Contributor I

Answered

Alexa now Breaks up groups

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
September 18, 2018
25 replies
3620 views

So, I keep most of my speakers in one group. For this example, let's say "Living Room, Kitchen, Bedroom".

Since Alexa integration started, I've been able to name any of the speakers in the group, and it'll do that action for the group. For instance "Alexa, stop the living room" stops all three but leaves them grouped. "Alexa, Play Metallica on the Kitchen" Plays Metallica on all three (as long as they had already been grouped).

In the last week or so, this has changed. Now when I name a speaker, actions happen ONLY to that speaker. So in the example above "Alexa stop the living room", it separates Living room from the group, and stops it. This means that the other two are still playing. Same thing if I use Alexa to start music. If the speaker I ask it to start on is in a group, it removes it from the group and starts it on just that one speaker.

This is super annoying, and really defeats the reason I use Sonos in the first place. Does anyone know why this behavior has changed, or how I can get it to go back and work the old way?

Grouping

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Best answer by Ryan S

Hi everyone, we're working with Amazon to bring some additional features and improvements to Sonos. These are rolling out in stages, and you've noticed some of them. Not all of the changes are out yet, but I wanted to clarify a few things here for you. We'll make a public announcement when that work's complete.

There are some changes that you're seeing around naming rooms when you go to perform a function. One of these changes is that when you explicitly call out to stop/pause an active Sonos speaker, just that room will stop playing.

"Alexa, stop in living room" will stop the music in just the living room, even if it's grouped with other players in the Sonos app. For example, if the player was grouped with a Sonos speaker in the Kitchen, the two will ungroup, and the Kitchen will keep on playing.

This also includes telling rooms to play music. If the Living Room and Kitchen are grouped in Sonos and not playing music, "Alexa, play in the Kitchen" will remove Living Room from the group in Sonos, and start playing in Kitchen only.

And this applies to Sonos players that have Alexa built in too, so if you have Living Room and Kitchen (a Sonos One) currently grouped and not playing music. Speaking to the Sonos One "Alexa, Play Music," will cause the Sonos One to remove Living Room from the group and start playing on its own.

If you notice Sonos groups changing due to your voice commands, open your Alexa app and look for the new Groups setup. Tap the lower-right icon, a house outline with two levers, to find it. Create an Alexa group with your desired speakers and assign your Alexa or Sonos device as the input for that group. Your voice commands will now use that group without needing to say the location name as part of the command.

You will also notice some other changes soon, and we'll let you know when it's all live. Stay tuned!

U

upstatemike

Maybe Sonos is about to introduce specific commands to control groups but first needed to strip any group related actions from the existing individual speaker commands?

Local music library with carefully constructed playlists - no shuffling!, Integration with Homeseer Automation, No touch screen devices, No streaming services, No Apple products ever

J

Jon-Erik

Lyricist I

I just grouped my speakers in the Alexa app. I don't know if this is a new feature or not, but maybe Alexa now only recognizes its own groups? That would make sense to me, it is a much more literal interpretation of what is being asked of it.

UKMedia

I just grouped my speakers in the Alexa app. I don't know if this is a new feature or not, but maybe Alexa now only recognizes its own groups? That would make sense to me, it is a much more literal interpretation of what is being asked of it.

Grouping Sonos players only works within the Sonos App and not via Alexa Groups.

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

Ken_Griffiths

cubsfan1060,

If you are able to reproduce this again, I would submit a system diagnostic immediately afterwards for the Sonos Staff to have a look at what’s going on... see link below:

Submit System Diagnostics

T

thetimallen

Avid Contributor I

Cubsfan1060,
Did you ever find a solution? This is happening to me now.
Every time I tell Alexa to pause music in one room when all my house is grouped together on Sonos, it pauses the music in that one room and drops that room from the group. And then the group goes on playing the music.
This did not used to happen. Until today, a command to pause one room would pause every Sonos unit grouped with that room.

Thanks.

Ken_Griffiths

Cubsfan1060,
Did you ever find a solution? This is happening to me now.
Every time I tell Alexa to pause music in one room when all my house is grouped together on Sonos, it pauses the music in that one room and drops that room from the group. And then the group goes on playing the music.
This did not used to happen. Until today, a command to pause one room would pause every Sonos unit grouped with that room.

Thanks.This sounds to me like it may now be working 'as intended', because things usually work the same way as the hardware.

If you have all speakers grouped in your household playing some music and go to one room and physically press the pause button on a speaker, then only that one room stops playing the music. The remaining rooms keeps playing.

You can stop all with the Sonos App, but not with the hardware. So I’m guessing this is how the programmers want the Alexa instructions to now work. Those are my initial thoughts, but we may have to wait for some kind of announcement (or confirmation) on this particular subject from the Staff.

I will add that I will be quite happy if things do work in this way, but I know some users may prefer the music to stop everywhere.

melvimbe

My setup isn't working as you're suggesting Ken. If I'm playing audio to a group of rooms, hitting the hard button on a speaker to pause will pause across the entire group. The same functionality exists when I ask Alexa to pause the music. I didn't test this recently, but I don't think you can pause a single room in the Sonos app, short of removing it from the group.

As far as whether I want 'pause' to mean the entire group or just the current room (whatever that means), I think I'd almost always prefer the entire group. There are exceptions though for sure. Really, I'd be happy if I could simply have a 'duck' command available for a specific room, exactly the same way a single room will (or should) duck when you talk to Alexa in that room. I would want to be able to tell Alexa to duck or in-duck a room, have the option to make the hard button on devices duck or pause depending on configuration, and add a duck button to the button (with the icon of an actual duck).

Thinking about it, I suppose mute works just as well.

Danny

Chris

Lead Maestro

There is a way to set default groups and then group via voice. www.speakerscenes.com

The stop thing - definitely sounds like a bug. I think Amazon has rolled out a bunch of stuff on their end that Sonos has to compensate for on their end - looks like a lot of new stuff on the way.

Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)

Ken_Griffiths

My setup isn't working as you're suggesting Ken. If I'm playing audio to a group of rooms, hitting the hard button on a speaker to pause will pause across the entire group. The same functionality exists when I ask Alexa to pause the music. I didn't test this recently, but I don't think you can pause a single room in the Sonos app, short of removing it from the group.

As far as whether I want 'pause' to mean the entire group or just the current room (whatever that means), I think I'd almost always prefer the entire group. There are exceptions though for sure. Really, I'd be happy if I could simply have a 'duck' command available for a specific room, exactly the same way a single room will (or should) duck when you talk to Alexa in that room. I would want to be able to tell Alexa to duck or in-duck a room, have the option to make the hard button on devices duck or pause depending on configuration, and add a duck button to the button (with the icon of an actual duck).

Thinking about it, I suppose mute works just as well.

Oh it’s me getting mixed up (again) .. you’re right the play/pause button on any speaker in a group works for all speakers in the group, but the (+) and (-) volume controls operate just on the one room only in a group situation and do not operate on the whole group. Sorry about the mix up.

Just to extend the point a little further though ...

I would like to see an Alexa voice instruction to raise/lower the 'group' volume aswell as an 'individual room' volume... that’s what I was undoubtedly thinking about, when I gave my 'mixed-up' reply earlier

I don’t see a reason either, in the exact same vein, why an Alexa instruction can't pause a single room within a group, or pause the entire group depending on how the voice instruction is actually given by the user.

As a very simple Example: ... 'Alexa, pause the music in the Lounge' ...or ... 'Alexa, pause the music Everywhere'.

I don’t know if there is a way to extend these things to the speakers hardware buttons too, but it would be useful to have the 'best of both worlds'.

Anyhow, I will now go hide my slightly red face ?

U

UKTreoFan

Collaborator II

Just to join this thread; I have the same problem and it only seemed to start a week or so ago (here in the UK). As I am home most of the time I have a number of Sonos speakers grouped. If the phone rang I could tell Alexa to pause one of the rooms that was in the group and they would all stop. Now Alexa causes that speaker to drop from the group whilst the remainder keep playing. This is, frankly, somewhat annoying especially if I have paused to, say, take a phone call as I can still hear the other speakers.

And this is not the way the app (or desktop app) works; you pause a group. My STRONG preference would be for the original functionality to be restored. Equally if there is a change to functionality I don't think it unreasonable for whomever initiated the change (this one could be on Sonos or Amazon) to let users know of the change as I spent a few days wondering what on earth was going on before I did the structured testing - and then found this thread!

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