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Clarifying Alexa Ungrouping Functionality

  • 10 April 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 1431 views
D
Would someone be so kind as to help clarify whether there is a function to ungroup all?

I have three rooms set up in Alexa groups, each with an Alexa device and a Sonos speaker set as the preferred the speaker. I also have created one group called “everywhere” that contains all three Sonos speakers set as the preferred speakers.

Most of the time I just listen to music in a particular room and the preferred speaker functionality works brilliantly, only having to ask the local Alexa to play music and not specify the room.

Occasionally, I would like to play music in the whole house which I can do by saying “Alexa play music everywhere”. This creates a Sonos group with all three rooms in as expected.

However, this group then sticks and asking for music in any room, even after stopping the previous music, seems to result in it playing on the whole group again.

I’ve worked out that I can break the group up by saying stop the music in X for each of the three rooms (i.e. three times) or by asking for music and specifying a room to play in, although the latter appears to have a bug that means the group can no longer be recreated. Neither is particularly intuitive and unfortunately the obvious command “stop music everywhere” doesn’t seem to break up the group even if “play music everywhere” is the command that creates it in the first place.

What is the simplest way to break the group back up into its constituent parts and go back to the preferred speaker only playing?

Sorry if I’m missing the obvious.
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Best answer by melvimbe 11 April 2019, 14:55

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3 replies

melvimbe
I think much of the problem would be solved if the speakers regrouped when you went back to issuing a command without specifying a room. As @dnw says, this is counter-intuitive. Another word would be 'rubbish'..

I would be fine with that, as long you can specify a waiting period before your existing group is ungrouped and set to the default groupings. I wouldn't want to lose my group because I took a 10 minute phone call for example.
Danny
J
I think much of the problem would be solved if the speakers regrouped when you went back to issuing a command without specifying a room. As @dnw says, this is counter-intuitive. Another word would be 'rubbish'..
melvimbe
Essentially, the system is going to assume that you wish to play music on the same grouping that currently exists. And this is exactly the way it works within the Sonos app. The problem is, the way I see it anyway, is that with voice control, you're not aware of what the current grouping is. Therefore, you can't tell for sure whether you should give a command without or without a targeted speaker/alexa group unless you remember what the current grouping is.

There is no ungroup command, but here's some suggested habits that may make life a little easier.
- If you are unsure of the existing group, use the target. The may mean you have to use the target almost all the time.
- Use a program like Yonami or smartthings to schedule music to play (possibly at zero volume) at a specific time, or by alexa command for specific speakers. This can act as a sort of reset back to the default position you prefer. I personally have a lot of lutron lights, and the lutron app can also control Sonos. I have a schedule setup to turn on specific lights and group three zones together every morning. For this reason, I don't really think about what rooms are grouped since 90% of the time, it's just those 3 zones.
Danny
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