Enthusiast I

Answered

Alexa Multiroom music simultaneously on Sonos and Echo devices

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 15, 2018
73 replies
100192 views

In September 2018 Amazon released the AVS Device SDK that allows Alexa enabled 3rd party speakers to use Alexa Multiroom Music (MRM). This means Amazon now supports music played from Echo speakers and 3rd party speakers at the same time.

Does Sonos plan to update their Alexa enabled speakers (One, Beam) to allow Alexa multi-room music?

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Best answer by Ryan S

Hi everyone,

We're constantly working with the Amazon Alexa team to bring more features and to improve the experience, in fact, we're in the middle of launching Alexa Groups with them right now. This does not include grouping Sonos players and Echo devices to play the same music at the same time, but it's a feature we've certainly heard requests asking for the functionality. I don't have any specifics I can share as to if multiroom music with Sonos and Alexa playing together will be available, but I'll make sure to let the team know continues to be requested.

I can't speak specifically to that chat, but if it was from a year ago, the Alexa integration has changed considerably since then (and as already pointed out, there were other mistakes/inaccuracies in it). As development continues, features are added and some may move lower on the list of priorities. We'll continue to bring new features and experiences to Alexa on Sonos and are hard at work to bring voice control to Sonos in many different ways, in order to bring the best possible music listening experience.

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vicc729

Contributor I

Can't speak for everyone here, but I'm pretty sure most of us only care about the Alexa enabled speakers. Biggest issue I have is that I ask Alexa to play a Spotify radio station for "Everywhere" group and my Alexa will start playing a different song than my Sonos beam.

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austinflack

Contributor I

Still eagerly anticipating this feature. I use a Beam and two Ones for my surround sound system, but have various Echo devices scattered throughout my house. Would LOVE to be able to play music everywhere.

melvimbe

Still eagerly anticipating this feature. I use a Beam and two Ones for my surround sound system, but have various Echo devices scattered throughout my house. Would LOVE to be able to play music everywhere.

There's no reason to anticipate it. Neither Sonos or Amazon has hinted that the feature is coming. As well, there are business and technical reasons why the feature is very unlikely to be implemented. It makes more sense to assume this will never happen and plan accordingly.

Danny

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webreid

Lyricist I

The Command Bar isn't part of a Polk mult-room system. It's a single bar + sub...stand alone. You can't even add surround speakers as far as I can tell. So my statement above still stands.

It also doesn't appear to be airplay 2 compatible, limited streaming services. Does have bluetooth and DTS though.

Not knocking the product, just pointing out that it's actually a rather different product then Sonos speakers, with a significantly different feature set.

https://www.polkaudio.com/support/faqs/is-it-possible-to-integrate-the-polk-commandbar-into-a-alexa-multiroom-group

jgatie

The Command Bar isn't part of a Polk mult-room system. It's a single bar + sub...stand alone. You can't even add surround speakers as far as I can tell. So my statement above still stands.

It also doesn't appear to be airplay 2 compatible, limited streaming services. Does have bluetooth and DTS though.

Not knocking the product, just pointing out that it's actually a rather different product then Sonos speakers, with a significantly different feature set.
https://www.polkaudio.com/support/faqs/is-it-possible-to-integrate-the-polk-commandbar-into-a-alexa-multiroom-group

And how does that negate melvimbe's statement?

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ryparker

Lyricist I

Just purchased 4 Sonos ones and a beam from the Prime day sale. I also upgraded to 2 echo pluses and a dot. I just want to add my vote to hopefully encourage Sonos's dev team to make this feature a priority.

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vicc729

Contributor I

Trying to disable the Alexa on the Sonos beam and have an echo dot be the Alexa instead. How do you connect an echo dot to the Sonos beam? It’s not connecting through Bluetooth.

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ryparker

Lyricist I

Trying to disable the Alexa on the Sonos beam and have an echo dot be the Alexa instead. How do you connect an echo dot to the Sonos beam? It’s not connecting through Bluetooth.

That seems unrelated to this thread. You would probably be better off starting a new thread.

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JimboJones

Lyricist I

I think the answer to why there's no MRM between sonos and echo is, basically, down to the Sonos Connect. If you can sync echo audio with sonos, why would anyone shell out 350 bucks for a Connect for their existing hifi when they could just spend 50 on a dot and use the line out? Sonos probably know this and won't be keen on losing the connect sales...

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Markosaurus

Lyricist I

I don't think we are going to see Sonos speakers and echos playing in sync anytime, if ever. If it ever does happen, I imagine this will be an annouced feature, similar to how we saw Sonos annouce airplay 2 compatibility.If you are correct this will be a major miss for Sonos. With more products incorporating Alexa the competition for multi-room music is growing. Once other speakers support Amazon MRM the Sonos products will look antiquated by only supporting their own speakers with a limited list of Alexa commands.

Sonos needs to recognize that wireless multi-room music isn't going to be their competitive advantage moving forward. Instead they can focus on their other strengths while supporting Amazon MRM. Sonos could limit Amazon MRM to only when using an Alexa enabled Sonos speaker (One and Beam). Sonos can also limit the use of TruePlay to only when there is no Echo speaker running in the same room (similar to how TruePlay doesnt work with Connect using third party speakers). Sonos stereo pairs and surround can still only be with other Sonos speakers (Amazon & Sonos currently only allow identical model speakers to be a stereo pair).

I hope someone from Sonos can chime in with an official stance on Amazon MRM support. No Amazon MRM is the deal breaker for me (someone who bought an entire surround set up for the holidays). I have until end of January to return so Sonos has a month to announce support for MRM.

Someone from Sonos certainly needs to clarify their stance to this. I've got two echo dots (kitchen and bedroom) and a Sonos One (bedroom). The entire point was to be able to stream music throughout our "apartment" group.

If sounds are not going to offer this, people like me who are just adding support for these devices will simply go somewhere else.

With all due respect, the structures may be complex, but consumers like me simply don't care. We pay a premium for Sonos gear because it's good, so missing a major feature like this isn't acceptable as far as I'm concerned.

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