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Sonos One showing as two devices in Alexa app

  • 25 October 2017
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I got myself two Sonos Ones to replace to Play:1s and got them all set up yesterday.

I had to reset and remove devices and start over, but all seems to work. There is just one small problem.

In my Alexa app after adding a Kitchen and Living Room Sonos One, I now have 4 new devices showing. Kitchen, Kitchen Sonos, Living Room and Living Room Sonos.

If I speak to Alexa and ask her to play music, she says 'Playing ...... on Kitchen Sonos', likewise if I want to play music in another room I have to say 'Alexa, play ...... on Living Room Sonos, I can't just say Living Room. To play to a Bedroom Play:1 I can just say 'bedroom'.

I assume that the 'Kitchen' device is Alexa and the 'Kitchen Sonos' device is the actual speaker for playback.

Does anyone else have the same, and is this correct? It's not a deal breaker but a little bit annoying.
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Best answer by JohnWD 25 October 2017, 14:38

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Yes I had this too. I just renamed in the Alexa App so that I had "Bedroom Echo" for the "Echo" virtual device (which had replaced a real Echo used previously) and "Bedroom" for the Sonos virtual device. Slightly confusing to start with but operating OK now. Mind you in the Alexa App I also have "Bedroom Sonos One" generated from the SmartThings device in the Alexa Smart Home Devices list but that doesn't seem to cause any problem!
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I had this,
"Study"
"Chris's Sonos One"

using the Web UI, deleted (Forget) one from Smart Home list.

"Alexa, Discover devices."
"Study" comes back.

both have the same device id. I guess your right insomuch as one is the 'room', the other the device.
One is the Sonos speaker smart device, the other is the Alexa enabled smart device.
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Thanks, that prompted me to check in SmartThings App - Add Device, it discovered the former.
Userlevel 2
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I spent ages trying to get mine to work properly, reset everything several times, deleted the devices off the amazon site, disabled and re enabled the sonos skill and nothing worked. Named the Alexa part of the Sonos One something different to the speaker part and it all works perfectly now. You should highlight this in your how to set up section.
I had the same issue. shows two in my alexa app. 'Den' and 'My Sonos One'. So in reality my one speaker shows up as two devices because it is a speaker with Alexa built in? If I want to set it up to play amazon unlimited would I set that up through 'Den' or 'My Sonos One' or maybe it doesn't matter.
My apologies in advance, going to read up on some of the more general posts within this forum before I ask another basic question like this. Looks like some good detail in this forum where I may just find my answers. thanks.
I am not able to enable Alexa on Play one, it keeps complaining " "There was a problem adding Alexa" Please try again, does anyone know how to resolve the issue ?
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I had the same issue. shows two in my alexa app. 'Den' and 'My Sonos One'. So in reality my one speaker shows up as two devices because it is a speaker with Alexa built in? If I want to set it up to play amazon unlimited would I set that up through 'Den' or 'My Sonos One' or maybe it doesn't matter.

Through your 'Den' speaker, e.g. 'Alexa, Play soft jazz on Den'

However, if you intend to include other Alexa devices, I personally would recommend the naming convention Room Name + Device Name to avoid duplicates device names e.g. Den Sonos, Kitchen Echo Dot, Kitchen Sonos, etc. (If you change the names of your Sonos players within the Sonos App, I suggest that you use the PC Alexa App>Smart Home>Devices ( https://alexa.amazon.co.uk or .com ) and scroll to the bottom of the list and select 'Forget All' followed by 'Discover')
Hi
Just picked this up whilst looking into problems with Sonos One !
And wondered if you had any advice.

So this is my set up:
I've just purchased and set up a Sonos One and have located it in my kitchen - this I've named Kitchen in the Sonos App.
In the Alexa App like others I have two devices displayed for the Sonos One - I.E. Kitchen and "My" Sonos One.
I've An Echo Dot which is named "My" Echo dot (have not named wrt location as I intend to move this around as I expand my Sonos system).

So my understanding is:
The Sonos One located in the kitchen is displayed within the Alexa App as two devices, kitchen - the actual Sonos player and "My" Sonos One - the Echo device embedded within the Sonos One player.

I've noted that depending on what I'm requesting the Sonos One to do I don't always have to say where I want Alexa to play whatever too, for example:- "Alexa play Radio 2" - Then Radio 2 plays on the Kitchen Sonos player but in order to get Classic FM to play I've to say - "Alexa play Classic FM on Kitchen", simply saying "Alexa play Classic Fm" doesn't work !

So I've concluded that Alexa is confused with names !
Is this because a Sonos One being a Sonos Player with An embedded Alexa device is Capable of multi play initiated by an Alexa commands via either the Sonos system or the Alexa system (I.E. Alexa devices on the system be it Echos, Dots or Sonos Ones - or in my case "My" echo dot) and distinct name discrimination is required ?

So any ideas naming ?

Do I re-name to Sonos One in the kitchen - "Kitchen Sonos" and the embedded Echo device - "Kitchen Echo"
In the future I intend to add a Sonos One to the Bedroom and a Beam to the lounge as part of a surround sound set up and so as can be seen I'll also have embedded Alexa devices within these two Units.

Any ideas as to a way forward so as not to encounter problems when I add Units.

Kind Regards
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Hi

You shouldn't need to include the Room name when asking the Sonos One to play music on it's self. Can you try 'Alexa, Play Classic FM from TuneIn'

There's been a fair amount of discussion about naming standards on the forum. Some people like to call devices a descriptive name i.e. Den Table Light but I personally use Room Name + Device Type (Kitchen Sonos, Kitchen Echo Dot) with some additions. I use Main for ceiling lights and Background for table lights. i.e Kitchen Main Lights, Lounge Background Lights. This, in my opinion, has the advantage that infrequent users can determine the device names fairly easy.
Hi
Thanks for the quick response, tried as you suggested and it worked, so next I asked "Alexa, play Absolute radio" and it worked without the addition of "from Tuneln", so not sure whats going on !
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When Alexa fails to play, can you open Alexa app>settings>history and check she heard you correctly.
I think UKMedia has it right on this. From what I've seen, Alexa doesn't know what 'Classic FM' is exactly. Technically, 'Classic FM' could be a video you want played on fire tv or some sort of skill/game. It wants to hear the music service name or the target speaker to clarify that it's music.

As far as naming convention goes, I tend to leave the speaker name as just the room name, without specifying that it's 'sonos' or 'speaker'. That's probably mostly because it's the default name given when you add the Sonos skill, also because in my head it's implied and fits more normal speech. If I was talking to a normal human, I wouldn't need to say that. 'Play music in the kitchen' gets it done and 'play music in the kitchen sonos' feels like overkill. When it comes to other things though, it feels necessary. I wouldn't tell a person 'turn off the kitchen', but I would tell them 'turn off the kitchen lights'.

As for the second name on the Sonos One and other Alexa devices, I find that I really don't need to speak to Alexa ever. All was refer to the Sonos one as a speaker, not as an Alexa...if that makes sense. Therefore, the name you pick doesn't have to be easy to remember or say, just clearly identity the unit when you pick it from a list on the app. But don't leave it as My Sonos One, IMO. When you add more units, it will be auto named My 2nd Sonos One and renaming after that point can be confusing.
Thanks for your help chaps - based on your advice I'll leave the Sonos One located in the Kitchen as "Kitchen" and rename its embedded Alexa device "Kitchen dot". I'll follow this convention for additions to the system and hopefully all will be swell !

Again many thanks