa-compatible devices, check out the Devices Page here!
