A Sonos One in each kid's room... working via voice command from one Spotify account?
I have a couple Sonos One's showing up tonight. I'm hoping to put one in each of my kids' rooms (ages 7 & 10), and they'll be able to voice command their way through Spotify content, from a single Spotify account. Explore music! (I was thinking of printing them out sheets of recommendations... albums to explore with explicit voice commands to play them.) I know this should work via Sonos App (I can ask multiple Sonos speakers to play different albums via single Spotify account). But the kids don't have "devices" (like phone or tablet)... so... will it--different Spotify content playing on two Sonos One's--work via the voice commands invoking a single Spotify account (which come, I expect, via Amazon/Alexa). Has anyone tried this by chance? If I get no response, I'll try to return to this thread with my experiences. Thank you!!
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Wanted to give an update. Now have a Spotify Family plan, with the two Sonos One's set up on unique Alexa/Amazon Accounts linked to unique "children" of the Spotify Family plan. It works at least 90% of the time, perhaps closer to 95% or 98% of the time. the worst thing is occasionally when asked to play a playlist or an album or an artist, only one song is queued up. Although this might be a lingering issue for Sonos One's in general, not constrained to an issue with our more complicated configuration. The kids have a list of albums/artists/playlists/songs they like, and are continuing to add to the list... seems to be a good way to invoke music you like, with the written queues to remind you of what is possible! (kind of like perusing the old CD rack...)
Doh. Works perfectly on the free version of Pandora, I haven’t tried Pandora Premium, but this makes me believe it will not work: https://help.pandora.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1392219-%22someone-else-is-listening-to-your-pandora-account%22
Would be interesting to learn if anyone can confirm. Thanks.
Would be interesting to learn if anyone can confirm. Thanks.
I also couldn’t get this to work with Spotify, but interestingly, multiple Sonos Ones with independent voice control works perfectly with Pandora. Add to that the ability to tune Pandora radio stations within the Sonos app and what I perceive as the smartest learning algorithms, I’m about to start giving Pandora Premium my money.
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This is the behaviour that I expected, I expect it will get worse when both speakers are given commands at the same time and you may find that they will only play a single song and then stop. 😞
hmmm... it seems to mostly work. the sonoses seem to get a little confused sometimes. like now, when I try to say, "Alexa, pause" or "Alexa, next" to one of the speakers, I only get a "I'm not sure how to help you with that" answer, as though no music were playing (and I can clearly hear it playing!). another time, asking one speaker to do something seemed to cause the other to stop playing. But... 80-90% of the time, it's all doing what I hoped. we'll do some more real world testing later... perhaps on Xmas day. I'm confident this is "good enough" for now, and expect Sonos & Spotify & Amazon to continue to hammer out these (system?) bugs.
Well, it *seems* to be working. one sonos system, two unique amazon accounts, one spotify family plan with "child" plans associated with the two unique amazon/alexa accounts. one hiccup was... not only did I need to log in to new acct with Alexa app, I also needed to logout of "amazon shopping" and log in with new account... this way the Sonos One would associate with the right amazon account. then, made spotify the default music player for each. one is current playing Michael Jackson (via Spotify) and the other is playing Wailin Jennies (via Spotify). I'll go give each some voice commands now, with all apps on my phone shutdown, make sure it's controllable. (I won't be able to test "ducking" now since I'd need another set of ears to test that.)
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The relationship between your Amazon and Sonos Accounts must be a 1:1 so this won't work unfortunately.
You have two options and the more I think of this, the more I think Voice Control isn't the way to proceed:
Option 1/ Create 2 Wi-Fi networks (Required to enable 2 Sonos systems to exist in the same house), 2 Sonos accounts and 2 Amazon accounts (To maintain the 1:1 link). In this scenario, you also wouldn't be able to play music across both rooms. But you would be able to control via voice control and not have multiple units ducking;
Option 2/ Set-up as a normal Sonos set-up with a single Sonos and Amazon account and both of your kids control the Sonos Ones via the app and then control via voice control OR use voice control to initiate a common music source and accept that when either of them asks Alexa a question both Sonos Ones will duck.
The other option you can try is setting up a different network on your router. Mine has two by default so I couldn’t tell you how to set it up. It might cause some interference from time to time but one speaker on each shouldn’t be too troublesome. Seems like a lot to go through, when you could just purchase two echos.
But again my guess is they will fix this fairly soon. (Hopefully)
But again my guess is they will fix this fairly soon. (Hopefully)
OK, Chris, that simplifies. We'll give it a go... two alexa accounts, with unique spotify accounts hanging off a common spotify family membership, one sonos system, two kids... feels like an epic experiment... it will either be blissful or just suck my time and remaining hair from my head.
I was thinking about this too. I can’t see that Sonos is really the right product for your use case unless you were looking to build an entire home solution and this was the first purchase to build out the platform.
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The more I think about it I don't know if your even going to be able to do two systems - since you can't really have two sonos systems on same wifi network. Your going to have to setup as normal and see if you can associate two different alexa accounts to the two different Sonos units. I don't know.
"So I think you would have to setup both Sonos Ones as separate Sonos systems." This sounds like something I should figure out beforehand. I don't want to set it up "wrong"... I'm guessing there are issues with reverting & modifying the set up. (always are with complex launches like this!) How would I set them up as separate Sonos systems? Would this be obvious to me in the setup process? I'm OK with the two speakers acting independently... that's a LOT more important than being able to act in concert. But, it would certainly be simply if they could manifest under the control of a single sonos "log in"/account/system. And... others' opinions on the need to set up as separate Sonos systems? Thanks so much everyone for your assistance here...
I ended up putting my other Echos dots on a different SSID on my WiFi. They do not control sonos. However you can set up multiroom music with them as well.
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In general I think a Play:1 and Echo dot is currently more versatile a setup.
I can see the other side of the coin though. if it did not duck the music people would be equally frustrated they could not control The Alexa device or that they’d have to shout at it. That’s one thing I didn’t like about the sonos one. I had to shout at it. I returned it for an echo dot and a sonos play 1.
I did like that you didn’t need to specify exactly where it needed to play as the default was the sonos one and whatever group it was associated with. I figured saying Alexa “play Chris Stapleton radio on Pandora in the living room” was better than screaming at the top of my lungs.
I did like that you didn’t need to specify exactly where it needed to play as the default was the sonos one and whatever group it was associated with. I figured saying Alexa “play Chris Stapleton radio on Pandora in the living room” was better than screaming at the top of my lungs.
Wow, I've just upgraded to spotify family, and linked to email addresses (for the kids), and also now have amazon accounts associated with those emails. dang, that's a lot of infrastucture. will give it a go, probably tonight!!
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Oh its super annoying. I have 12 sonos units and 8 Alexa's. If I am on 1st floor and speak to an Alexa it will lower the volume on sonos units throughout my house.
It is why I actually don't keep the Alexa skill enabled most of the time.
Sonos has said their wish list is to have an Alexa linked to a specific Sonos speaker so that #1 only that speaker is ducked and #2 you don't have to say play "on room name" to play to the default speaker.
Hopefully this comes sooner then later.
It is why I actually don't keep the Alexa skill enabled most of the time.
Sonos has said their wish list is to have an Alexa linked to a specific Sonos speaker so that #1 only that speaker is ducked and #2 you don't have to say play "on room name" to play to the default speaker.
Hopefully this comes sooner then later.
So if your kid is in their room and gives it a command it will turn down the volume on your music and the music on the other sonos one until their command is complete. I imagine they are trying to fix this issue because it’s super annoying and essentially defeats the purpose of multiroom music
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Well - when you have an Alexa (or a Sonos One) setup on an account. If you say "Alexa" the music/sound will go lower as to hear you better (Ducking). So example if both Sonos One's were setup on the same account. If you said Alexa in one bedroom - the music in the other room would lower. Not optimal. Thus in what you are looking to do and you setup each Sonos One on a different Alexa account - you wouldn't get that ducking.
Now - having never setup a Sonos One - I'm thinking though that both of the Sonos have to be setup as separate Sonos accounts too (thus you wouldn't be able to group them both together playing same music). I Don't particularly know how you setup alexa initially on the Sonos One vs. I don't have a Sonos one but use my Echo dots around house (and the alexa account has to be linked to the Sonos account). So I think you would have to setup both Sonos Ones as separate Sonos systems. Which really defeats a lot of the purpose in having Sonos.
Now - having never setup a Sonos One - I'm thinking though that both of the Sonos have to be setup as separate Sonos accounts too (thus you wouldn't be able to group them both together playing same music). I Don't particularly know how you setup alexa initially on the Sonos One vs. I don't have a Sonos one but use my Echo dots around house (and the alexa account has to be linked to the Sonos account). So I think you would have to setup both Sonos Ones as separate Sonos systems. Which really defeats a lot of the purpose in having Sonos.
Essentially every time you say “Alexa” to give a command it turns down and muffles all of the music.
What does this mean, to "duck the music in each" ?? thank you!
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Sonos Ones don't come with specific amazon account pre-loaded. So as long as you setup 2 amazon account before setup you should be fine. Login and setup one in your alexa app. Then logout in alexa app and login and create 2nd.
You can just log out of the app and log in with the other credentials. I set up my wife’s and mine in the same phone. Also just we aware that each Alexa device will duck the music in each. And also the music playing in the rest of the house.
Rock Star Chris ... that sounds like a good option. I can spring for family member account on Spotify. Is there some pre-work I should do, before unboxing the two Sonos Ones? Or do you think that the Sonos One set up flow will naturally allow me to set up unique Alexa accounts, eg? I wonder if I'll be able to set up multiple Alexa accounts if I'm just using my phone to help set things up. maybe it's weird to not have a unique mobile device associated with each Alexa account? (One thing I definitely *can* do is upgrade my Spotify to family account. but, anything else you suggest?)
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But the poster said they are using Spotify not Amazon for music.
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