How Sonos Made Amazon's Alexa Sound Amazing

They blink to life when Alexa hears its name, then whirl around the top of an Echo device while Alexa thinks. But when Sonos started working on integrating Alexa into its multi-room wireless music system a year and a half ago, though, that setup posed a problem. Most Sonos users have more than one speaker, and a surround sound system full of blinking lights would turn their homes into an ersatz light show. Plus, it felt wrong: Sonos is an audio company, betting its future on sound as the interface for all the tech in your home. There had to be an audible way for Alexa to let you know it's listening.