New Skill Enables Managing Groups of Sonos Speakers with Alexa

Thanks for the skill. I just replaced our older Samsung soundbar with a Beam, and this skill is a decent (if wordy) workaround for the Beam's lack of automatic regrouping after turning off the TV. I just wish that Sonos would step up their game and remove the need for extra skills on top of the official Sonos/Alexa integration.Have you set the preferred speaker within your Alexa Group for the Beam?I have, but Alexa's grouping ability via "preferred speakers" doesn't do the job for us. I can't get the grouping to occur unless all the speakers in the "preferred" list are currently stopped. If anything is playing on any of them, no grouping occurs. Moreover, making a request on the silent, ungrouped Beam causes music to change in the other rooms while leaving the Beam still silent. And it's not unique to the Beam -- the same thing happens if you manually ungroup a different speaker and then make an Alexa "play" request on it. This behavior might well be intentional, so that one person's request doesn't inadvertently "steal" speakers from another family member's active group. But it's not useful for what we want.
I must admit that I've got in to the habit of stopping music in a sub group before making a request that will enlarge the Group - not ideal I accept. I don't have my Beam connected at present as packing for a house move 😞 but if music is not playing, my preferred speaker settings will add missing players to a reduced Group to create the required Superset.

Do you have TV outputting on the Beam at the time of the request?

The principle is simple. Sorry if I confused you, that's my fault. :)

Say you have a Sonos One and two Play:1's in your house. You need to create an Alexa Group in the Alexa App. You'll be asked to select a Controlling Device, please select your Sonos One. Then if you want to reduce the volume on any other device in addition to your Sonos One, you add that Sonos Speaker to the group. Next, at the bottom of the Group page, you should see 'Preferred Speaker'. Select this and then add the two Play:1's. Save the Group.

Now when you ask 'Alexa, Play Piano Chill Playlist' it will automatically group the Sonos One and both Play:1's together in the Sonos App and play the Piano Chill Playlist on all three speakers.

Please let me know if you get stuck at any point in creating the Group and I'll talk you through it.
All right, thanks.
I get it but since my sonos one can only be in one group, I can't do exactly what I'd like, I'll wait for an update.

Thanks for the skill. I just replaced our older Samsung soundbar with a Beam, and this skill is a decent (if wordy) workaround for the Beam's lack of automatic regrouping after turning off the TV. I just wish that Sonos would step up their game and remove the need for extra skills on top of the official Sonos/Alexa integration.Have you set the preferred speaker within your Alexa Group for the Beam?

I have, but Alexa's grouping ability via "preferred speakers" doesn't do the job for us. I can't get the grouping to occur unless all the speakers in the "preferred" list are currently stopped. If anything is playing on any of them, no grouping occurs. Moreover, making a request on the silent, ungrouped Beam causes music to change in the other rooms while leaving the Beam still silent. And it's not unique to the Beam -- the same thing happens if you manually ungroup a different speaker and then make an Alexa "play" request on it. This behavior might well be intentional, so that one person's request doesn't inadvertently "steal" speakers from another family member's active group. But it's not useful for what we want.

The TV (Samsung Series 😎 is turned off and the Beam speaker on the "Rooms" page of the Sonos app shows no activity.

This looks perfect for what I’m trying to do. Any chance you can add the skill to the Australian store?

The TV (Samsung Series 😎 is turned off and the Beam speaker on the "Rooms" page of the Sonos app shows no activity.
I have an ongoing issue at the moment whereby my Sonos One's, Echo Dot and Echo Show 5 use the preferred speaker setting but my Echo Show doesn't. I wonder if this is related? I'm awaiting some feedback, I'll post the result on this thread when I receive it.

This is supported by the native Sonos skill now, please see: https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/an-overview-and-explanation-of-the-new-support-for-alexa-grouping-6817788
Thanks for letting me know but the post seems quite complicated to me and I can't manage to set that up right

The principle is simple. Sorry if I confused you, that's my fault. :)

Say you have a Sonos One and two Play:1's in your house. You need to create an Alexa Group in the Alexa App. You'll be asked to select a Controlling Device, please select your Sonos One. Then if you want to reduce the volume on any other device in addition to your Sonos One, you add that Sonos Speaker to the group. Next, at the bottom of the Group page, you should see 'Preferred Speaker'. Select this and then add the two Play:1's. Save the Group.

Now when you ask 'Alexa, Play Piano Chill Playlist' it will automatically group the Sonos One and both Play:1's together in the Sonos App and play the Piano Chill Playlist on all three speakers.

Please let me know if you get stuck at any point in creating the Group and I'll talk you through it.

I've got one Sonos One in the Kitchen and a playbase + 2 play 1s as surround speakers in the living room
As I get the food ready, I'm travelling from the kitchen to the living room and back then I want my music to come from both the sonos rooms.
When I'm cleaning up the house, I want my music to play everywhere.
As my kitchen's sonos one is already in a group, I can't add it to a new group called "everywhere"

Thanks a lot @UKMedia

Sorry but I still don't get this - if I create a group in the Alexa app the commands will not control all of the speakers in that group. Also there appears to be no way to "don't add a controlling device" as the Alexa app will not allow the group to be saved unless a device is selected.

I can create an Alexa Group and as long as I select either a Controlling Device or another Device to be included within the Group, I can save it. I can then Edit it to change the Preferred Speakers.

As per my post here: https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/an-overview-and-explanation-of-the-new-support-for-alexa-grouping-6817788/index1.html#post16298346

OK that makes sense - if I select say a Play:1 as the controlling device I can then disable it (which I can't with an Alexa-enabled One). But if I then add the One back in as a preferred speaker into this group (called "Home") if I ask Alexa to play something on "Home" it only plays on the Play:1

I'm using Alexa on Android and I'm not forced to select a controlling Device as long as I include a device within the group. So in your Example Create a Group 'Home' and don't select an Alexa Device but Scroll Down and select your Play:1. Then click Save. Then Edit the Group and Add the Play:1 and Sonos One as Preferred Speakers and Save. Allow 10-15 seconds for everything to Sync and then ask 'Alexa, Play Soft Jazz on Home'

One other thing to try, my Group support stopped working the other day and I had to Disable then Enable the Sonos skill in the Alexa App to get it working again.