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Voice control for playing TV on multiple rooms

  • 9 January 2021
  • 4 replies
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Is there a voice command to start playing the TV audio to multiple rooms/speakers? I can get my Beam (and attached Sub) to switch its input back to TV by voice, but I want it to be playing in another room as well. I can set this up via the app, but am really going for voice control. Ideally, this would be a single command (so I can give it a shorthand as a Routine) but if it takes two, so be it.

Relatedly, is there a good way to redirect what’s playing in one room/group to another/all by voice? (That would make it easy to do in two commands.)

I just switched to Alexa from Google because it feels a bit better integrated with Sonos (group support, etc), but would be curious about both honestly. 

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Best answer by melvimbe 11 January 2021, 15:42

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4 replies

Rowena B.
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Hi @vandint, 

Welcome to the Sonos Community and thanks for bringing your concern to our attention. Let me share some information with you.

Alexa control for your TV requires an HDMI-ARC connection between the TV and your Sonos Beam. You can command Alexa to play music to your Sonos products if they are grouped in the Sonos app and will play the same music at the same time to all your speakers. 

If your speakers are not grouped, you need to add “in the (room name)” to the end of your commands if you want to play music in a specific room. Otherwise, the music will play on the speaker that responded to your request. You can only command Alexa one at a time. Group command feature is not available in Sonos.

If you're using an Alexa-enabled device like an Echo Dot, you can set up Alexa Group and select your preferred speaker. With Alexa's preferred speaker feature, you can put multiple Sonos products together in one Alexa Group, like “downstairs” or “outside,” then play music to all of them with a single voice command.

Hope this helps. We can wait for suggestions and feedback from our Sonos community members, they might provide their inputs about this. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

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V
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Hi @vandint, 

Welcome to the Sonos Community and thanks for bringing your concern to our attention. Let me share some information with you.

Alexa control for your TV requires an HDMI-ARC connection between the TV and your Sonos Beam. You can command Alexa to play music to your Sonos products if they are grouped in the Sonos app and will play the same music at the same time to all your speakers. 

If your speakers are not grouped, you need to add “in the (room name)” to the end of your commands if you want to play music in a specific room. Otherwise, the music will play on the speaker that responded to your request. You can only command Alexa one at a time. Group command feature is not available in Sonos.

If you're using an Alexa-enabled device like an Echo Dot, you can set up Alexa Group and select your preferred speaker. With Alexa's preferred speaker feature, you can put multiple Sonos products together in one Alexa Group, like “downstairs” or “outside,” then play music to all of them with a single voice command.

Hope this helps. We can wait for suggestions and feedback from our Sonos community members, they might provide their inputs about this. If you need help with any other information, please be sure to let us know.

Hi @Rowena B. 

Thanks for getting back, but that wasn’t quite my question. I’m asking for a voice command to direct the sound of the TV to all speakers, using the Beam’s connection. I can do “set mode to television in living room” to get the Bean to switch inputs, and I can use the app to set up an ad hoc group with my other speakers, but I can’t seem to do this all just with voice.

(My “TV” is a computer, so it’s a switch I’m likely doing daily.)

-Matt

jgatie

Hi @Rowena B. 

Thanks for getting back, but that wasn’t quite my question. I’m asking for a voice command to direct the sound of the TV to all speakers, using the Beam’s connection. I can do “set mode to television in living room” to get the Bean to switch inputs, and I can use the app to set up an ad hoc group with my other speakers, but I can’t seem to do this all just with voice.

(My “TV” is a computer, so it’s a switch I’m likely doing daily.)

-Matt

 

One of the weaknesses of Alexa Groups is you can’t group on the fly, you can only initiate music to a group.  So the Sonos app must be used for this type of grouping.  A wonky workaround may be to make an Alexa group of the speakers you want grouped, then play a track of music by saying “Alexa, play <track name> on <group name>”.  This will group the rooms.  Then ask Alexa to switch to TV. 

Note: I haven’t tried this myself because I don’t have any HT units, and I imagine you must have “Ungroup on Autoplay” set to off in the settings for the Beam room. 

melvimbe

One of the weaknesses of Alexa Groups is you can’t group on the fly, you can only initiate music to a group.  So the Sonos app must be used for this type of grouping.  A wonky workaround may be to make an Alexa group of the speakers you want grouped, then play a track of music by saying “Alexa, play <track name> on <group name>”.  This will group the rooms.  Then ask Alexa to switch to TV. 

Note: I haven’t tried this myself because I don’t have any HT units, and I imagine you must have “Ungroup on Autoplay” set to off in the settings for the Beam room. 

 

You might be able to combine these two commands into a single command via an Alexa routine.  Likewise, you could make additional routines for watching TV where you don’t want it played to a group, first by playing a blank track to an alexa group that only contains your Beam room, then switching to TV.

 

As a general rule though, Alexa doesn’t really allow you to do any Sonos functions that you can’t also do with an Echo.  So they aren’t going to allow you to group speakers for TV audio, since Echo’s can’t play TV audio.  You’ll have to get creative if it’s possible at all.

 

Danny
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