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Grouped speakers de-grouping frequently (setup incorrect?)

  • December 21, 2018
  • 7 replies
  • 1248 views

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Hi,

I have two Play 1 speakers which I control with an Echo dot. The speakers are called 'Conservatory' and 'Everywhere' and on the Sonos app I have grouped the two speakers into a 'room'.
This allows me to say 'Alexa Play Music Everywhere'.

Recently I have found frequently the room (group) loses its setting (two to three times day at least). Sometimes it can be playing music fine then when you ask Alexa to play a different song the grouping is lost.

It is probably worth adding that one of the speakers (Conservatory) uses a Wifi access point (with the same SSID).

The Sonos speakers are set to automatically update.

The speakers have only recently started de-grouping in the last few weeks, is anyone else having this issue or have I set it up wrong?

Any help appreciated!

Gruss

Best answer by UKMedia

Hi

I've tried to explain the new Grouping via Alexa in this post: https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/an-overview-and-explanation-of-the-new-support-for-alexa-grouping-6817788
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7 replies

fusemunk
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  • Contributor I
  • December 21, 2018
Did you group them by creating a stereo pair?

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  • Author
  • Avid Contributor I
  • December 21, 2018
No, they are not a stereo pair, they are grouped as a room.

We have one speaker in our conservatory and the other in our kitchen.

I have just been looking at the logs for the WiFi Access Point which indicates that there have been no network issues. I've also been looking at the logs on the speakers as described here:

https://en.community.sonos.com/setting-up-sonos-228990/view-log-files-6739654
https://bsteiner.info/articles/hidden-sonos-interface

So far there doesn't look at be any obvious issues.

I might try the following the instructions on the 'Resolve most issues' thread later to see if that will help.

Gruss

UKMedia
  • Answer
  • December 21, 2018
Hi

I've tried to explain the new Grouping via Alexa in this post: https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/an-overview-and-explanation-of-the-new-support-for-alexa-grouping-6817788

melvimbe
  • December 21, 2018
@Gruss, I don't think there's any network issues going on here. Functionality around Sonos grouping and Alexa voice commands has changed recently, due to increased functionality. I would check out UKMedia's thread above.to see if the information helps.

The speakers are called 'Conservatory' and 'Everywhere' and on the Sonos app I have grouped the two speakers into a 'room'.
This allows me to say 'Alexa Play Music Everywhere'.


So Alexa no longer assumes you want to play to the pre-existing Sonos group when you direct it to play on one speaker of that group. Instead, it assumes you want to play to the specific speaker you stated only. You now have the ability to put a name to that combination of Coservatory and Kitchen speakers within Alexa through the Alexa groups. You can set this up so that whenever you speak to your echo dot "Alexa, play music" it defaults to an Alexa group that tells it to play on Conservatory and Kitchen.

Again, check out UKMedia's link.

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  • Author
  • Avid Contributor I
  • December 21, 2018
Thanks @melvimbe and @ukmedia. I hadn’t realised that the grouping mechanism had changed.
I’ve now set it up using an Alexa group and set the preferred speaker, seems to work perfectly.

Thanks for your help!

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  • Author
  • Avid Contributor I
  • December 21, 2018
Just found out the Alexa grouping works fine for playing songs or artists but Radio 1 and Radio X require you to state the Alexa group name.
Not the end of the world just a little annoying, hopefully they’ll fix this.

UKMedia
  • December 21, 2018
It's probably because it is playing via the BBC skill. Try adding '.... from TuneIn' to the end of the command.