Soundbox on Alexa
How to enable the Soundbox internet radio skill on Alexa and link it to your own station library.
Enable the skill
Open the Alexa app, search for Soundbox, and enable it. Choose Link Account and sign in with your Soundbox account. Alexa then plays the stations in that library.
Soundbox is free to use and does not add advertising of its own. Individual stations may still carry their own advertising. Create a Soundbox account on this site, add stations by name or paste a stream address, and they are on Alexa straight away.
What you can say
Ask for a station by name: “Alexa, ask Soundbox to play Radio Paradise”. Ask for a radio mode instead and Soundbox chooses: Smart Radio, Morning Radio, Night Radio, Local Radio, Favorites Radio, Ordered Radio, Explore Radio.
While a station is playing you can say next station, what is playing, save this song, what is saved, play this more, or play this less.
In your language
Soundbox answers in the language of the device that asked. Ask a German Echo for Morgenradio and it replies in German.
Station names stay as you wrote them, so a library built in one language works on a device set to another.
The Music and Radio add-on
There is a second, newer way in. The add-on registers Soundbox stations with Alexa itself, so a station appears in the Alexa app with artwork and transport controls and answers to a shorter phrase: “Alexa, play dublab on Soundbox”, with no “ask” in front of it.
It is in closed testing and English (US) only. Amazon granted the entitlement for that one locale, so on a device set to any other language the add-on does not answer at all and the phrases above are the ones that work. The skill is unpublished, which means it does not appear in the Alexa app for anyone who has not been invited — if you would like to try it, ask from your Soundbox settings and we will send an invitation.
Everything on this page works today without it. The add-on adds a shorter phrase and a nicer card; it replaces nothing.
Home Assistant
Soundbox plays through Home Assistant as well, on any media player it controls. The integration is installed through HACS and signs in to the same Soundbox account.
If you run a station
The add-on tells Amazon the names of stations people have saved, so that asking for one by name reaches it. Only names — never stream addresses, and never anything about who listens.
If you run a station and would rather it were not listed, ask and it will be removed.