Question
Alexa and multiple rooms
If I start music from Alexa in my Sonos 1 and ask to add kitchen or living room it will start but it starts a new, different station, on each speaker set. I’ve tried grouping them in the Alexa app too. Any suggestions? Diagnosis 8034377.
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Alexa isn’t smart enough (yet) to add a song to another speaker in mid-play. When you tell Alexa to play music on the Sonos One unless you are specific it will play a mix from the Amazon Music cache. If you add a speaker via the Sonos One it’s going to do the same thing and play a mix from the Amazon Music cache on that speaker.
Grouping speakers in Alexa means you are for example adding a group by clicking the plus (+) sign. That group may consist of Sonos One Bedroom, Sonos Play:1 Kitchen and maybe a Play 5 Living Room. After you’ve added all the speakers (rooms) you have to give the Alexa Group a unique name like BoomBox.
Your command to Alexa via the Sonos One to play music on all speakers in that group would be: “Alexa play smooth jazz on BoomBox”. Alexa would pick a station from Amazon Music and play the song on all speakers in the Boombox Group.
You can also group speakers in the Sonos App. For example you group the Play: 1 Kitchen and Play 5 Living Room together. The upside is that you don’t have to give the Group a unique name. You now can give Alexa the command: “Alexa play music on Kitchen”. Since the Kitchen and Living Room are grouped in the Sonos App the same music will play on both.
It’s also possible (as I have done this) to create a group in mid-play via the Sonos app. You start music on the Sonos One you open the Sonos app and group it with the Play 5. There may be a monetary pause but after that the music play in sync on both speakers.
To end the grouping in either scenario using the Sonos App you will have open it and ungroup them.
Your command to Alexa via the Sonos One to play music on all speakers in that group would be: “Alexa play smooth jazz on BoomBox”. Alexa would pick a station from Amazon Music and play the song on all speakers in the Boombox Group.
I thought that grouping still isn't supported via Alexa at this time. You can group using the Sonos app and tell Alexa to play to any one of the grouped rooms, the entire group will play.
Correct. Alexa groups are not supported for 3rd party speakers yet. It can work, but it is glitchy and can cause problems elsewhere. Currently, the official way to use groups with Alexa is as sonoslover states above: Group via the Sonos app and tell Alexa to play to any one of the grouped speakers.
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