Please keep the option to lower all sonos speakers while talking to alexa


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I have echos and sonos in rooms that are adjacent, and i noticed in your email saying that you'll make it so just the room you're talking to turns down. I'd prefer that you left an option in to lower the volume on all speakers. As I said, having echo and sonos in adjacent rooms means that speakers in other rooms can still make it difficult for alexa to understand my commands.

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16 replies

Userlevel 7
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I'll pass on your feedback to the team Nickdanger3d. Thanks for sharing!
Where did you see commentary on the 'not all rooms' option? I would like for it to work this way. There are many people in the home and people are talking to alexa all the time in different places. having sonos go down everytime someone talks is a bit silly.
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its in the open beta program promo email talking about what's to come:

"Lowering the Volume

Each time Alexa hears her name, the volume will be lowered on all Sonos devices in the home so Alexa can hear the question and you can hear her response. By the time Beta is over, Alexa will only lower the volume of the speaker you are talking to."
Thanks for posting that. I didn't catch that.
Yes.
This has become a real annoyance when I added a Sonos One in the kitchen to replace the Echo and now need the living room to turn down because I can’t hear the answer to my question when I’m in the kitchen since it’s an open living room.
Actually, it would be ideal if I could group the Sonos One Alexa to turn down certain rooms since I’ve got more than one and could like to kill sound in groups depending on which Alexa I’m talking to.
Yes, I too would probably have an issue if each echo device only 'ducked' the volume in a single Sonos room.

Just as an example a user could have one room in their house with two stereo pairs of speakers in the lounge, called LoungeF & LoungeR ... and they maybe regularly grouped together to fill an entire Lounge with stereo music (front and rear) ..it would be a problem, if just the one Sonos room called LoungeF nearest the echo device 'ducked' its volume and it was to leave the other stereo pair, LoungeR, still playing at high volume in the same room.

The option to associate one ...or more... Sonos Rooms to an echo device is the only way I can see as a solution here, as there are probably many Sonos customers with more than one stereo pair (Room) in close proximity to another particularly in open plan style homes.

My thoughts though is that the Sonos development team will already have thought about these type of 'real world' issues.
Userlevel 6
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My thoughts though is that the Sonos development team will already have thought about these type of 'real world' issues.

They clearly had not thought this through before the first release of the Alexa skill.
My thoughts though is that the Sonos development team will already have thought about these type of 'real world' issues.

They clearly had not thought this through before the first release of the Alexa skill.


My thoughts are the development team did have the improved speaker 'ducking' in mind, but there were time constraints imposed on all involved due to the New York company announcement and introduction of the Sonos One... the things said by Support staff on this forum at the time showed that Sonos had further development in mind post initial release and that included better 'ducking', the voice control of Spotify and I think grouping of Sonos Rooms using Alexa ... that’s to the best of my recollection.

Clearly the development work is being done incrementally in stages, rather than keeping things back until everything is complete. So I’m still hopeful that Sonos will have thought through the real world issues when it comes to 'ducking' their speakers. I guess we will have to wait and see how things go, rather than be overly judgemental at this early stage.

I also now think that further priority, may have perhaps been given to improving the App user interface, following the comments from some users on this forum and that too will push back other further development work.

As we all know, Sonos rarely ever publicise their development goals.

Anyhow I remain hopeful they will eventually resolve the 'ducking' issues to satisfy many of the things mentioned here in this thread. My glass is half full, not half empty.
Userlevel 7
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Actually, it would be ideal if I could group the Sonos One Alexa to turn down certain rooms since I’ve got more than one and could like to kill sound in groups depending on which Alexa I’m talking to.

Agreed. If we could use Alexa grouping of Sonos 1's and Echo devices and only those devices in the group would duck if any other device in the group was activated, This would then support the OP's request and the other points raised within this post. Thoughts?
Actually, it would be ideal if I could group the Sonos One Alexa to turn down certain rooms since I’ve got more than one and could like to kill sound in groups depending on which Alexa I’m talking to.

Agreed. If we could use Alexa grouping of Sonos 1's and Echo devices and only those devices in the group would duck if any other device in the group was activated, This would then support the OP's request and the other points raised within this post. Thoughts?


Yes I would be happy if the 'ducking' occurred on an assigned main/nearest Sonos Room, plus any other room(s) 'grouped' with it... I’m guessing though that some others may prefer to choose and assign which Sonos Rooms should be ducked.

I assume it will depend on what can best be achieved during the Sonos/Amazon collaboration in order to achieve 'a majority' of customer satisfaction.
Userlevel 4
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There are lots of options that need to be configurable as different users will want different behaviour. I would like Sonos to do this through Alexa enabled smart groups, and if you don't want Alexa to only duck the local speaker, if you don't add the Sonos speakers to any smart group then it would seem reasonable to duck all speakers.

Would love to be part of this beta as I'm suffering badly from this issue.
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I would rather we could selectively duck as ducking all speakers in the house is a real pain. The Alexa enabled groups would seem the best way of keeping everyone happy....
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+1 on associating each Alexa enabled device with certain Sonos speakers. It's the only sane thing to do. All or nothing seems like someone not wanting to write the grouping code...
+1 very annoying. My kids play with their Alexa's, especially during parties and the music is constantly "ducking" in kitchen. Need to disable skill (wired speakers)
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Yup. Disabled this Non Feature..