I just bought a Sonos Beam after my research failed me and I interpreted Group capability as MRM. Arrived today and love the sound, but contemplating returning it b/c it cannot connect to my echos.

I purchased two Play:1 speakers today.  I’m very disappointed to discover that I can’t group them with my existing Echo devices for multi-room music.  I won’t be buying any more Sonos speakers until this basic capability is added.

Just bought two Sonos Ones and could not believe this.

I plan to return them and get the new echo studio. Supposedly a small step down in audio quality, but worth it for the seamless integration into groups for me! 

I bought the Alexa enabled Sonos Play 5, expecting to have the ability to connect with other Alexa enabled speakers for multi room. Please add support for Sonos speakers to be added to Alexa MRM groups.

Can you tell me how you arrived at this expectation?  Because neither Sonos nor Amazon ever stated you would be able to play Echos and Sonos in sync.  

Not to knock your desire for the feature, but as discussed in this thread, it’s not simply a matter of adding it to the development list and getting it done.

Seems reasonable to assume that if something is supported it would be able to take advantage of the key features. It's like you get a car that says it supports Google maps, but then all you can do is browse maps, not use the routing and traffic functions. An

y rate I've read the whole thread and others and don't agree that there's some prohibitive complexity to it. If other third party jokers can make it work, Sonos can support it. It's a reasonable thread to add a +1 feature request post so they know there is desire for it. Don't need FBs defending status quo. I didn't say anything lame like I deserve my money back or blah blah. Bose also doesn't support it. Just saying as a consumer, I both expect it and want it, regardless.

But your car with google maps likely cannot do everything that Google maps on your phone can do. You’re likely not going to get links into websites, perhaps not get traffic updates, etc, unless you’re tethered to a phone or have some sort internet connection.

I’m not trying to say that expectations and assumptions are not bad in general , but they are not always true and cannot always be met, even though customers may expect and want whatever it is.

I think it was in this thread, but perhaps another, regarding a Polk soundbar that had could participate in Alexa MRM.  The difference between that product and Sonos is that Polk doesn’t have it’s own multiroom system to connect with.  Sure Sonos could build a speaker that only connected to Alexa MRM, or has an Alexa MRM mode, like the Move has a Bluetooth mode.  I don’t think that’s what people are really asking for here.  Are they?

Again, I get the assumption, but I’m not sure how you can expect a feature that was never promised.  I agree that it’s a wanted feature.  I don’t know that I would use it myself personally, but it certainly would be useful to a lot of people.  But that’s not changing the fact that there exist business and technical reasons.why it can’t just be added to the list and knocked out with the next product upgrade.

Hopefully, I’m not coming off as telling people not to ask for features they want.  I’m just trying to add some info so people can understand why the feature doesn’t exist and doesn’t look likely to be exist anytime soon.

I only expect it because it seems reasonable and desirable.

I think people who want the Sonos speakers to interplay with other speakers like my echos or my smart speaker smoke detector or my home theater Panasonic and KEF don't care about the Sonos multi room native protocol. Fortunately on the Bose forum I found a workaround where you just pair or feed an echo input device to each non confirming target and you can treat that pass through as an Amazon mrm.

But this workaround has extra cost, consumes extra space and power, and is extra hassle. Thus the feature request.

IoT. Can't they all just get along? ;)

Ok, I think we’re good hear, probably a bit of semantics.  I see your point that as a consumer looking in, you would want the feature, and not knowing anything else, would feel it shouldn’t be a big deal.

I would honestly say that if this is the sort of setup you want, then you’re better off not getting Sonos.  

You can do this with Sonos too.  The Amp, Port, and Play:5 all have aux inputs.  It’s what a lot of peopel did before there was any Sonos integration whatsoever.  This sort of setup isn’t advised now though, as using Alexa for control and Sonos for speakers (music/TV) results in a more robust system.

Well, partly because Sonos has patents and such invested that they don’t want to just abandon by letting other companies use their tech, or abandoning their tech for an inferior MRM (and it is inferior).  I know, it doesn’t have to be all or none situation, but you can kinda see why IoT isn’t always so easy.  Heck, I’d love to be able to control my arlo camera and ring doorbell with one app...but that’s not going to happen. 

Kind of related, but Amazon was reported to be trying to put together some voice control standards, so that you could easily get a device and pick between multiple voice control choices.  Google was not on board with this.

BTW Pioneer, that also works with complex speaker configs and has its own multi room protocol. They said, much like Sonos, it currently supports Alexa voice control, but Amazon MRM will be supported in an upcoming firmware update. 

Get on it Sonos!

Just to note; Denon promised a Windows Mobile app and Chromecast support several years ago.  Bose promised Alexa support, then discontinued their entire lineup of multi-room speakers in order to achieve it.  So I would take such statements with a big grain of salt.  

Somebody was saying earlier vendors fight each other.

Google Amazon and Apple just announced a standards push for home stuff. Praise jeebus.

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-amazon-google-partner-on-smart-home-tech-2019-12

Yea, I saw that earlier.  Noticable that there is no mention of standardization of control of streaming sources nor speaker destinations/multiroom protocols.  Not surprised by that.  This is a good step in the right direction.

I thought I had seen are article about this a few months back where Amazon and Apple wanted it, but Google was out.  Maybe it was on something else.

In the same boat! Just got mine today and really thought I could just add them to my existing echos and go about listening to the same song all throughout the house, with an elevated sound in the kitchen through the shiny new sonos :)  I thought I did my research beforehand but I guess not. This might be a deal breaker forcing me to return both my sonos 1 and beam bummer!!  If i could use them with my existing echo speakers i have in every room of my house, I might be able to slowly phase the sonos in and swap them out one at a time, (since we don’t really use the features like drop in) but to make this work simultaneously like my echos, I would have to buy 10 sonos speakers which is just not happening overnight. All that frustration being said -The posts im reading were from a while ago. Has there been an update in the past year on a projection date? 

I’d like to +1 this feature request.

I’ve a house of Echo devices, and an old Bose SoundTouch that I’m looking to replace (use AirPlay on it for Apple TV, which is why it’s separate to Echos).

Only thing holding me back from a change to Sonos is lack of MRM.  If it were added, I’d buy the Sonos in an instant. Just want a good sound system with AirPlay and Echo MRM support, and Sonos is sooo close :)

Me too
I have just bought a Sonos not realising that this was an issue, seriously considering returning it and getting a refund and hoping someone can develop a speaker that ticks all of the boxes!

Hello,

Love the sound quality of my Sonos One but I will definitively not buy additional units as long as Sonos does not support Alexa multiroom music mixed with other Amazon devices.

Customer has always the last word, if Sonos does not want to go this way, customer will anyway find a workaround.

I am now considering the Amazon Echo Studio as a serious alternative.

Come on Sonos, just do It

Another one post complaint. Sonos change it or else the bunny gets it!  
 

This is not a simple thing to fix so would be very suprised if it ever happens. 
 

The alternative is to buy more Sonos units,  they are easy to group and sounds better too

If other vendors can do it most likely because Amazon/Sonos wants to drive their own respective sales… very disappointing from a customer stand point.   It’s right there in plain sight on the Amazon developper page: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/mrm/multi-room-music-sdk-overview.html but as the getting started states: 

To get started with implementing MRM on your device, contact your Amazon Business Development representative.

Who says BS between the 2?

There are other features I’m waiting for that Sonos still doesn’t support, such as bilingual Alexa which is extremely convenient on my echo dot around the house except the kitchen/dinning where the Sonos is.

Not to say that I can't even leverage my Sonos properly as it cannot be controlled from a different wifi network (still in the same house).  In 2020, where data privacy concerns are at peak, and when everybody recommends to have a dedicated smart home network it is just telling me that Sonos doesn’t consider all security aspect and assume your home is a safe place.

Thankfully I only have 1 Sonos speaker… might get it out of the door very soon and replace it with the new Amazon Studio - at least they will all (echo and speakers) act “smart” together.  I haven’t reach an irreversible cost of change yet by buying a ton of Sonos.  I guess the couple bucks I’ll loose reselling it is my cost of being an early adopter.

There are clearly two distinct groups of people here.  Sonos is perfect for one group and not suitable for the other.  I shall call them the ‘Sonos adopters’ and the ‘voice control adopters’.

Sonos adopters have decided that they want their whole-home audio system to be Sonos.  I am in this group.  I like the quality of the sound above all, and the choice of sources, the HT option, and much else besides.  It wouldn’t cross my mind to buy a Google or Amazon speaker.  I am pleased to have voice control as one of my control options, but could live without it.  I don’t give a hoot that Sonos Alexa-enabled devices don’t do everything an Amazon Echo device will do.  I wouldn’t use them anyway.

Then there are the ‘voice control adopters’.  They come from a different perspective.  Not an inferior or superior perspective, just different.  The voice control features are important, and Sonos speakers are just one of a range of speakers that they want to mix and match.  But Sonos just doesn’t fit that mould at the moment.  It is designed as a complete, integrated, audio synced multiroom system.  In fact, Sonos own all the key patents for synching music and are currently suing Google for patent infringement.

It just has to be admitted that for the voice control adopters, Sonos isn’t a good option as currently designed and conceived.  You need to be ‘all-in’ with Sonos or you are better off not buying Sonos at all.

Especially given the patent infringement lawsuit, I think it is unrealistic to expect Sonos and other speakers to sync any time soon.  If ever.

+1 on adding Echo MRM support. I didn’t realize this shortcoming when I bought the Sonos One about a year ago. Sound quality is excellent for its size but now limited to the patio where I can’t hear my other Echo linked hifi speakers. Probably will pass it on for an Echo Studio.