Question

Using Sonos One with Alexa with Multiroom

  • 4 January 2019
  • 14 replies
  • 33792 views

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Hi, i've 4 echo dot and 2 sonos one, there is a way to add my sonos in the alexa multi room?

I have a speaker group into alexa app, but i can't add sonos.

thanks

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14 replies

You can have groups of Echos, or groups of Sonos, but you cannot group them both. They each have very different ways of syncing content.
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There is “speaker group” and with it i can’t add sonos.
As of a couple weeks ago, you can add Sonos speakers to groups. See this link for details:

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/sonos-now-playing-with-alexa-groups-6817588
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it's very bad thing. ok i can make a group with sonos but i can't make a full multi room group and i cant tell "play music in all rooms"....
it's very bad thing. ok i can make a group with sonos but i can't make a full multi room group and i cant tell "play music in all rooms"....

You most certainly can. I have 5 rooms of Sonos gear, and a group called "Everywhere" in which I have added and preferred all my Sonos speakers. When I say "Alexa, play David Bowie everywhere" I get Ziggy Stardust playing in all those rooms.

You just cannot group both Echos and Sonos together. They are two different technologies.
So it is not possible to have the same music playing in sync on Echos and Sonos speakers, correct?
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Polk Audio and Sony HT-ZF9 third party Alexa enabled speakers can be part of an echo multi room group, and Amazon have published an article on how this might be achieved, so I’d expect Sonos to be working on it.

https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/a9acaabd-d5a0-4fdf-b74a-c20cfe4d4ef9/deliver-whole-home-audio-with-alexa-multi-room-music-and-device-targeting
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Polk Audio and Sony HT-ZF9 third party Alexa enabled speakers can be part of an echo multi room group, and Amazon have published an article on how this might be achieved, so I’d expect Sonos to be working on it.

https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/a9acaabd-d5a0-4fdf-b74a-c20cfe4d4ef9/deliver-whole-home-audio-with-alexa-multi-room-music-and-device-targeting


It is possible to add 3rd party single speakers to an Alexa Group but as far as I'm aware you can't currently add any 3rd party multi-room speakers - Sonos included. The reason being that single speakers can use the Alexa Multi-Room sync architecture/protocols, whereas if you have two multi-room systems you have two different protocols, both of which will probably be propriety and copy righted.
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I would have thought that this paragraph, particularly the last sentence, gave Sonos a way to tap in : “The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) has multiple technologies available to help device makers deliver this experience to customers: Named Device Targeting, Alexa Multi-Room Music (MRM), and proprietary cloud-controlled multi-room. The cloud-controlled solution, enabled by a Connected Speaker Skill, is for device makers that prefer to use their own proprietary multi-room synchronization protocols.”
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I would have thought that this paragraph, particularly the last sentence, gave Sonos a way to tap in : “The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) has multiple technologies available to help device makers deliver this experience to customers: Named Device Targeting, Alexa Multi-Room Music (MRM), and proprietary cloud-controlled multi-room. The cloud-controlled solution, enabled by a Connected Speaker Skill, is for device makers that prefer to use their own proprietary multi-room synchronization protocols.”
Possibly but I'm not aware of anyone doing it yet but who knows 🙂

it's very bad thing. ok i can make a group with sonos but i can't make a full multi room group and i cant tell "play music in all rooms"....

How did you do this? I did it before and had to reset my Echo- can't figure it out now.


You most certainly can. I have 5 rooms of Sonos gear, and a group called "Everywhere" in which I have added and preferred all my Sonos speakers. When I say "Alexa, play David Bowie everywhere" I get Ziggy Stardust playing in all those rooms.

You just cannot group both Echos and Sonos together. They are two different technologies.

 

 

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If other vendors can do it most likely because Amazon/Sonos wants to drive their own respective sales… very disappointing from a customer stand point.   It’s right there in plain sight on the Amazon developper page: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/mrm/multi-room-music-sdk-overview.html but as the getting started states: 

 

To get started with implementing MRM on your device, contact your Amazon Business Development representative.

 

There are other features I’m waiting for that Sonos still doesn’t support, such as bilingual Alexa which is extremely convenient on my echo dot around the house except the kitchen/dinning where the Sonos is.

 

Not to say that I can't even leverage my Sonos properly as it cannot be controlled from a different wifi network (still in the same house).  In 2020, where data privacy concerns are at peak, and when everybody recommends to have a dedicated smart home network it is just telling me that Sonos doesn’t consider all security aspect and assume your home is a safe place.

 

Thankfully I only have 1 Sonos speaker… might get it out of the door very soon and replace it with the new Amazon Studio - at least they will all (echo and speakers) act “smart” together.  I haven’t reach an irreversible cost of change yet by buying a ton of Sonos.  I guess the couple bucks I’ll loose reselling it is my cost of being an early adopter.

@flq06: I’m exactly in the same boat. Bought Sonos One for it’s sound quality (which is excellent), but overall integration with Alexa and Echo ecosystem is dissapointing at best. Feel a bit cheated by the claims made.

it's terrible thing. alright I can make a gathering with sonos however I can't make a full multi room gathering and I cannot tell "play music in all rooms".…

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