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!

Show previous replies

bockersjv

Local Superstar

This has been acknowledged as a bug and is being worked on between Sonos and Amazon. It started happening when the latest fix for ducking went live

U

UKTreoFan

Collaborator II

This has been acknowledged as a bug and is being worked on between Sonos and Amazon. It started happening when the latest fix for ducking went live

Good to know.

Er 'ducking' ??

melvimbe

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.

Ah. Agree on this, it's the functionality I see as well. It makes sense to me, at least in terms of how I use the system, as I typically want to be in the room I'm setting the volume for so I can properly gauge the volume I want. In fact, whenever I've set the volume while in a different room, I instinctively walk over to that room to verify it's a good volume after setting it.

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.

Well, in the past, it seems that Alexa was not aware of any existing groups. So there really was no way to do control one speaker in a group by voice. That appears like it might be changing now, so maybe it will be a possible feature. However, I have two concerns about this request. First, the word "pause" assumes that you can resume or "in-pause" and play audio exactly where you left off. If other rooms have not paused, you can't really resume, short of ungrouping and playing a second stream. It seems to me that the proper word would be to mute a room, or duck, so that when you unmute or in-duck, the audio is again playing in sync with the other rooms in the group. Semantics.

Second, I think there has to be a concern about keeping voice commands simple, so that users can easily remember how to make the commands, and to reduce the chance that Alexa misunderstands and does nothing or something you didn't want her to do. So, a command to mute the living room audio, but not the group living room is currently in, or vice versa, could start to get too cumbersome. I'd rather have Alexa assume that "pause" should pause the entire group, while "mute" or "duck" would only act on the room/speaker you target.

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

Yes, and Alexa needs to know what 'Everywhere" means for this to work. I suppose that could be defined as everywhere that audio is currently playing for all the speakers Amazon is aware of. It would be nice if there were named groups so that we could specify to do some action on a specific group. But, I also don't want to have to use a target every time to make sure Alexa knows what I mean. With your example, if I've got music going in the lounge and bedroom, "Alexa, pause the music" should pause in both room. I shouldn't have to target with the hypothetical group name every time. There needs to be some default assumptions, like we get with the 'preferred speaker' setting.

But...I'd also like to have pre-set profiles, that would include a name group plus volume settings for each room in the group. That way I can tell Alexa "set for party" setting up 3 rooms at a relatively high volumes. And I could also say "set to chill out" which would be the same 3 rooms with relatively lower volumes.

While I'm wishing, I don't really want to have to configure all this stuff myself. I want AI to learn my habits and start predicting what I want. Or maybe as a first step, if I'm my rooms grouped and at a volume I think I'll use often, be able to tell Alexa to save it as a profile, without me having to key it in myself.

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'.

I imagine the buttons could be configurable to some extent, but there is also an interest in making this uniform.

Danny

R

RoystonFord

Lyricist II

This has been acknowledged as a bug and is being worked on between Sonos and Amazon. It started happening when the latest fix for ducking went live

This is driving me ducking mad as well. Is there a thread that discusses this as a recognised bug? When will they ducking well fix it?

R

RoystonFord

Lyricist II

Ah ha! Problem solved by an update to the iOS Alexa app today here in the UK. I can now create an Alexa group of my Sonos speakers. I called it Sonos so “Alexa, play Radio 4 on Sonos”’ plays around the whole house. “Alexa, stop Sonos” stops the whole house. Asking Alexa to play, stop or adjust volume on Kitchen, Bedroom or Living Room just affects the specified room (stereo pairs defined in the Sonos app.

Great update, would have been better if it was announced and done simultaneously by Sonos and Amazon.

Ryan SAnswer

Retired Sonos Staff

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!

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

Ken_Griffiths

Well, in the past, it seems that Alexa was not aware of any existing groups. So there really was no way to do control one speaker in a group by voice. That appears like it might be changing now, so maybe it will be a possible feature. However, I have two concerns about this request. First, the word "pause" assumes that you can resume or "in-pause" and play audio exactly where you left off. If other rooms have not paused, you can't really resume, short of ungrouping and playing a second stream. It seems to me that the proper word would be to mute a room, or duck, so that when you unmute or in-duck, the audio is again playing in sync with the other rooms in the group. Semantics.

Second, I think there has to be a concern about keeping voice commands simple, so that users can easily remember how to make the commands, and to reduce the chance that Alexa misunderstands and does nothing or something you didn't want her to do. So, a command to mute the living room audio, but not the group living room is currently in, or vice versa, could start to get too cumbersome. I'd rather have Alexa assume that "pause" should pause the entire group, while "mute" or "duck" would only act on the room/speaker you target.

Yes, and Alexa needs to know what 'Everywhere" means for this to work. I suppose that could be defined as everywhere that audio is currently playing for all the speakers Amazon is aware of. It would be nice if there were named groups so that we could specify to do some action on a specific group. But, I also don't want to have to use a target every time to make sure Alexa knows what I mean. With your example, if I've got music going in the lounge and bedroom, "Alexa, pause the music" should pause in both room. I shouldn't have to target with the hypothetical group name every time. There needs to be some default assumptions, like we get with the 'preferred speaker' setting.

But...I'd also like to have pre-set profiles, that would include a name group plus volume settings for each room in the group. That way I can tell Alexa "set for party" setting up 3 rooms at a relatively high volumes. And I could also say "set to chill out" which would be the same 3 rooms with relatively lower volumes.

While I'm wishing, I don't really want to have to configure all this stuff myself. I want AI to learn my habits and start predicting what I want. Or maybe as a first step, if I'm my rooms grouped and at a volume I think I'll use often, be able to tell Alexa to save it as a profile, without me having to key it in myself.

Yes I agree about 'mute' instead of 'pause'... I went for 'pause' initially, as there is a 'Play/Pause' button on the hardware and no actual 'mute' button on any speaker. I see 'mute' (personally speaking) as the music still playing, but set at zero volume. Pause on the other hand is the music stopped, albeit temporary with the intention to resume it. So yes I agree 'mute' is much better suited to the discussion in point.

Yes, the voice commands need to be simple and memorable and follow the general rules and conventions and my examples of Alexa voice commands mentioned earlier, were really just to get the point across with the term 'everywhere' demonstrating a difference in the commands being issued, but yes I realise that such a keyword would need to be created as a definitive global group to represent all.

I really like the new grouping/ungrouping methods announced above by Ryan, as it makes the Sonos devices more 'fluid' and 'dynamic' to suit almost every situation that a user may require.

It’s looks like it’s just going to be a case of using the Alexa App 'grouping features' to clearly define our own groups of speakers we prefer to play together around the home, but we can still go onto address individual 'Rooms' too, should we need to play music just to those, rather than the entire group.

It provides an ability to group and ungroup Speakers, without opening the actual Sonos App. So things are certainly about to change for the better, it seems. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the detail in any forthcoming announcement.

J

Jb0101

Contributor I

Any updates to this? I have a play 1 named “lounge” and a one named “kitchen”. I’ve set them up in Alexa app as groups with those names, so saying “Alexa, play X in kitchen” plays in kitchen and saying lounge plays lounge. But I want to be able to play on both at the same time as well without going into the sonos app. I tried to say “play everywhere” but it doesn’t work. I tried “play in kitchen and lounge” but it doesn’t work. I then setting up a group in Alexa called “Everywhere” with both the play 1 (lounge) and one (kitchen), but now when I tell Alexa “play everywhere” it only plays in the kitchen.

I thought previous posts suggested you could play on all sonos speakers now, but it isn’t working for me. Am I doing something wrong?

Ken_Griffiths

Any updates to this? I have a play 1 named “lounge” and a one named “kitchen”. I’ve set them up in Alexa app as groups with those names, so saying “Alexa, play X in kitchen” plays in kitchen and saying lounge plays lounge. But I want to be able to play on both at the same time as well without going into the sonos app. I tried to say “play everywhere” but it doesn’t work. I tried “play in kitchen and lounge” but it doesn’t work. I then setting up a group in Alexa called “Everywhere” with both the play 1 (lounge) and one (kitchen), but now when I tell Alexa “play everywhere” it only plays in the kitchen.

I thought previous posts suggested you could play on all sonos speakers now, but it isn’t working for me. Am I doing something wrong?

Sonos/Alexa Groups... some quick and simple things you may wish to know about them:

1. The speakers added to the 2nd section of an Amazon Alexa Group will 'duck' their playing audio when speaking to a controlling Alexa device held in the 1st section of the group.

2. When the user has 'preferred' the speakers added to the 3rd section of an Alexa Group, they will group together automatically and play the requested audio when the user includes the 'Group Name' in their Alexa instruction.

3. When a user 'Alexa Enables' (controls) the group in the 1st section of the Alexa Group with, for example, an 'echo dot', or a 'Sonos One, (or both) etc ... those (controlling) Alexa devices will auto-group the 'preferred' speakers (same manufacturer only) and play directly to the preferred speaker group, without the need to mention the 'Group Name' and the same Alexa devices will also duck all the speakers in their group (both 'preferred' or 'non-preferred'). If there were any previously grouped speakers attached to the 'preferred' group, they will also play the audio too.

4. If there are no Sonos Speakers held in a controlled group, the controlling Echo/Sonos device will not duck any Sonos Speakers in the Household

Note: You can have multiple 'Alexa Enabled' devices in the first section of an Amazon Group, (from same, or different manufacturers), but each one can be used once only across all your Amazon Groups for that purpose.

Note: You can only set multiple 'preferred' speakers from the same hardware manufacturer. So you can have multiple Sonos devices, or multiple Amazon devices, for example, but you can’t have both. Mix and matching speakers is not currently allowed.

I hope that helps to clear some of the mist, that appears to sometimes surround these new grouping features.

Also please see these useful and important links that discuss the Alexa Groups in depth and provide further useful information ...

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/sonos-now-playing-with-alexa-groups-6817588

https://en.community.sonos.com/amazon-alexa-and-sonos-229102/an-overview-and-explanation-of-the-new-support-for-alexa-grouping-6817788

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3169

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201749250

Hope these things help to get you started with these new Sonos/Alexa features. ?

J

Jb0101

Contributor I

Sorry this still doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m pretty new to sonos and very new to Alexa, so the technicalities of your answer (eg talking about first second and third sections of an Alexa group) are quite lost on me.

All I want to do is be able to tell Alexa to play music sometimes in my kitchen only (sonos one), sometimes in my lounge only (stereo sonos play:1s), and sometimes in both rooms. But for the life of me I can’t firgure out how to do this. Can anyone help? Or is this not yet possible? Sorry if this is a noob question.

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