setting up multi-room music in Alexa app

  • 20 January 2018
  • 66 replies
  • 48533 views

I have 2 Sonos Ones (both have Alexa built in)n and a Sonos Play 5. I asked Alexa to play music in bedroom, dining room and family room, then Alexa tells me I need to set up multi-room music on Alexa app. I checked internet to see how to do that and it says to go to "Audio Groups" in Settings but there is no Audio Groups shown in my Alexa app Settings.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

66 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +22
As far as walking in room now say Living Room - what device are you using as the Alexa?

You should be able to walk in room and say "Alexa play Bruno mars in Living Room" where Living Room is the name of the Sonos zone.
If I just walk in and say, "Alexa, play ___ radio", it tells me I have to add the Sonos One skill, which is installed. Unless there is a separate "Sonos One" app. I searched for Sonos One app and only the Sonos app showed up.

If I walk in and say, "Alexa, play ____ radio in living room", it says there is no device called living room. It then goes on to say that I should specify a device or enable multi-room music in the app.

I'm going to try and unplug the Ones, the PlayBar and Sub and see if something resets.
As far as walking in room now say Living Room - what device are you using as the Alexa?

You should be able to walk in room and say "Alexa play Bruno mars in Living Room" where Living Room is the name of the Sonos zone.


Not sure which device is being used as the Alexa, I assume (1) of the Sonos One's. I didn't know I needed to specify a device.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
Ok - if you have a Sonos One you should be able to say "Alexa Play Bruno Mars" to it without a room name and it should start playing along with any units paired or grouped to it.

What happens in your case?
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
You installed the Sonos skill in Alexa app correct?

https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/new-to-sonos-or-alexa-how-to-set-up-6791327
Ok - if you have a Sonos One you should be able to say "Alexa Play Bruno Mars" to it without a room name and it should start playing along with any units paired or grouped to it.

What happens in your case?


If I walk in and say, "Alexa, play Bruno Mars", Alexa says, "Hmm, to do that you must first enable the Sonos One skill in the Alexa app and then (ask me?) to discover devices." That may not be the exact quote, but pretty close.

If I go to the Sonos skill in my Alexa App (on my iPhone) the only option is a button to "disable skill" and a button for "settings."

In settings, Account Linking has a green, "Linked" and advanced settings, which brings me back to Devices. The (2) Sonos One's show up in both Alexa & Echo and All Devices.

By the way, thank you for your time today.
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
Hi

This type of issue is normally down to one of three things:

1/ Duplicate device names - Alexa prefers that names for Devices, Groups and Scenes are unique,
1.1/ Please open up the Alexa App>Smart Home and make a note of any duplicate device names;
1.2/ You can then change them in the source app. e.g. Use the Sonos App to change the name of Sonos players. (I personally use the naming standard Room Name + Device type. e.g. Kitchen Sonos, Kitchen Echo Dot, Lounge Sonos, etc)
1.3/ Once you have changed any duplicate names then please open the Alexa App on a PC (https://alexa.amazon.co.uk or https://alexa.amazon.com)>Smart Home>Devices and select 'Forget All' followed by 'Discover'. NOTE: This will remove ALL Actions from ALL Alexa Routines! (Only the PC version has this functionality.)

2/ Some form of Account Linking or Authorisation has not completed successfully. There are a number of causes for this and it's best to try these steps 1 at a time and test before moving on to the next step if the problem persists:
2.1/ Open the Alexa App>Skills>Your Skills>Sonos and 'Disable' followed by 'Enable';
2.2/ Ensure that you don't have multiple Amazon accounts logged into different Apps on your device, as this can confuse the Amazon Authorisation. If yes, then please log out of the other accounts and then complete step 2.1 again;
2.3/ If the problem still persists, please logout of all Amazon accounts then select the Alexa App>Skills>Your Skills>Sonos and 'Disable. Now power down all Sonos devices for 10 secs, allowing for any wired devices to boot before booting the remaining Sonos players. Now log back into the Alexa App>Skills>Sonos and 'Enable'

3/ If the problem persists then an entire reset of the Authorisation & Account Linking process is required:
3.1/ In the Alexa app, select Skills>Your Skills>Sonos and then 'Disable';
3.2 In the Alexa app (Web version), select 'Smart Home>Devices'. Now select 'Forget All' at the bottom of the screen;
3.3/ In the Sonos app (Android or iOS), select Settings>Room Settings and for each of the Sonos One's sign into 'Voice Services' and select 'Remove Amazon Alexa from this Room';
3.4/ If you have any wired Sonos devices, please power down for 10 secs and then switch on and wait for it to boot;
3.5/ Now power down all other Sonos Players for 10 secs then switch them back on and wait for them to boot;
3.6/ In the Sonos app, Select Manage>Add a player or sub' and add the Sonos One's again. This will complete the set-up process again;
3.7/ In the Alexa app, select Skills>Your Skills and ensure the Sonos skill is 'Enabled', if not please 'Enable';
3.8/ In the Alexa app , select Smart Home>Devices>Discover. Ensure that your Sonos One's are displayed correctly and not shown as 'Off Line'.
3.9/ Also check one last time that there are no devices with the same name. Remember, if there is a need to rename any then you'll need to select 'Discover' again.

Let us know how you get on.
I really cant believe that Sonos isn't supported in Alexa App as a MultiRoom device.
Without this it is a deal breaker.
Effectively Sonos isn't Alexa Compatible.
Amazon have released SDKs for.
The Sonos kit I have bought is going back.
Sonos if you don't get your act together, when the Amazon HiFi system / speakers comes out you will massively loose out.
Yeah the part where you can’t use Alexa with multi room Sonos speakers is a deal breaker. Sonos is totally screwed when Amazon decides to make their own high end speaker system. I wonder what they plan on doing? Or in this case not doing.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
Well they aren't scr**** if people like the Sonos App and its many abilities to use multiple services. Sonos speakers do multiroom with Sonos speakers. Alexa is just a means of voice control for them. Voice control is nice for picking a song. But exploring music and creating playlists is far better in app.

Sonos does multiroom sync at a local level and does not use a cloud service to do the sync (I'm not even sure how good Alexa sync for mutli-room really is). Sonos has a lot going for it at the local network level vs. a cloud based system in Alexa. And Sonos I am sure has ZERO interest in maintaining sync with a cloud based service - they are in the business of selling Sonos units not Alexa units.
I’m not going to argue with you on a thread about USING ALEXA WITH SONOS. But the entire point of these posts over the last year and also spread across multiple threads and across to AVS and Alexa forums say otherwise. Nobody here cares about the technology or how it happens.

The only thing anyone here cares about is “Alexa play Spotify on all my Sonos speakers.”
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
And it will do that.

Says otherwise "that Sonos can and should make their speakers able to sync and play as group with Alexa". I'm sure they could probably come up with a way to do it sure (probably not a perfect sync like at local level) …. but I certainly don't have any clue as to why Sonos would actually want to do it. Zero clue why that would be attractive to them.

And I personally have ZERO interest in grouping my Sonos speakers to play alongside any Alexa device.

"But I don't want to buy a Sonos speaker for a room I have Alexa device in" Yea well unfortunate for people in that group - Sonos actually is in the business of selling their speakers not making it easier for people not to purchase their equipment.
Really? You can’t think of a single reason why they might want to (or maybe not) do that? Not one? Are you surrrrrrre?

How about: If Amazon, who currently has the most market share with the home voice assistants, decides to make a really good multiroom speaker that is the equivalent to Sonos then people will buy that instead.

Why would I pay the Sonos premium if I can get deeper into Amazons ecosystem and do exactly the same thing?

Have you thought about this at all? And also if you “don’t know why” Sonos would want to do any of this then why the heck are they trying to embed Alexa into their products? Why are we even having this “conversation”? Sonos know the appeal of home automation being predicated on voice control systems and that there is already a market leader. I feel like you’re being obtuse on purpose.
Really? You can’t think of a single reason why they might want to (or maybe not) do that? Not one? Are you surrrrrrre? [...]
Save your breath. It's in the works.

https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/alexa-now-breaks-up-groups-6813009/index1.html#post16293824
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
Yes I can't think of a single reason Sonos would want to group their speakers in sync with an Amazon speaker.

New abilities that are already out now on Alexa side (Sonos just hasn't announced) allow Sonos speakers to become the default Music Playing speaker for any Echo device (bypassing the Echo device as the music player - making the Sonos a direct extension of the Echo) …. that is more in line with Sonos desire to sell speakers (not make them optional as you and many others want).