In September 2018 Amazon released the AVS Device SDK that allows Alexa enabled 3rd party speakers to use Alexa Multiroom Music (MRM). This means Amazon now supports music played from Echo speakers and 3rd party speakers at the same time.
Does Sonos plan to update their Alexa enabled speakers (One, Beam) to allow Alexa multi-room music?
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I have been waiting on this as well and is one of the main reasons I got a Sonos One. I was also told that this would be a future one day.
@wheelbase How long ago were you told this would be a feature?
Your Q&A chat could be interpreted as Sonos answering about groups or multiroom music. Sonos has started to allow you to group speakers. With grouping you can ask an echo to play music and music will play via the grouped Sonos.
What I am referencing is the MRM feature that would allow sound to come from both Echo and Sonos speakers at the same time.
I have found no post in the community from a Sonos employee that confirms multi-room music since Amazon has released the SDK update.
Your Q&A chat could be interpreted as Sonos answering about groups or multiroom music. Sonos has started to allow you to group speakers. With grouping you can ask an echo to play music and music will play via the grouped Sonos.
What I am referencing is the MRM feature that would allow sound to come from both Echo and Sonos speakers at the same time.
I have found no post in the community from a Sonos employee that confirms multi-room music since Amazon has released the SDK update.
Your Q&A could be interpreted as Sonos answering about groups or multiroom music, Sonos has started to allow you to group speakers. With grouping you can ask an echo to play music and music will play via the grouped Sonos.
What I am referencing is the MRM feature that would allow sound to come from both Echo and Sonos speakers at the same time.
I have found no post in the community from a Sonos employee that confirms multi-room music since Amazon has released the SDK update.
The Alexa groups and MRM are complicated structures. I think you're correct @Sonoson, that the chat exchange above is not about being able to play echos and Sonos speakers in sync, but that their are changes in how Sonos speakers operate inside Alexa groups. I don't think we are going to see Sonos speakers and echos playing in sync anytime, if ever. If it ever does happen, I imagine this will be an annouced feature, similar to how we saw Sonos annouce airplay 2 compatibility.
Sonos needs to recognize that wireless multi-room music isn't going to be their competitive advantage moving forward. Instead they can focus on their other strengths while supporting Amazon MRM. Sonos could limit Amazon MRM to only when using an Alexa enabled Sonos speaker (One and Beam). Sonos can also limit the use of TruePlay to only when there is no Echo speaker running in the same room (similar to how TruePlay doesnt work with Connect using third party speakers). Sonos stereo pairs and surround can still only be with other Sonos speakers (Amazon & Sonos currently only allow identical model speakers to be a stereo pair).
I hope someone from Sonos can chime in with an official stance on Amazon MRM support. No Amazon MRM is the deal breaker for me (someone who bought an entire surround set up for the holidays). I have until end of January to return so Sonos has a month to announce support for MRM.
This chat with Sonos occurred on December 5, 2017. This is the exact reason I took screenshots of my conversation with them in the hopes that I could have a small reason to motivate Sonos to keep their word. This question was specifically about multiroom music (MRM) and I was assured that this future would be developed. Here is the full text of my question.
@wheelbase This is a great chat & thank you for sharing. Based on the chat agents responses I'm not sure the agent fully understands the Alexa integration into Sonos enough to answer the question. The agent starts by writing "The One has all the features that the echo and dot have". This is not correct as Sonos doesn't support many commands of Alexa. Some features like drop-in, messaging and calling are listed on the Sonos website as not supported. Other features like MRM have not been supported at all due to Amazon SDK limitations (no longer an Amazon limitation as of early Sept 2018, now its a Sonos limitation). That first statement by the agent shows a lack of understanding of Alexa features & Sonos functionality.
If the agent thinks the One has all functionality of Alexa then I have doubts the agent understands the difference between grouping and MRM. He could have read music groups and answered that music groups were coming. Sonos did release speaker room groupings that allow an echo to play music on a Sonos in the same room group. Unfortunately this is not MRM.
I do appreciate you sharing the chat and attempting to get an answer from Sonos. My doubts are not in you, but in the agents understanding of these two separate features.
It would be wonderful if a Sonos employee, like Ryan, was able to give a definitive answer on whether Amazon MRM is planned.
If the agent thinks the One has all functionality of Alexa then I have doubts the agent understands the difference between grouping and MRM. He could have read music groups and answered that music groups were coming. Sonos did release speaker room groupings that allow an echo to play music on a Sonos in the same room group. Unfortunately this is not MRM.
I do appreciate you sharing the chat and attempting to get an answer from Sonos. My doubts are not in you, but in the agents understanding of these two separate features.
It would be wonderful if a Sonos employee, like Ryan, was able to give a definitive answer on whether Amazon MRM is planned.
Hi everyone,
We're constantly working with the Amazon Alexa team to bring more features and to improve the experience, in fact, we're in the middle of launching Alexa Groups with them right now. This does not include grouping Sonos players and Echo devices to play the same music at the same time, but it's a feature we've certainly heard requests asking for the functionality. I don't have any specifics I can share as to if multiroom music with Sonos and Alexa playing together will be available, but I'll make sure to let the team know continues to be requested.
I can't speak specifically to that chat, but if it was from a year ago, the Alexa integration has changed considerably since then (and as already pointed out, there were other mistakes/inaccuracies in it). As development continues, features are added and some may move lower on the list of priorities. We'll continue to bring new features and experiences to Alexa on Sonos and are hard at work to bring voice control to Sonos in many different ways, in order to bring the best possible music listening experience.
We're constantly working with the Amazon Alexa team to bring more features and to improve the experience, in fact, we're in the middle of launching Alexa Groups with them right now. This does not include grouping Sonos players and Echo devices to play the same music at the same time, but it's a feature we've certainly heard requests asking for the functionality. I don't have any specifics I can share as to if multiroom music with Sonos and Alexa playing together will be available, but I'll make sure to let the team know continues to be requested.
I can't speak specifically to that chat, but if it was from a year ago, the Alexa integration has changed considerably since then (and as already pointed out, there were other mistakes/inaccuracies in it). As development continues, features are added and some may move lower on the list of priorities. We'll continue to bring new features and experiences to Alexa on Sonos and are hard at work to bring voice control to Sonos in many different ways, in order to bring the best possible music listening experience.
I don't think you're points are invalid, but I think there are other factors at play here. Absolutely, their are customers out there that will opt not to get Sonos because you can't play echos and Sonos speakers in sync (at this time). There are also customers that may opt to buy a Sonos One instead of an echo for the same reason. I can't say which group is bigger for sure, but I would guess you're group is bigger.
But it's worth point out though that Sonos multiroom is definitely superior in terms of features to that of Alexa multiroom. Beside the fact that the speakers are better quality, you also more options for bonding speakers together, the ability to work with more music sources and line in options, and the ability to change grouped speakers on the fly. I personally would be very disappointed to trade in Sonos multiroom for Alexa multiroom in it's entirety.
Sonos needs to recognize that wireless multi-room music isn't going to be their competitive advantage moving forward. Instead they can focus on their other strengths while supporting Amazon MRM.
I can't agree with that statement. I think there's room to support MRM, but Sonos multiroom tech is definiitely an advantage, even as other companies are catching up.
Sonos could limit Amazon MRM to only when using an Alexa enabled Sonos speaker (One and Beam). Sonos can also limit the use of TruePlay to only when there is no Echo speaker running in the same room (similar to how TruePlay doesnt work with Connect using third party speakers). Sonos stereo pairs and surround can still only be with other Sonos speakers (Amazon & Sonos currently only allow identical model speakers to be a stereo pair).
I can't see Sonos speaker pairing rules changing because of Amazon MRM, but I don't think it's necessary to modfiy Trueplay in any way. If you're going to use Sonos and Echo speakers in the same room, you've pretty much already decided that sound quality isn't that important to you (not you personally).
I hope someone from Sonos can chime in with an official stance on Amazon MRM support. No Amazon MRM is the deal breaker for me (someone who bought an entire surround set up for the holidays). I have until end of January to return so Sonos has a month to announce support for MRM.
I would just recommend that you work out an alternative plan before returning to the store. To me, the sound quality and additional features of Sonos are worth the price. And the ability to link/pair an echo to a Sonos room(s) give you the best of both world in a lot of ways.
Just echoing what others have said here and saying that I too would greatly enjoy this functionality. I love the sonos speakers and would continue to buy them regardless of what system it is used to actually do the multi-room part.
In any case, the new features released this month and in particular the preferred speaker option is already an awesome addition and i love it. Thank you for the hard work and for listening to your customers suggestions / asks!
I just spent an hour trying to put my new Sonos play:1 Speakers in a multiroom group. Thanks to this thread, i discovered i was wasting my time. If i had know this before, i would not have brought the speakers. I have my existing Bose system playing through an Alexa Pair Gadget in parts of the house, as well as echos in Kitchen, etc. I wanted the Sonos to support mh Music Everywhere Group. I add my voice to those who would like to add quality Sonos Speakers to their existing setup. Thanks for this thread.
Agreed. I’m going to return my Sonos Beam and Subwoofer and get Bose if Bose already has this.
I'm adding my voice to the resounding appeal for Alexa 3rd party MRM integration on Sonos products. My new Ecobee thermostat got me interested in voice control. I started with one echo device, an echo dot driving my B&W MM-1's. That system displaced the Airport/Beosound 3000 configuration in our kitchen/living area, the convenience of streaming and voice control means we listen much more now. Digging out the B&O remote and a streaming device+app to control the system and stream music just had too much friction for everyday use. A second echo was soon added in our TV area to control heating and stream music to the relocated Beosound 3000.
So I decided to dip my toe in the water and try voice control speakers with better sound quality built in. In my ignorance I assumed Alexa enabled meant, just like an Echo, but with better sound quality. So I bought a Sonos One for our den and a Bose Home Speaker 500 for the bedroom. The Bose went back after a couple of weeks even though I loved the device, and it's sound, because of it's crippled Alexa implementation. I want all of the convenience, voice queries and web knowledge, smart home control, music streaming, stereo and mono music, intercom, calling and messaging. Specifically for the bedroom Bose, it let me down by not implementing Music Alarms/Timers (& MRM) and BOSE could give me no info on plans to support them; my $20 clockradio has handled those for over 40 years. I almost swapped it for a pair of Sonos One's but it has the same limitations so instead I chose a pair of the Echo Plus Gen 2's.
I want whole home coverage using devices at a range of price points appropriate to the location, I'm not putting a $500 Bose in every room. I might use a Sonos One everywhere but I don't want to be locked out of ANY voice/smart functionality. In addition, while I'm using Alexa now, I want a path to switch voice platforms in the future if I need to without replacing all my high quality sound and entertainment system components. Maybe the solution is to go with cheaper voice control speakers everywhere and integrating higher quality sound and entertainment devices in entertainment spaces. But I still want whole home and zone MRM and all my devices/stereo pairs/zones/groups need to be compatible with all smart control functions e.g streaming alarms/timers, any available streaming service/program source. I.e. I want no functional limitations because of brand choice.
I'm starting to look at home cinema sound now, but it needs to fit into a home wide MRM system. So with their recently announced support for Alexa MRM, Polk Audio would be the front runner.
So I decided to dip my toe in the water and try voice control speakers with better sound quality built in. In my ignorance I assumed Alexa enabled meant, just like an Echo, but with better sound quality. So I bought a Sonos One for our den and a Bose Home Speaker 500 for the bedroom. The Bose went back after a couple of weeks even though I loved the device, and it's sound, because of it's crippled Alexa implementation. I want all of the convenience, voice queries and web knowledge, smart home control, music streaming, stereo and mono music, intercom, calling and messaging. Specifically for the bedroom Bose, it let me down by not implementing Music Alarms/Timers (& MRM) and BOSE could give me no info on plans to support them; my $20 clockradio has handled those for over 40 years. I almost swapped it for a pair of Sonos One's but it has the same limitations so instead I chose a pair of the Echo Plus Gen 2's.
I want whole home coverage using devices at a range of price points appropriate to the location, I'm not putting a $500 Bose in every room. I might use a Sonos One everywhere but I don't want to be locked out of ANY voice/smart functionality. In addition, while I'm using Alexa now, I want a path to switch voice platforms in the future if I need to without replacing all my high quality sound and entertainment system components. Maybe the solution is to go with cheaper voice control speakers everywhere and integrating higher quality sound and entertainment devices in entertainment spaces. But I still want whole home and zone MRM and all my devices/stereo pairs/zones/groups need to be compatible with all smart control functions e.g streaming alarms/timers, any available streaming service/program source. I.e. I want no functional limitations because of brand choice.
I'm starting to look at home cinema sound now, but it needs to fit into a home wide MRM system. So with their recently announced support for Alexa MRM, Polk Audio would be the front runner.
Echo Dots and Sonos seems to meet your needs pretty well. Life is never perfect.
+1 for this feature!
I am reequiping my home and my holiday house with multiroom in the very near future, and this MRM integration will decide which brand I'm going into.
Love Sonos, but lacks two important things for me now, MRM and handling two locations by saving all data in the cloud, and not only locally in the speakers.
Love Sonos, but lacks two important things for me now, MRM and handling two locations by saving all data in the cloud, and not only locally in the speakers.
Any update on MRM on the Beam? Thinking about returning. I mean how is this not the next top priority? Does anyone know about other sound bars that support MRM? Does Bose support it?
Sonos hasn't announced anything around this. I'm not aware of any multi-room speaker systems that play in sync with echos, although there are standalone speakers that will play in sync with echos. I haven't really done any research on it.
As to how it's not the top priority...it's up there on the list of requested features, but I wouldn't say it's clearly the most requested feature I've seen. It's also not one that I think Sonos upper management is all that interested in as Sonos makes money by selling Sonos speakers to fill out your system, not by making it easier to fill out your home with echos or other speakers. Perhaps some people my by Sonos for certain rooms if they can fully integrate with echos, where they wouldn't buy Sonos otherwise. More likely though, people will buy an echo for a room where they would have put a Sonos speaker.
There's also possibly some technical regarding how such a feature would operate with Sonos grouping functionality, differences in audio quality, and the fact that Sonos supports many more services than Amazon does.
Why would you use a streaming service, like Google that allows you to store your own music files in the cloud? And Sonos does not store music files on the speakers, it only stores file location and an index of your local music. I personally prefer using a music service rather than my own local files, but in your situation, I'd store the files on a portable drive I could take between the two locations.
Just found that the Polk Command Bar supports multi room. Guess that's the leader until the race finishes between Bose and Sonos and that will dictate which direction I build out my system with.
The Command Bar isn't part of a Polk mult-room system. It's a single bar + sub...stand alone. You can't even add surround speakers as far as I can tell. So my statement above still stands.
It also doesn't appear to be airplay 2 compatible, limited streaming services. Does have bluetooth and DTS though.
Not knocking the product, just pointing out that it's actually a rather different product then Sonos speakers, with a significantly different feature set.
It also doesn't appear to be airplay 2 compatible, limited streaming services. Does have bluetooth and DTS though.
Not knocking the product, just pointing out that it's actually a rather different product then Sonos speakers, with a significantly different feature set.
Yeah, but my TV is airplay 2 compatible and everything else can just be triggered off of the Echo Plus which would be synced to the sound bar. Not sure what I'd be missing out on.
Copying my reply from another thread in case others find it useful:
I have my Sonos speakers (a Playbar and two Ones working as rear satellites in a surround configuration) working in an Alexa multi-room music configuration. Mind you, the music streaming source is not the Sonos player. Here's what I have set up: Fire TV Cube connected to TV via HDMI, TV connected to Playbar via digital optical. Multi-room music group ("Downstairs"): Echo, Echo dot connected via an aux cable to a stereo receiver, Echo Show and Fire TV Cube / Sonos. I can ask any of the Echo devices to play music on the group. I had to tweak the audio sync setting on the Fire TV Cube to get the music playing through the Sonos speakers in sync, but other than that it works great - 4 downstairs rooms, playing the same music, all in sync. So, while the Sonos isn't actually playing the music, the music is coming through the Sonos speakers and I get my music throughout my "Downstairs" as desired.
I have my Sonos speakers (a Playbar and two Ones working as rear satellites in a surround configuration) working in an Alexa multi-room music configuration. Mind you, the music streaming source is not the Sonos player. Here's what I have set up: Fire TV Cube connected to TV via HDMI, TV connected to Playbar via digital optical. Multi-room music group ("Downstairs"): Echo, Echo dot connected via an aux cable to a stereo receiver, Echo Show and Fire TV Cube / Sonos. I can ask any of the Echo devices to play music on the group. I had to tweak the audio sync setting on the Fire TV Cube to get the music playing through the Sonos speakers in sync, but other than that it works great - 4 downstairs rooms, playing the same music, all in sync. So, while the Sonos isn't actually playing the music, the music is coming through the Sonos speakers and I get my music throughout my "Downstairs" as desired.
Bought myself a one specificallh cause the Best Buy salesman told me it would support MRM with my echo :/
If I could I’d return it, but I bought it while on a trip to the US and I live in the UK
If I could I’d return it, but I bought it while on a trip to the US and I live in the UK
The thing is it does support multi room music, just not with different manufacturers of speakers. I can see this ever being available and if it did happen i suspect it would be without exact music sync :(
What you need is more Ones 🙂
What you need is more Ones 🙂
Since there is no indication that Sonos is going to incorporate music sync into their products anytime soon, I have decided to return my Beam and I'm going to build out my system another way. Music sync is too important to me and I don't want to be hamstrung into only buying sonos ones for the foreseeable future. Especially since Amazon could drop competing products at any point.
The choice is yours, but it's worth noting that Sonos version of multiroom audio allows for playing from external sources, such as a local library, TV audio, or a line in source, while Amazon can only stream from a handful of streaming services. As well, Sonos allows you add/remove speakers in the middle of playback, while Amazon does not.
You won't be forced to buy sonos ones, as any Sonos speaker will work in the system, even the upcoming Ikea speakers. If you want to specifically control a speaker by voice you can 'pair' a Sonos speaker with an echo dot, or control them all with a single dot.
And while Amazon could drop the integration with Sonos, I think that's highly unlikely as they would essentially be forfeiting all Sonos customers to Google Home for voice control.
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