30 days ago I had never heard of Sonos. So when I heard about the integration with Alexa I ordered a Play:1. Now I learn that the Sonos Play:1 is NOT the same thing as the Sonos One. The Play:1 does NOT have the Alexa built in. I have gotten the Play:1 to work (kinda) with the Alexa but when you do multiroom play with Alexa, the dot I have in my office will not connect to my Play:1. May be, probably is, user error. but sure as heck aint an obvious thing to this old boy. I had to set up an Alexa group (in this case I chose "Office"). If my wife is listening to her music in the living room, and I want to play music in my "office", I have to play from my iPhone as the Alexa Dot says, "Music is already being streamed from another device. Do you want to stream from here instead?", So, one or the other of us gets to use our Prime but not both. And, again, if we share, the Sonos speaker is ignored. We have an Echo in the living room.
It's hard to even google this as a search ALWAYS returns Sonos One info.
Anyone have a fix for this? Either in the setup or helping me figure out my user issue?
TIA
Answered
Issues with Sonos Play:1 and Alexa - NOT the Sonos One.
Best answer by Chris
Amazon only allows voice streaming to one device at a time. You should be able to use the controller if you want to play different songs in different rooms. The Sonos controller have you added amazon music to the app. Go in app and play from there instead of voice control if you all are listening in different rooms.
Let me know any other questions I will be glad to help.
Let me know any other questions I will be glad to help.
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+22Amazon only allows voice streaming to one device at a time. You should be able to use the controller if you want to play different songs in different rooms. The Sonos controller have you added amazon music to the app. Go in app and play from there instead of voice control if you all are listening in different rooms.
Let me know any other questions I will be glad to help.
Let me know any other questions I will be glad to help.
+22You could play another source In room via voice. Example. Your wife is playing music with your amazing n music account in living room. On your Sonos you could say “Alexa play Bruno Mars on pandora in office”. Your office Sonos wouldn’t have problem then because you are suing different service then her.
That is a great thing about the Sonos controller in that it allows multiple stream of different songs to every room. Amazon has alexa voice service limited to one stream per service.
That is a great thing about the Sonos controller in that it allows multiple stream of different songs to every room. Amazon has alexa voice service limited to one stream per service.
I have Alexa working perfectly in my kitchen with two left/right paired Sonos 1's and two ceiling speakers being driven by a ZP80 through the line out to a power amp driving the ceiling speakers using an echo dot also located in the kitchen. Took me a little while to get the naming and grouping correct and to figure out what Commands that Alexa likes best. For example, I now can say "Alexa, play NPR in the kitchen" or "Alexa play pandora in kitchen" (it will play the last station listened to to) or Alexa play Pandora James Bond station in kitchen". The ZP80 is named "kitchen" in sonos. The left and right Sonos 1's were setup through Sonos and named "Pair". The two sonos 1's are now have one name and appear as one speaker. I then grouped "kitchen" and "pair" together in Sonos. I now can refer to all the speakers by "kitchen" to Alexa. I balance the speaker outputs via Sonos. The key is using names that are easy for Alexa to understand! Interestingly, when starting from silence, the ZP80 starts first and the Sonos 1's start about one or two seconds later. I have no decernable latency if I control everything through Alexa. In some circumstances, if the speakers become ungrouped or I switch back and forth between Alexa and the Sonos app to control the music, Alexa will get confused, so try not to do this (except to pause). Trust me, you don't want Alexa to become confused! After I got all this working, it now is great. I did try to do this with the new Sonos One but had problems. I found it cleaner to use an echo dot and Sonos 1's. The Sonos One is excellent if that's all you have (tried it) but Alexa gets confused with larger configs. Anyway, the three units are less expensive than two Sonos Ones and the echo dot does more than the Sonos One. One tip is to set the echo dot to sound a tone after it hears "Alexa", wait for the tone, and then give the command. Much more reliable especially if music or other sounds are going on in the room, The last tip, is that sometimes Alexa can't hear the commands properly with other sound in the room. This becomes a major problem if you want to stop the music. If this happens, try "Alexa, shut up!" or "Alexa, shut the f*** up" (Alexa understands this!). Maybe moving the echo dot in the room might help. Worse cast, stop the music using the sonos app or sonos controller. Finally lastly, you have to want to get Alexa to work with sonos, it's not magic and I consider, given all that has to happen, that it works at all a religious miracle (and I say this as an electrical engineer knowing what has to go on. I also consider color television to be miracle and you would too if you knew what all has to happen.).
New to the community and don't know how to drive the process yet. Clicked on "Like" (I appreciate ANY response), and it checked "Best Answer" for me. Wasn't. Sorry.
I really, really do appreciate when folk respond to my quests for assistance.
I added Amazon Prime to my Sonos. It will not let me play Amazon Prime Music in multiple rooms at the same time. Utilizing Alexa in the living room and the Sonos in my office. I CAN, now, however, control Amazon Prime from my App, but not particularly useful for what I was trying to do which I understand, again apparently, isn't allowed.
I know I can add services, IE Pandora, but the only service I "pay" for is Amazon Prime which, by itself without any other options, plays what I want to hear. The way I want to. All I say is "Alexa, Play classical Jazz". I don't have to have give a folder or playlist and don't have to use my iPhone.
What I really, really wish is that I had realized the difference between the Play:1 and the One. Some of my concurrent play issues would have still been an issue, but I really DON'T like having to play from my App. That is SO yesterday. 🙂
Thank you both for your assistance. I appreciate any time I learn something new.
I really, really do appreciate when folk respond to my quests for assistance.
I added Amazon Prime to my Sonos. It will not let me play Amazon Prime Music in multiple rooms at the same time. Utilizing Alexa in the living room and the Sonos in my office. I CAN, now, however, control Amazon Prime from my App, but not particularly useful for what I was trying to do which I understand, again apparently, isn't allowed.
I know I can add services, IE Pandora, but the only service I "pay" for is Amazon Prime which, by itself without any other options, plays what I want to hear. The way I want to. All I say is "Alexa, Play classical Jazz". I don't have to have give a folder or playlist and don't have to use my iPhone.
What I really, really wish is that I had realized the difference between the Play:1 and the One. Some of my concurrent play issues would have still been an issue, but I really DON'T like having to play from my App. That is SO yesterday. 🙂
Thank you both for your assistance. I appreciate any time I learn something new.
acer2914,
OK, this brings up another issue. I have an "everywhere" group. If I tell Alexa to play music "everywhere" it will only play it on the Alexa devices. It will NOT play it on my Sonos Play:1 (again, like me, don't confuse Sonos One and Sonos Play:1 - not the same wee beastie). My wife has a bluetooth speaker in her office and Alexa is quite happy to auto connect to this when she is using that Alexa device. If I do the everywhere thing, the bluetooth device is also ignored.
Not sure what that is all about. I am going to hardwire her bluetooth speaker to her dot and see if that makes a difference. Of course with the Sonos Play:1 there is no wired option.
Am I missing something here?
And acer2914, thank you for your description of your set up. Gives me ideas as to what is possible.
OK, this brings up another issue. I have an "everywhere" group. If I tell Alexa to play music "everywhere" it will only play it on the Alexa devices. It will NOT play it on my Sonos Play:1 (again, like me, don't confuse Sonos One and Sonos Play:1 - not the same wee beastie). My wife has a bluetooth speaker in her office and Alexa is quite happy to auto connect to this when she is using that Alexa device. If I do the everywhere thing, the bluetooth device is also ignored.
Not sure what that is all about. I am going to hardwire her bluetooth speaker to her dot and see if that makes a difference. Of course with the Sonos Play:1 there is no wired option.
Am I missing something here?
And acer2914, thank you for your description of your set up. Gives me ideas as to what is possible.
+22Yes you can not group a Sonos and Alexa device. Either all alexa or all sonos. Sonos One no different.
OK, this brings up another issue. I have an "everywhere" group. If I tell Alexa to play music "everywhere" it will only play it on the Alexa devices. It will NOT play it on my Sonos Play:1 (again, like me, don't confuse Sonos One and Sonos Play:1 - not the same wee beastie). My wife has a bluetooth speaker in her office and Alexa is quite happy to auto connect to this when she is using that Alexa device. If I do the everywhere thing, the bluetooth device is also ignored.
Not sure what that is all about. I am going to hardwire her bluetooth speaker to her dot and see if that makes a difference. Of course with the Sonos Play:1 there is no wired option.
Am I missing something here?
And acer2914, thank you for your description of your set up. Gives me ideas as to what is possible.
The ability to group 3rd party speakers is not currently part of the Alexa feature set. Amazon has announced a new AVS Multi-Room Music SDK is coming early this year that will address grouping of 3rd party speakers. Whether Sonos will be able to utilize this SDK remains to be seen.
In the meantime, to play the same stream to multiple speakers, you can first group via the Sonos app, then tell Alexa to play in any one of the grouped rooms. It will then play in all grouped rooms.
I appreciate the replies from everyone. I will wait to see what new options come available in the future vis-a-vis the multiroom connected speaker issue.
We can close the thread.
Thanks.
We can close the thread.
Thanks.
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