Hi - I have an older Sonos 5 and connect system (so not voice enabled). My daughter has an Alexa upstairs, which when she speaks to it, means that the Sonos downstairs cuts out. Not sure how to rectify this.





Take a look at this thread.



https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/sonos-now-playing-with-alexa-groups-6817588



Use can use Alexa groups to tell Alexa which Sonos speakers you want to lower volume, or 'duck', when you speak to it.





Over xmas I played around with it and actually connected it, so when I "borrow" it downstairs, I can voice control the Sonos. All great. Until she reclaims it and uses it upstairs - again it interferes with the Sonos and in fact it's worse now, as the music she wants to play then switches and comes through the Sonos downstairs. Have read threads and it seems to be a problem without a solution for the time being.





No, you can set this up so it functions the way you want. For your case you would want to setup an Alexa group with her Echo upstairs specified as the Alexa device, no devices (smart devices), and no preferred speakers. Read the link above on why that would work for your case, but feel free to ask more questions if it not's clear after that.





I would like the Sonos to be voice controlled - so was thinking of keeping the Alexa downstairs (used purely for voice control) and buying her a replacement voice controlled speaker - such as Google Home, to use upstairs.





You can have Echos and Sonos speakers in your home and have them setup so they can be easily and logically controlled. I have several rooms setup this way. You don't need to introduce Google voice assistant to do this.



As far as getting a replacement for your daughter, you might want to look at the Sonos One. It has Alexa built in and would be better sound quality than an echo.



Side note: If you have an Alexa enabled device downstairs, and one upstairs. You can use the announcement feature to send a message to the other Alexa. For example "Alexa, announce it's time for dinner". Very handy with kids.



https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/alexa-announce-announcements-6811096





Doe anyone know if the Google Home interferes with Sonos?





It does not currently (not without some relatively advanced steps taken, and then still rather limited) but Sonos has been developing this and has stated they are now, or will soon be in the Beta testing phase of the project.

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Thank you for your help on this. I set up the groups and thought I'd cracked it. However on taking up upstairs to her room and running some tests same things seem to happen:



I streamed music through spotify (on my phone) to my group (which runs off songs 5 and connect (4 old style speakers & amplifier).



She asked Alexa some questions. Music on Songs 5 continued - the connect speakers cut out.



She then asked her Alexa to play some music via her Amazon account - that then stopped my music and the song she had chosen played through the group downstairs (songs 5 and connect).





I'm so fed up with it, that I have disconnected her Alexa from my Sonos account. Which means we no longer have the interference/stopping of music. However in doing so, the Alexa has somehow disconnected from the amazon account - it says it can't find the amazon music!!!. And now she will not be able to play any music from Amazon on her Alexa - arrrhhh. Obviously that means I can't test if when she actually plays music if it will still interfere with downstairs' music.





My question is:



If we decide to invest in a voice Sonos 1 and have this downstairs - will that work/solve the issue?



If I connect this new voice sonos 1 to my daughter's Alexa upstairs - to be able to play music upstairs - will I again have the same problems as described above?



Thanks so much in advance.

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Happilyeverheidi,



One quick solution is to perhaps move to the Amazon Music Ultimate Family Account, then add your daughter to your Amazon Household and she can have her own Alexa account and her own Amazon music..The Family Music Account also allows for 2 adults too... so you can setup multiple accounts within the Sonos App and use more than one stream at a time.



I would also get a second echo device, or better still buy a Sonos One.



Create an 'Alexa Enabled' Group in your daughters own Alexa App and add her assigned echo device to it... this will 'enable' the group and duck the audio. Set the device too as her 'preferred' speaker for music.



Next, create an 'Alexa Enabled' Group in your own Alexa App for yourself, that will contain your echo device to 'enable the group' and also add all your downstairs Sonos Rooms in the middle section of the group, so that they all duck their audio... it’s then upto you if you want to set one, or more, Sonos Rooms as your 'preferred' speakers for music audio for that Alexa device.



That should then stop your daughter ducking your speakers downstairs, plus (and perhaps more importantly) both she and yourself can now also play different music streams from Amazon Music at the same time.

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I think ken picked up on an important point I missed, that being that you were losing your audio downstairs because the system was allowing only one Amazon stream at a time. This is not a Sonos or Alexa restriction so much as a limitation of your Amazon music account. Ken is correct, that a Amazon family account would resolve.



However, it might be helpful if you provided more information about how you have Sonos and Alexa setup. What music service accounts are setup through your Sonos account, and what music service accounts are setup under the Alexa app? In a typical setup (mine anyway) I have one Amazon account, and it is used in both the Sonos and Alexa configurations. If you were using different Amazon accounts in Sonos and Alexa, I can see were things could get unnecessarily complicated.

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