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.
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Sonos *REALLY* needs to introduce this feature ASAP. I have speakers around my house and it really is a drag not being able to say "play xxxx on kitchen and living room" or "play on all speakers". Major feature deficiency.
Agreed and I think it will be something that will be included but Sonos haven't committed to a timeline yet.
Really disappointed that this basic functionality has not been implemented yet. It defeats the purpose of controlling the speakers with Alexa.
Can't play music to a group of speakers and can't adjust the volume of a group of speakers... Seriously? Those are the two most basic functions you'd want to do.
Can't play music to a group of speakers and can't adjust the volume of a group of speakers... Seriously? Those are the two most basic functions you'd want to do.
Sprint211,
Sorry if any of the below info is teaching you to 'suck eggs' and you are already fully aware of these things, but it maybe useful anyway to some others reading this thread...
When you setup your Beam and it’s two Play:1 surrounds, that is actually different to the term 'grouping'... it’s a thing Sonos call 'Bonding' and is created from within the Apps 'room settings' section, so your Beam and it’s surrounds (when 'bonded') show as just one single room. The room name appears in the 'room settings' section of the app and may look something like this ... Lounge (+LS+RS)... this same room however will just appear in the 'Rooms Tab' of the app as a room called ..'Lounge'.
Obviously 'Lounge' is just an example here and will depend on your chosen Room Name.
For music to play equally through all speakers in this home theatre setup, you need to goto “Settings/Room Settings” and select Lounge (+LS+RS) and then goto Advanced Audio/Surround Settings/Music Playback and toggle the setting from 'Ambient' to 'Full'.
The other 'Sonos One' you have in the Bedroom is obviously an entirely separate and second group, called 'Bedroom'.
So you just need to go into the Rooms Tab in the Sonos App and ' group' both Lounge and Bedroom together, or whatever your two rooms are currently called.
Then once they are grouped, just ask Alexa to play to either of your two rooms... I have numerous rooms in my home and the two screenshots attached shows the case where I have grouped them all in the Sonos App Rooms Tab. Note there is the option to select 'everywhere' too in the dialogue box that appears when grouping your rooms together.
You can currently only do these things within the Sonos App, they cannot be done with Alexa voice commands, well not yet, at least.
Hope that helps.
Sorry if any of the below info is teaching you to 'suck eggs' and you are already fully aware of these things, but it maybe useful anyway to some others reading this thread...
When you setup your Beam and it’s two Play:1 surrounds, that is actually different to the term 'grouping'... it’s a thing Sonos call 'Bonding' and is created from within the Apps 'room settings' section, so your Beam and it’s surrounds (when 'bonded') show as just one single room. The room name appears in the 'room settings' section of the app and may look something like this ... Lounge (+LS+RS)... this same room however will just appear in the 'Rooms Tab' of the app as a room called ..'Lounge'.
Obviously 'Lounge' is just an example here and will depend on your chosen Room Name.
For music to play equally through all speakers in this home theatre setup, you need to goto “Settings/Room Settings” and select Lounge (+LS+RS) and then goto Advanced Audio/Surround Settings/Music Playback and toggle the setting from 'Ambient' to 'Full'.
The other 'Sonos One' you have in the Bedroom is obviously an entirely separate and second group, called 'Bedroom'.
So you just need to go into the Rooms Tab in the Sonos App and ' group' both Lounge and Bedroom together, or whatever your two rooms are currently called.
Then once they are grouped, just ask Alexa to play to either of your two rooms... I have numerous rooms in my home and the two screenshots attached shows the case where I have grouped them all in the Sonos App Rooms Tab. Note there is the option to select 'everywhere' too in the dialogue box that appears when grouping your rooms together.
You can currently only do these things within the Sonos App, they cannot be done with Alexa voice commands, well not yet, at least.
Hope that helps.
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.
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.
Amazon has been promoting really hard lately its Amazon Music service, along with its Alexa multi-room speakers and now its Echo subwoofer. Let's be crystal clear here, Amazon wants to compete with Sonos. If Sonos' business strategy is to sit around and wait for their competitor to implement Sonos' own basic functionality for them, they are in VERY big trouble. Amazon is going to drag its feet on this forever while they build their own competing products
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.
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.
Hello there, SH12. Thanks for posting and welcome to the Community. It sounds like you would like to group rooms together when requesting a track through Alexa. Grouping can only be done in the Sonos app. When using Voice Control after grouping, the volume will need to be controlled individually. A command such as: "Alexa, turn it up." will only turn up the Sonos One you are speaking to and not to the group as a whole. If you want to control the volume of the group as a whole, that will need to be done in-app.
Hope you found this helpful!
Hope you found this helpful!
Nobody actually addressed this guys Q directly. I have the same issue. Alex (Echo Dot) recognizes my two sonos systems (Playdeck and two Sonos Play Ones plus a standalone Play # in another room), but says I need to set up a multiroom group using the Audio Groups section of Settings in the Alexa App. Like the OP, I cannot find any Audio Group command set up in Settings.
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.”
The only thing anyone here cares about is “Alexa play Spotify on all my Sonos speakers.”
I agree, this feature really needs to be added. Seems like you should be able setup a group name along with the ability to play the individual speakers separately, without having to group / ungroup them in the app first. Please consider adding this feature.
There is no current way to group players via either Groups within the Alexa App or via voice control. The only way of doing this is via the Sonos App. Once grouped, asking Alexa to output to any speaker contained within that group will output music to all speakers within the group.
Sprint211,
If you group everything to begin with in the Sonos App and use Alexa to play to any Sonos Room, the Audio will play to all Rooms.
There is currently no way to group/ungroup using Alexa voice instructions and presently Alexa enabled Groups are just for the Amazon devices only.
Sonos have said in the past they would revisit this issue but it’s not certain what their plans are, or if indeed they will go onto develop this 'much asked for' feature using voice-based instructions.
If you group everything to begin with in the Sonos App and use Alexa to play to any Sonos Room, the Audio will play to all Rooms.
There is currently no way to group/ungroup using Alexa voice instructions and presently Alexa enabled Groups are just for the Amazon devices only.
Sonos have said in the past they would revisit this issue but it’s not certain what their plans are, or if indeed they will go onto develop this 'much asked for' feature using voice-based instructions.
If I´ve done a group in the SONOS APP and want to play a specific playlist and use Alexa to start it.
What would be my command?
Or do I have to start the playlist in a specific room and THEN group it in the SONOS APP?
Thx
Hi
Please see this article for Voice Commands across the different music services:
https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3514
Please note to play a Playlist you must include the word 'Playlist' after the name. e.g. 'Alexa, Play piano chill Playlist'
With regards to grouping, you can either group before or after the music has been initiated via voice control - just use the Rooms tab in the Sonos App.
Its only been a couple months since amazon has released the sdk
https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/a9acaabd-d5a0-4fdf-b74a-c20cfe4d4ef9/deliver-whole-home-audio-with-alexa-multi-room-music-and-device-targeting
Hoping for multi room for the holidays. While I’ve got a few One’s, this support will decide whether I fill out the rest of the house & tv’s or start exploring ecosystems.
https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/a9acaabd-d5a0-4fdf-b74a-c20cfe4d4ef9/deliver-whole-home-audio-with-alexa-multi-room-music-and-device-targeting
Hoping for multi room for the holidays. While I’ve got a few One’s, this support will decide whether I fill out the rest of the house & tv’s or start exploring ecosystems.
I've read this a couple times and I'm still confused. I already have a Sonos group/room called, "Living Room." It has Playbar, Sub and (2) Ones. Can I walk into that room and ask Alexa to start playing music on/in that "room." I see a few replies that say it should work. However, from what I'm reading Alexa does not support Sonos' "rooms" as valid rooms. Can someone please clarify?
https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/a9acaabd-d5a0-4fdf-b74a-c20cfe4d4ef9/deliver-whole-home-audio-with-alexa-multi-room-music-and-device-targeting
Hoping for multi room for the holidays. While I’ve got a few One’s, this support will decide whether I fill out the rest of the house & tv’s or start exploring ecosystems.
This SDK has nothing to do with grouping Sonos speakers. It's for grouping Alexa speakers. Amazon is developing its own whole-home speaker system (with voice grouping included) to compete with and beat Sonos. They're never gonna write Sonos grouping commands cause that would give away their advantage. If Sonos insists on sitting quietly and waiting for Amazon to do this, they are going to be waiting forever.
Danny,
That now makes sense to me, as Logitech have two skills on the UK Alexa site for Harmony Remote Support. One Skill is coloured Red and each voice command has to begin with “Alexa, Ask Harmony to...” The other is coloured Blue and the Skill does virtually the same thing, but there is no need to use the ”Ask Harmony to...”.
These two Logitech skills allow for two different Harmony Hubs (usually in different rooms) to be controlled by one single Alexa account.
Funnily enough, Logitech removed what I will call the 'Red Skill' from the Google Assistant a week or two ago ...and they have replaced it with the Blue one only, so whilst only one Harmony Hub can now still be used with that voice assistant, at least the user doesn’t have to say ”Hey Google, Ask Harmony to...” anymore and that’s made a difference in our house.
So I assume now that Logitech are moving things from their own servers back over to the Google side of things and it’s perhaps possible the same thing may eventually happen with Amazon... there needs to be a way though for these voice assistants to use multiple instances of a Skill, so that such multiple devices, like a Harmony Remote, can then be used in the home.
Anyhow, I still wonder why Amazon have not introduced grouping/ungrouping of their own Echo speakers via voice control??... at the moment that’s done in their Alexa App using 'Music Groups', so perhaps grouping via voice is in the 'read difficult to do' category, particularly as the speaker/rooms can be given virtually any name and that alone must be a bit of a challenge to recognise and interpret correctly.
Anyhow I feel a bit wiser having read your informative post above.?
That now makes sense to me, as Logitech have two skills on the UK Alexa site for Harmony Remote Support. One Skill is coloured Red and each voice command has to begin with “Alexa, Ask Harmony to...” The other is coloured Blue and the Skill does virtually the same thing, but there is no need to use the ”Ask Harmony to...”.
These two Logitech skills allow for two different Harmony Hubs (usually in different rooms) to be controlled by one single Alexa account.
Funnily enough, Logitech removed what I will call the 'Red Skill' from the Google Assistant a week or two ago ...and they have replaced it with the Blue one only, so whilst only one Harmony Hub can now still be used with that voice assistant, at least the user doesn’t have to say ”Hey Google, Ask Harmony to...” anymore and that’s made a difference in our house.
So I assume now that Logitech are moving things from their own servers back over to the Google side of things and it’s perhaps possible the same thing may eventually happen with Amazon... there needs to be a way though for these voice assistants to use multiple instances of a Skill, so that such multiple devices, like a Harmony Remote, can then be used in the home.
Anyhow, I still wonder why Amazon have not introduced grouping/ungrouping of their own Echo speakers via voice control??... at the moment that’s done in their Alexa App using 'Music Groups', so perhaps grouping via voice is in the 'read difficult to do' category, particularly as the speaker/rooms can be given virtually any name and that alone must be a bit of a challenge to recognise and interpret correctly.
Anyhow I feel a bit wiser having read your informative post above.?
Your confusion is that groups and rooms are not the same thing. Assuming that your Ones are setup as surround speakers, then you have a single room. You do not have any groups. Alexa will do just fine.
If you want whole-home audio, then you will group multiple ROOMS together into 1 GROUP. Now you have to create that group using the Sonos App. Alexa cannot help you.
I fully understand that Sonos "rooms" are different than Alexa "groups." I just want to walk into my living room and say, "Alexa, play ____ radio" and have music start playing in my living room. However, from what I have read in a few places, Alexa would only launch the (1) Sonos One that takes the command. I could "group" (in Alexa) the (2) Sono's Ones that are used for rear channels in my Sonos "Living Room", but the sub and Playbar can not be activated that way.
The only way to get the whole Sonos Living Room to play is from the Sonos app. Then, I can play my music service and ask Alexa to skip. control volume, etc. Is this correct? Is there no way to launch, by voice, a full Sonos "room?"
Perhaps I should add that when I try to launch music in this area by voice, I'm getting errors. If I just walk in and say, "Alexa, play ____ radio", it tells me that I need the Sonos skill, which is already installed. It seems to work fine if I launch from the Sonos app first. I just want to avoid this extra step, if there is a way around it.
While typing this, I noticed that in my Sonos app, in Room Settings, Living Room, Amazon Alexa had a red dot. It looks like one of my Sonos Ones was not fully working with Alexa, even though both showed up under devices in the Alexa app. I went through the process and Alexa, said that it would now be discover-able, but when I said to discover devices, Alexa found nothing new. But, I think I'm getting closer.
Let me ask another question. Will the Sonos "Living Room" show up in the Alexa app at all, or will the (2) Sonos Ones only show up as separate devices? From the setup in the app, it sounded like the "Living Room" should show up.
The only way to get the whole Sonos Living Room to play is from the Sonos app. Then, I can play my music service and ask Alexa to skip. control volume, etc. Is this correct? Is there no way to launch, by voice, a full Sonos "room?"
Perhaps I should add that when I try to launch music in this area by voice, I'm getting errors. If I just walk in and say, "Alexa, play ____ radio", it tells me that I need the Sonos skill, which is already installed. It seems to work fine if I launch from the Sonos app first. I just want to avoid this extra step, if there is a way around it.
While typing this, I noticed that in my Sonos app, in Room Settings, Living Room, Amazon Alexa had a red dot. It looks like one of my Sonos Ones was not fully working with Alexa, even though both showed up under devices in the Alexa app. I went through the process and Alexa, said that it would now be discover-able, but when I said to discover devices, Alexa found nothing new. But, I think I'm getting closer.
Let me ask another question. Will the Sonos "Living Room" show up in the Alexa app at all, or will the (2) Sonos Ones only show up as separate devices? From the setup in the app, it sounded like the "Living Room" should show up.
Anyhow, I still wonder why Amazon have not introduced grouping/ungrouping of their own Echo speakers via voice control??... at the moment that’s done in their Alexa App using 'Music Groups', so perhaps grouping via voice is in the 'read difficult to do' category, particularly as the speaker/rooms can be given virtually any name and that alone must be a bit of a challenge to recognise and interpret correctly.
I believe their speaker API has no mechanism for referencing multiple speakers. Kind of mistake in hindsight if that's the case. Although, I wouldn't be too surprised if Amazon did this intentionally for some unknown reason. I can also think of some reasons why Sonos wouldn't want this...or perhaps they wouldn't want to do group control in this way as it would have some limitations. Sonos could be holding out for the 'right' solution, I don't know, totally guessing.
Personally, if it required "tell Sonos", I would be looking elsewhere. I suspect others would too and, versatile or not, that is not good for Sonos.
Kirk33 isn't wrong. The 'tell sonos' method would mean that any text preceding the phrase gets passed on to Sonos servers for further processing. Sonos could then have could that could do grouping instructions If Sonos can't understand the text, it's supposed to return an error message. This would not be a smart skill though and would be a completely secondary way of controlling sonos outside of the current smart skill.
I personally don't care for this route. My pool control operates this way, and it's rather annoying to have to say 'Alexa, Ask Hayward to..." instead of just saying what I want to do. I also means that my pool control can't be integrated with any other smart devices in my home.
I would guess that Sonos management did take this under consideration and chose not to go this route. I would also guess that they believed that grouping capabilities would be possible through the smart skill by now. Not sure if they'd make the same choice again, hindsight being 20/20.
No waiting is required. Sonos simply needs to add grouping to its API, then Alexa can access those features. Alexa controls thousands of devices. Do you honestly believe that each of those thousands of companies just sat around and waited for Amazon to support them??? No! Each of those companies simply wrote their own API with the features that they need. Once that's done, Alexa is able to access those features.
I'm confident that this part is not true. Amazon isn't letting the tail wag the dog. They surely have a very generic interface where they pass text on to whatever skill was called, and it's up to the developers of that skill to know what to do with it. They are not going to call a different API for each skill you can use through Alexa.
Even with smart skills, Amazon sets up APIs for each object type they support, and everyone else must bend to meet Amazon standards. Amazon is not letting each lighter set a different API for controlling their lights.
I personally don't care for this route. My pool control operates this way, and it's rather annoying to have to say 'Alexa, Ask Hayward to..." instead of just saying what I want to do. I also means that my pool control can't be integrated with any other smart devices in my home.
I would guess that Sonos management did take this under consideration and chose not to go this route. I would also guess that they believed that grouping capabilities would be possible through the smart skill by now. Not sure if they'd make the same choice again, hindsight being 20/20.
No waiting is required. Sonos simply needs to add grouping to its API, then Alexa can access those features. Alexa controls thousands of devices. Do you honestly believe that each of those thousands of companies just sat around and waited for Amazon to support them??? No! Each of those companies simply wrote their own API with the features that they need. Once that's done, Alexa is able to access those features.
I'm confident that this part is not true. Amazon isn't letting the tail wag the dog. They surely have a very generic interface where they pass text on to whatever skill was called, and it's up to the developers of that skill to know what to do with it. They are not going to call a different API for each skill you can use through Alexa.
Even with smart skills, Amazon sets up APIs for each object type they support, and everyone else must bend to meet Amazon standards. Amazon is not letting each lighter set a different API for controlling their lights.
I'm certainly no expert here either, but I would have thought the Alexa voice command would need key 'unique' words in it, in a particular order, that passes through the Amazon speech engine and is then interpretted into a particular compiled set of instructions that are encrypted and passed back to the Sonos API on the users local network. I think it would need work from both sides to do something like that. I would be surprised if Sonos are able to add their own unique key words in an instruction. I would have guessed that needed to centrally managed by Amazon, personally speaking, aswell as compiling and encrypting the returned instruction back to the API interface?
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