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Alexa now Breaks up groups

  • 18 September 2018
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So, I keep most of my speakers in one group. For this example, let's say "Living Room, Kitchen, Bedroom".

Since Alexa integration started, I've been able to name any of the speakers in the group, and it'll do that action for the group. For instance "Alexa, stop the living room" stops all three but leaves them grouped. "Alexa, Play Metallica on the Kitchen" Plays Metallica on all three (as long as they had already been grouped).

In the last week or so, this has changed. Now when I name a speaker, actions happen ONLY to that speaker. So in the example above "Alexa stop the living room", it separates Living room from the group, and stops it. This means that the other two are still playing. Same thing if I use Alexa to start music. If the speaker I ask it to start on is in a group, it removes it from the group and starts it on just that one speaker.

This is super annoying, and really defeats the reason I use Sonos in the first place. Does anyone know why this behavior has changed, or how I can get it to go back and work the old way?
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Best answer by Ryan S 13 December 2018, 23:32

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25 replies

Maybe Sonos is about to introduce specific commands to control groups but first needed to strip any group related actions from the existing individual speaker commands?
I just grouped my speakers in the Alexa app. I don't know if this is a new feature or not, but maybe Alexa now only recognizes its own groups? That would make sense to me, it is a much more literal interpretation of what is being asked of it.
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I just grouped my speakers in the Alexa app. I don't know if this is a new feature or not, but maybe Alexa now only recognizes its own groups? That would make sense to me, it is a much more literal interpretation of what is being asked of it.

Grouping Sonos players only works within the Sonos App and not via Alexa Groups.
cubsfan1060,

If you are able to reproduce this again, I would submit a system diagnostic immediately afterwards for the Sonos Staff to have a look at what’s going on... see link below:

Submit System Diagnostics
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Cubsfan1060,
Did you ever find a solution? This is happening to me now.
Every time I tell Alexa to pause music in one room when all my house is grouped together on Sonos, it pauses the music in that one room and drops that room from the group. And then the group goes on playing the music.
This did not used to happen. Until today, a command to pause one room would pause every Sonos unit grouped with that room.

Thanks.
Cubsfan1060,
Did you ever find a solution? This is happening to me now.
Every time I tell Alexa to pause music in one room when all my house is grouped together on Sonos, it pauses the music in that one room and drops that room from the group. And then the group goes on playing the music.
This did not used to happen. Until today, a command to pause one room would pause every Sonos unit grouped with that room.

Thanks.
This sounds to me like it may now be working 'as intended', because things usually work the same way as the hardware.

If you have all speakers grouped in your household playing some music and go to one room and physically press the pause button on a speaker, then only that one room stops playing the music. The remaining rooms keeps playing.

You can stop all with the Sonos App, but not with the hardware. So I’m guessing this is how the programmers want the Alexa instructions to now work. Those are my initial thoughts, but we may have to wait for some kind of announcement (or confirmation) on this particular subject from the Staff.

I will add that I will be quite happy if things do work in this way, but I know some users may prefer the music to stop everywhere.
My setup isn't working as you're suggesting Ken. If I'm playing audio to a group of rooms, hitting the hard button on a speaker to pause will pause across the entire group. The same functionality exists when I ask Alexa to pause the music. I didn't test this recently, but I don't think you can pause a single room in the Sonos app, short of removing it from the group.

As far as whether I want 'pause' to mean the entire group or just the current room (whatever that means), I think I'd almost always prefer the entire group. There are exceptions though for sure. Really, I'd be happy if I could simply have a 'duck' command available for a specific room, exactly the same way a single room will (or should) duck when you talk to Alexa in that room. I would want to be able to tell Alexa to duck or in-duck a room, have the option to make the hard button on devices duck or pause depending on configuration, and add a duck button to the button (with the icon of an actual duck).

Thinking about it, I suppose mute works just as well.
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There is a way to set default groups and then group via voice. www.speakerscenes.com

The stop thing - definitely sounds like a bug. I think Amazon has rolled out a bunch of stuff on their end that Sonos has to compensate for on their end - looks like a lot of new stuff on the way.
My setup isn't working as you're suggesting Ken. If I'm playing audio to a group of rooms, hitting the hard button on a speaker to pause will pause across the entire group. The same functionality exists when I ask Alexa to pause the music. I didn't test this recently, but I don't think you can pause a single room in the Sonos app, short of removing it from the group.

As far as whether I want 'pause' to mean the entire group or just the current room (whatever that means), I think I'd almost always prefer the entire group. There are exceptions though for sure. Really, I'd be happy if I could simply have a 'duck' command available for a specific room, exactly the same way a single room will (or should) duck when you talk to Alexa in that room. I would want to be able to tell Alexa to duck or in-duck a room, have the option to make the hard button on devices duck or pause depending on configuration, and add a duck button to the button (with the icon of an actual duck).

Thinking about it, I suppose mute works just as well.

Oh it’s me getting mixed up (again) .. you’re right the play/pause button on any speaker in a group works for all speakers in the group, but the (+) and (-) volume controls operate just on the one room only in a group situation and do not operate on the whole group. Sorry about the mix up.

Just to extend the point a little further though ...

I would like to see an Alexa voice instruction to raise/lower the 'group' volume aswell as an 'individual room' volume... that’s what I was undoubtedly thinking about, when I gave my 'mixed-up' reply earlier

I don’t see a reason either, in the exact same vein, why an Alexa instruction can't pause a single room within a group, or pause the entire group depending on how the voice instruction is actually given by the user.

As a very simple Example: ... 'Alexa, pause the music in the Lounge' ...or ... 'Alexa, pause the music Everywhere'.

I don’t know if there is a way to extend these things to the speakers hardware buttons too, but it would be useful to have the 'best of both worlds'.

Anyhow, I will now go hide my slightly red face ?
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Just to join this thread; I have the same problem and it only seemed to start a week or so ago (here in the UK). As I am home most of the time I have a number of Sonos speakers grouped. If the phone rang I could tell Alexa to pause one of the rooms that was in the group and they would all stop. Now Alexa causes that speaker to drop from the group whilst the remainder keep playing. This is, frankly, somewhat annoying especially if I have paused to, say, take a phone call as I can still hear the other speakers.

And this is not the way the app (or desktop app) works; you pause a group. My STRONG preference would be for the original functionality to be restored. Equally if there is a change to functionality I don't think it unreasonable for whomever initiated the change (this one could be on Sonos or Amazon) to let users know of the change as I spent a few days wondering what on earth was going on before I did the structured testing - and then found this thread!
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This has been acknowledged as a bug and is being worked on between Sonos and Amazon. It started happening when the latest fix for ducking went live
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This has been acknowledged as a bug and is being worked on between Sonos and Amazon. It started happening when the latest fix for ducking went live

Good to know.

Er 'ducking' ??

Oh it’s me getting mixed up (again) .. you’re right the play/pause button on any speaker in a group works for all speakers in the group, but the (+) and (-) volume controls operate just on the one room only in a group situation and do not operate on the whole group. Sorry about the mix up.


Ah. Agree on this, it's the functionality I see as well. It makes sense to me, at least in terms of how I use the system, as I typically want to be in the room I'm setting the volume for so I can properly gauge the volume I want. In fact, whenever I've set the volume while in a different room, I instinctively walk over to that room to verify it's a good volume after setting it.



Just to extend the point a little further though ...

I would like to see an Alexa voice instruction to raise/lower the 'group' volume aswell as an 'individual room' volume... that’s what I was undoubtedly thinking about, when I gave my 'mixed-up' reply earlier

I don’t see a reason either, in the exact same vein, why an Alexa instruction can't pause a single room within a group, or pause the entire group depending on how the voice instruction is actually given by the user.


Well, in the past, it seems that Alexa was not aware of any existing groups. So there really was no way to do control one speaker in a group by voice. That appears like it might be changing now, so maybe it will be a possible feature. However, I have two concerns about this request. First, the word "pause" assumes that you can resume or "in-pause" and play audio exactly where you left off. If other rooms have not paused, you can't really resume, short of ungrouping and playing a second stream. It seems to me that the proper word would be to mute a room, or duck, so that when you unmute or in-duck, the audio is again playing in sync with the other rooms in the group. Semantics.

Second, I think there has to be a concern about keeping voice commands simple, so that users can easily remember how to make the commands, and to reduce the chance that Alexa misunderstands and does nothing or something you didn't want her to do. So, a command to mute the living room audio, but not the group living room is currently in, or vice versa, could start to get too cumbersome. I'd rather have Alexa assume that "pause" should pause the entire group, while "mute" or "duck" would only act on the room/speaker you target.


As a very simple Example: ... 'Alexa, pause the music in the Lounge' ...or ... 'Alexa, pause the music Everywhere'.


Yes, and Alexa needs to know what 'Everywhere" means for this to work. I suppose that could be defined as everywhere that audio is currently playing for all the speakers Amazon is aware of. It would be nice if there were named groups so that we could specify to do some action on a specific group. But, I also don't want to have to use a target every time to make sure Alexa knows what I mean. With your example, if I've got music going in the lounge and bedroom, "Alexa, pause the music" should pause in both room. I shouldn't have to target with the hypothetical group name every time. There needs to be some default assumptions, like we get with the 'preferred speaker' setting.

But...I'd also like to have pre-set profiles, that would include a name group plus volume settings for each room in the group. That way I can tell Alexa "set for party" setting up 3 rooms at a relatively high volumes. And I could also say "set to chill out" which would be the same 3 rooms with relatively lower volumes.

While I'm wishing, I don't really want to have to configure all this stuff myself. I want AI to learn my habits and start predicting what I want. Or maybe as a first step, if I'm my rooms grouped and at a volume I think I'll use often, be able to tell Alexa to save it as a profile, without me having to key it in myself.


I don’t know if there is a way to extend these things to the speakers hardware buttons too, but it would be useful to have the 'best of both worlds'.


I imagine the buttons could be configurable to some extent, but there is also an interest in making this uniform.
This has been acknowledged as a bug and is being worked on between Sonos and Amazon. It started happening when the latest fix for ducking went live

This is driving me ducking mad as well. Is there a thread that discusses this as a recognised bug? When will they ducking well fix it?
Ah ha! Problem solved by an update to the iOS Alexa app today here in the UK. I can now create an Alexa group of my Sonos speakers. I called it Sonos so “Alexa, play Radio 4 on Sonos”’ plays around the whole house. “Alexa, stop Sonos” stops the whole house. Asking Alexa to play, stop or adjust volume on Kitchen, Bedroom or Living Room just affects the specified room (stereo pairs defined in the Sonos app.

Great update, would have been better if it was announced and done simultaneously by Sonos and Amazon.
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Hi everyone, we're working with Amazon to bring some additional features and improvements to Sonos. These are rolling out in stages, and you've noticed some of them. Not all of the changes are out yet, but I wanted to clarify a few things here for you. We'll make a public announcement when that work's complete. 

There are some changes that you're seeing around naming rooms when you go to perform a function. One of these changes is that when you explicitly call out to stop/pause an active Sonos speaker, just that room will stop playing. 

"Alexa, stop in living room" will stop the music in just the living room, even if it's grouped with other players in the Sonos app. For example, if the player was grouped with a Sonos speaker in the Kitchen, the two will ungroup, and the Kitchen will keep on playing.

This also includes telling rooms to play music. If the Living Room and Kitchen are grouped in Sonos and not playing music, "Alexa, play in the Kitchen" will remove Living Room from the group in Sonos, and start playing in Kitchen only.

And this applies to Sonos players that have Alexa built in too, so if you have Living Room and Kitchen (a Sonos One) currently grouped and not playing music. Speaking to the Sonos One "Alexa, Play Music," will cause the Sonos One to remove Living Room from the group and start playing on its own.

If you notice Sonos groups changing due to your voice commands, open your Alexa app and look for the new Groups setup. Tap the lower-right icon, a house outline with two levers, to find it. Create an Alexa group with your desired speakers and assign your Alexa or Sonos device as the input for that group. Your voice commands will now use that group without needing to say the location name as part of the command.

You will also notice some other changes soon, and we'll let you know when it's all live. Stay tuned!
Well, in the past, it seems that Alexa was not aware of any existing groups. So there really was no way to do control one speaker in a group by voice. That appears like it might be changing now, so maybe it will be a possible feature. However, I have two concerns about this request. First, the word "pause" assumes that you can resume or "in-pause" and play audio exactly where you left off. If other rooms have not paused, you can't really resume, short of ungrouping and playing a second stream. It seems to me that the proper word would be to mute a room, or duck, so that when you unmute or in-duck, the audio is again playing in sync with the other rooms in the group. Semantics.

Second, I think there has to be a concern about keeping voice commands simple, so that users can easily remember how to make the commands, and to reduce the chance that Alexa misunderstands and does nothing or something you didn't want her to do. So, a command to mute the living room audio, but not the group living room is currently in, or vice versa, could start to get too cumbersome. I'd rather have Alexa assume that "pause" should pause the entire group, while "mute" or "duck" would only act on the room/speaker you target.

Yes, and Alexa needs to know what 'Everywhere" means for this to work. I suppose that could be defined as everywhere that audio is currently playing for all the speakers Amazon is aware of. It would be nice if there were named groups so that we could specify to do some action on a specific group. But, I also don't want to have to use a target every time to make sure Alexa knows what I mean. With your example, if I've got music going in the lounge and bedroom, "Alexa, pause the music" should pause in both room. I shouldn't have to target with the hypothetical group name every time. There needs to be some default assumptions, like we get with the 'preferred speaker' setting.

But...I'd also like to have pre-set profiles, that would include a name group plus volume settings for each room in the group. That way I can tell Alexa "set for party" setting up 3 rooms at a relatively high volumes. And I could also say "set to chill out" which would be the same 3 rooms with relatively lower volumes.

While I'm wishing, I don't really want to have to configure all this stuff myself. I want AI to learn my habits and start predicting what I want. Or maybe as a first step, if I'm my rooms grouped and at a volume I think I'll use often, be able to tell Alexa to save it as a profile, without me having to key it in myself.

Yes I agree about 'mute' instead of 'pause'... I went for 'pause' initially, as there is a 'Play/Pause' button on the hardware and no actual 'mute' button on any speaker. I see 'mute' (personally speaking) as the music still playing, but set at zero volume. Pause on the other hand is the music stopped, albeit temporary with the intention to resume it. So yes I agree 'mute' is much better suited to the discussion in point.

Yes, the voice commands need to be simple and memorable and follow the general rules and conventions and my examples of Alexa voice commands mentioned earlier, were really just to get the point across with the term 'everywhere' demonstrating a difference in the commands being issued, but yes I realise that such a keyword would need to be created as a definitive global group to represent all.

I really like the new grouping/ungrouping methods announced above by Ryan, as it makes the Sonos devices more 'fluid' and 'dynamic' to suit almost every situation that a user may require.

It’s looks like it’s just going to be a case of using the Alexa App 'grouping features' to clearly define our own groups of speakers we prefer to play together around the home, but we can still go onto address individual 'Rooms' too, should we need to play music just to those, rather than the entire group.

It provides an ability to group and ungroup Speakers, without opening the actual Sonos App. So things are certainly about to change for the better, it seems. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the detail in any forthcoming announcement.
Any updates to this? I have a play 1 named “lounge” and a one named “kitchen”. I’ve set them up in Alexa app as groups with those names, so saying “Alexa, play X in kitchen” plays in kitchen and saying lounge plays lounge. But I want to be able to play on both at the same time as well without going into the sonos app. I tried to say “play everywhere” but it doesn’t work. I tried “play in kitchen and lounge” but it doesn’t work. I then setting up a group in Alexa called “Everywhere” with both the play 1 (lounge) and one (kitchen), but now when I tell Alexa “play everywhere” it only plays in the kitchen.

I thought previous posts suggested you could play on all sonos speakers now, but it isn’t working for me. Am I doing something wrong?
Any updates to this? I have a play 1 named “lounge” and a one named “kitchen”. I’ve set them up in Alexa app as groups with those names, so saying “Alexa, play X in kitchen” plays in kitchen and saying lounge plays lounge. But I want to be able to play on both at the same time as well without going into the sonos app. I tried to say “play everywhere” but it doesn’t work. I tried “play in kitchen and lounge” but it doesn’t work. I then setting up a group in Alexa called “Everywhere” with both the play 1 (lounge) and one (kitchen), but now when I tell Alexa “play everywhere” it only plays in the kitchen.

I thought previous posts suggested you could play on all sonos speakers now, but it isn’t working for me. Am I doing something wrong?

Sonos/Alexa Groups... some quick and simple things you may wish to know about them:

1. The speakers added to the 2nd section of an Amazon Alexa Group will 'duck' their playing audio when speaking to a controlling Alexa device held in the 1st section of the group.

2. When the user has 'preferred' the speakers added to the 3rd section of an Alexa Group, they will group together automatically and play the requested audio when the user includes the 'Group Name' in their Alexa instruction.

3. When a user 'Alexa Enables' (controls) the group in the 1st section of the Alexa Group with, for example, an 'echo dot', or a 'Sonos One, (or both) etc ... those (controlling) Alexa devices will auto-group the 'preferred' speakers (same manufacturer only) and play directly to the preferred speaker group, without the need to mention the 'Group Name' and the same Alexa devices will also duck all the speakers in their group (both 'preferred' or 'non-preferred'). If there were any previously grouped speakers attached to the 'preferred' group, they will also play the audio too.

4. If there are no Sonos Speakers held in a controlled group, the controlling Echo/Sonos device will not duck any Sonos Speakers in the Household

Note: You can have multiple 'Alexa Enabled' devices in the first section of an Amazon Group, (from same, or different manufacturers), but each one can be used once only across all your Amazon Groups for that purpose.

Note: You can only set multiple 'preferred' speakers from the same hardware manufacturer. So you can have multiple Sonos devices, or multiple Amazon devices, for example, but you can’t have both. Mix and matching speakers is not currently allowed.

I hope that helps to clear some of the mist, that appears to sometimes surround these new grouping features.

Also please see these useful and important links that discuss the Alexa Groups in depth and provide further useful information ...

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

https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/an-overview-and-explanation-of-the-new-support-for-alexa-grouping-6817788

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3169

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201749250

Hope these things help to get you started with these new Sonos/Alexa features. ?
Sorry this still doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m pretty new to sonos and very new to Alexa, so the technicalities of your answer (eg talking about first second and third sections of an Alexa group) are quite lost on me.

All I want to do is be able to tell Alexa to play music sometimes in my kitchen only (sonos one), sometimes in my lounge only (stereo sonos play:1s), and sometimes in both rooms. But for the life of me I can’t firgure out how to do this. Can anyone help? Or is this not yet possible? Sorry if this is a noob question.
Sorry this still doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m pretty new to sonos and very new to Alexa, so the technicalities of your answer (eg talking about first second and third sections of an Alexa group) are quite lost on me.

All I want to do is be able to tell Alexa to play music sometimes in my kitchen only (sonos one), sometimes in my lounge only (stereo sonos play:1s), and sometimes in both rooms. But for the life of me I can’t firgure out how to do this. Can anyone help? Or is this not yet possible? Sorry if this is a noob question.
Did you read through the links I included in my post... there are explanations from UKMedia and from Ryan S (Sonos Staff) in the main thread. If you read through that thread too there are examples with screenshots of how to get things working with Alexa Groups. You need to read about how the Groups work to understand them. Then you need to take your Alexa devices and Sonos devices that you need and set them up in your own groups

I will also send you PM which gives an example. Hopefully, by reading these things, it will all make sense to you. It’s not as complicated as it may seem on the face of it, but you do need to read the notes in order to setup these things for yourself.

See the PM I have sent to you, which details a simple example.

Hope that helps ?
Jb0101

Trying to make things as 'simple as possible'. Perhaps see if the following few paragraphs help you to understand the Alexa Group features too:

There are the three distinct Sections available in the Amazon Alexa Groups...

Section 1 .. 'The Alexa Enabling Device'
This is the Echo and/or Sonos Alexa controlling device(s) that the user speaks to and gives their voice instruction to control things in the group.

**A Sonos One and/or Echo Dot etc. are good examples of such devices.

Section 2 .. 'The Speakers'
Here is where you (optionally) add the Sonos rooms/speakers that you wish to control and duck their audio. You can select multiple Sonos devices to add to this section. If you do not wish to 'duck' their audio, then no need to use this section of the Alexa group.

**Note this section is also used for adding other devices for grouping purposes, like smart-lights and smart plugs etc.

Section 3 .. 'The Preferred Speakers for Music'
This section is where Sonos, or Amazon Speakers are set as the 'preferred' devices for playing music. When using the controlling device in Section 1, these speakers will group together automatically and will play the requested audio without mentioning the Room Name.

**Note: the speakers here must be from the same manufacturer... so you can choose Sonos Speakers, or Amazon Speakers, but not both at the same time.
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Hi everyone, we're working with Amazon to bring some additional features and improvements to Sonos. These are rolling out in stages, and you've noticed some of them. Not all of the changes are out yet, but I wanted to clarify a few things here for you. We'll make a public announcement when that work's complete. 

There are some changes that you're seeing around naming rooms when you go to perform a function. One of these changes is that when you explicitly call out to stop/pause an active Sonos speaker, just that room will stop playing. 

"Alexa, stop in living room" will stop the music in just the living room, even if it's grouped with other players in the Sonos app. For example, if the player was grouped with a Sonos speaker in the Kitchen, the two will ungroup, and the Kitchen will keep on playing.

This also includes telling rooms to play music. If the Living Room and Kitchen are grouped in Sonos and not playing music, "Alexa, play in the Kitchen" will remove Living Room from the group in Sonos, and start playing in Kitchen only.

And this applies to Sonos players that have Alexa built in too, so if you have Living Room and Kitchen (a Sonos One) currently grouped and not playing music. Speaking to the Sonos One "Alexa, Play Music," will cause the Sonos One to remove Living Room from the group and start playing on its own.

If you notice Sonos groups changing due to your voice commands, open your Alexa app and look for the new Groups setup. Tap the lower-right icon, a house outline with two levers, to find it. Create an Alexa group with your desired speakers and assign your Alexa or Sonos device as the input for that group. Your voice commands will now use that group without needing to say the location name as part of the command.

You will also notice some other changes soon, and we'll let you know when it's all live. Stay tuned!



I have used Alexa with Sonos since it was available in Beta (signed up for the beta programme so that I could). I group rooms according to my listening needs and what is happening in the household. If we have multiple speakers playing and the phone rings we want to stop all of the speakers as a group. We group speakers so that in the morning we have music playing in the bedroom and it's also on downstairs.

The change to the Alexa skill that causes a room you give an instruction to be removed from the group that I have set up is a complete frickin' disaster. If the phone rings we now have to tell 2 - 3 - 4 speakers to stop. Etc Etc Etc Etc

I am now spending more time than ever in the Sonos app re-grouping speakers. It's quicker (!!!!) to go into the Sonos app to stop a group then it is to use Alexa voice control to stop the speakers in a group one by one.

This really is one of the worst changes to the integration of Alexa and Sonos. As giving a command to one speaker always takes it out of the group we are bl**dy close to disabling the Sonos skill on Alexa and going back to just using the app.

Seriously, when I set up a GROUP I want to be able to manipulate what it happening IN THAT GROUP and not have Alexa decide I suddenly don't want a group.

So please put this back the way it was.

PS Sorry for the swearing and capitals but this one change has undone all the benefits of being able to use voice control with my Sonos system.
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Try renaming your group set up in the Alexa App "Sonos." Now tell Alexa to play so and so on "Sonos." That seems to work now. It groups and controls the music as a group. Good luck!
Alan
Try renaming your group set up in the Alexa App "Sonos." Now tell Alexa to play so and so on "Sonos." That seems to work now. It groups and controls the music as a group. Good luck!
Alan


You realize the post you are replying to is over 5 months old?