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Sonos One as surround breaks or even removes the Alexa ability

  • 24 October 2017
  • 2 replies
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Hi Guys,

I use Sonos for some years now and I'm very happy with them. Play:1's in some rooms (kitchen, hobby room, etc.) and a full surround setup in the living room (Playbar, Sub and two Play:1's).

Using Echo dot and Alexa, the Sonos One seemed the perfect new investment. And so I pre-ordered a Play One and it arrived yesterday.

Starting with using just one Play One as a separate speaker with Alexa was no problem, works perfectly (except Spotify, but that is a known issue). Just like using my Echo Dot.

Pairing that Play One with one of my existing Play:1 speakers as a stereo pair, no go. So I went and bought me an extra Play One (yeah why not Sonos, you're welcome...).

Pairing these two Play One's as a stereo pair worked fine, but Alexa was kind of confused when I ask something. Seemed like both speakers tried to listen and answer or something like that.

So I unpaired them, removed Alexa from one of the One's and paired them up again and that seemed to do the trick. Alexa answered only on the Play One speaker that actually had Alexa installed when asked a question, but that was fine by me.

But I bought these to use in my Home Theatre setup. And therefore adding the stereo pair to my Playbar and sub as my surround speakers, replacing my existing Play:1's. But after adding them (and working like they should as a surround set) Alexa simply will not work. She keeps saying she cannot understand at the moment and I should try later.

So I thought I would just remove the Alexa functionality from my theatre setup and add it again. Removing Alexa was no problem, but then the option of adding Alexa is no longer available...

Is this a known issue? Or just a misstep on my side? Or ...

If you guys know, please help ッ

Thanks!

Kind regards,
Jerry

p.s. I am running the 8.1 beta. All is updated and yes, I chose the Play One's during the theatre surround setup and not the Play:1's 😉
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Best answer by jschun 29 October 2017, 15:54

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2 replies

Okay I fixed it. At the end I had to remove all Echo associations that had been building up through to the fact I had so many re-installes because of the described issue. Second I had to remove my Sonos:connect from my network that was 'interfering' with my Sonos:Playbar that also acted like a hub. So recap: Add the Sonos Ones as single speakers to your playbar (not as a stereo pair) and remove Alexa from one of them (mine are 50cm apart so that is an issue when sitting in the middle of them). Remove all associations from the Alexa app that are not the Sonos One speaker you want to use and you should be golden.
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I have a Sonos Beam and two Sonos Ones in a surround setup. You seem have much better luck than me. As soon as I added the Sonos Ones to the Beam, the Ones' Alexa capability was crippled. It seems ridiculous having to buy additional Amazon Echo Dots just to place beside the Ones which should already support Alexa.

Other than that, the surround system sounds fantastic. The sound and imaging blew me away and I used to run KEF 3005s. Just make sure you're using a Dolby Digital stream.