Sonos sound not ducking

What is/are the types of Alexa device(s) involved here and which type (and how many) Sonos speakers/rooms are you looking to have duck their audio? It’s not clear from your post, if you are talking about “Sonos Ones” (for example) with built-in Alexa, or other types of devices?

I have 2 Sonos 3 and 2 Sonos 5 speakers in a total of 2 rooms. Sound always “ducked” until recently; Amazon Alexa forums seem to think it’s a Sonos issue.  

So presumably the 3’s and 5’s are each ‘stereo paired’ and in two Sonos rooms (perhaps?), but are these speakers in the actual same physical room within your home, or separate?  .. and do you want them ALL to duck their audio at the same time?

I’m sorry to keep clarifying things with you, but your post is still not clear and I also will need to know how many/what type of Alexa devices do you have?

I can 'likely' help you to quickly resolve the issue, but you need to be a little more specific please.

Thanks for your response.  two pairs of speakers for stereo, are each in 2 different rooms, in the same home.  I have basically 3 types of Alexa devices….2 Echos, one is the earlier tall version, a dot, and I’m not sure what the other is called, but it’s like a sphere with a screen on it.  

Yes, I’d like all of the 4 Sonos devices to duck at the same time.

Funny thing is, they were all ducking when I gave an Alexa command until a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks-

Hi, there were some recent improvements made to Alexa ducking that may be what you’re seeing here.  These changes will allow only the players in an Alexa Group to duck when you call for Alexa, even if the input device is an Echo. In the Alexa app, check what your room groups show, but the behavior should be that any speaker in the Alexa Group with the Alexa enabled device will duck, but speakers in other rooms won’t.

More details on Alexa grouping can be found here. 

Yes, I wondered if the “improvements” were part of the problem; but actually each pair of speakers is already part of a group called “Everywhere”…..

Does “Everywhere” have an Alexa enabled speaker assigned to it as the input?

I’m relatively new to all this, but what I have are Sonos speakers (series 3 and 5 which do not have the Alexa capability) that I control with Alexa.  Are you suggesting I add an Amazon Echo to the group, for example? If so, would the Echo have to actually be active (plugged in)?

Thanks for your help

In the Alexa app, under Groups the first option when you edit an existing group is to “Add an Alexa-Enabled device for simpler control of your smart home devices.” The behavior should be that whenever the device added in there hears you call for Alexa, all other speakers listed in the group as “preferred speakers” will drop in volume.

Taveller,

Here is an example of an Amazon Group… called 'Kitchen' (See Below):

On speaking any voice command to the (controlling) Echo Dot called “Alexa Kitchen Hub” the two Sonos speaker rooms called ‘Breakfast Bar” and “Utility” will both duck their audio and because they are also the Groups”preferred” speaker in the last section of the group, if your were to say to this.... “Alexa, play some Music” to the same controlling “Alexa Kitchen Hub” device, then both those Sonos rooms will automatically group together and play the requested music.

So you just need to setup your own ‘controlled’ Groups in your Amazon Alexa App to suit your setup requirements.

i hope that brief and simple Alexa Group example, helps you to understand how it works and will enable you to resolve your audio ducking issues.

My post above is a just a very simple 'example' of the Amazon Alexa grouping features and how they work with Sonos devices.

I have added a few labels/text to the same screenshot, which (hopefully) may also assist in the understanding of the basics of what each section of a group can do.

I thought it was membership of the group, not inclusion in preferred speakers, that determined which speakers ducked when the controller device received a command.  Or is this a recent change that I have missed?

Edit: Ken's annotated screenshot also implies group membership determines ducking. Having said that, in most cases they are likely to be the same.

John B

Yes the changes mentioned by @Ryan S sound interesting, I’ve not seen anything about the group changes either..??

Although it doesn’t Apply in the OP’s case, I understand the Sonos Ones with built in Alexa, cannot be included in the second section of a group for audio ducking purposes, but they can be placed in the 1st section enabling/controlling area and so they too will duck their audio when spoken to, using the built in Alexa.

There have been times however where users wanted to use their Sonos Ones in two groups, such as 'Kitchen' and 'Downstairs’ … the latter being a larger overarching group of Sonos Rooms.

Problem with using the second overarching group, is you cannot place the Kitchen Sonos One in the first controlling section of the ‘Downstairs’ group if it has already been used in the Kitchen group, as it can only be used once only to enable/control an Alexa group. Effectively that means it would not duck it’s audio when speaking to the controller/enabler in the Downstairs group.

... so my thoughts are 'perhaps' Sonos have now added to these features and made the Sonos Ones now also duck their audio if they are simply held in the 3rd ‘preferred’ section of the group? That would be really helpful and solve the issue of using a Sonos One in more than one Alexa group.

Hope that makes Sense?… but let’s see what @Ryan S has to say about the changes.

In fact I’ve tested the theory above @John B ...and the audio doesn’t duck on the Sonos One if it’s also held in the ‘preferred' section of an overarching group, so I’m not sure what the changes might be?

I’ve checked in with the team and it looks like the new changes I mentioned are still rolling out, they’re not yet there for everyone, but they should be by the next Sonos software update. With that said, I don’t think what you’re seeing right now is the new changes, so I’d suggest waiting until the next update to see if those changes make ducking on your system work as expected. If you wanted to test out a few things, you could try removing that Everywhere group, or putting an Alexa enabled speaker in there as the input device as suggested. 

John’s correct here, it’s just being part of the group, not the preferred speaker that sets the ducking rules. Preferred speaker is the device(s) that will be targeted by default for playback commands.

Please bear with me because I am new to all of this; I went into Devices, I saw my existing group of Sonos speakers which I have labeled “Everywhere”, and I added an Echo device to the group.  All 3 components of the group are checked off:  Living Room, Family Room (both rooms are Sonos speakers) and Outside (which is an Echo).

When I give the command to “play music Everywhere”, the Echo does not play, even though it is checked off in the group.  What am I missing?

Can you perhaps screenshot your Amazon Group and post it here so we can see please.👍

That looks fine, when you speak to the ‘outside’ Alexa device and ask it to play music, the two Sonos devices ‘Living Room' and ‘Family Room’ should Group together automatically and Play the music. 

You wont get it to also play on 'outside’ echo device in this case, as speakers from different manufacturers do not play together. That’s how it is unfortunately.

Got it, and yes, the sound does duck with the echo as part of the group.  So, the idea is, the echo won’t play the music as part of the group with Sonos in it, which is actually fine, but it will serve to duck the sound when I give a command, is that it?

Yes, that’s correct, the 'outside' echo device is the controlling device for the group, so when you ask it to play music it knows to use the Sonos speakers within the same group and if you speak to the echo whilst the Sonos speakers are playing, it will duck their audio. It will also auto-group together the ‘preferred’ speakers.

Most people use echo dots as Sonos controllers in groups in this way as it provides full Alexa functionality with the great sound of Sonos for music playback.  

Actually, I believe any of my Alexa devices can control the group, I do it all the time from several devices.

Yes of course, but I assume that when Music is playing on those two particular Sonos speakers and you speak to your 'other' Alexa devices the audio doesn’t duck IF they are controlling other Alexa groups elsewhere in your home.