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

Ken_Griffiths

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.Did you read through the links I included in my post... there are explanations from UKMedia and from Ryan S (Sonos Staff) in the main thread. If you read through that thread too there are examples with screenshots of how to get things working with Alexa Groups. You need to read about how the Groups work to understand them. Then you need to take your Alexa devices and Sonos devices that you need and set them up in your own groups

I will also send you PM which gives an example. Hopefully, by reading these things, it will all make sense to you. It’s not as complicated as it may seem on the face of it, but you do need to read the notes in order to setup these things for yourself.

See the PM I have sent to you, which details a simple example.

Hope that helps ?

Ken_Griffiths

Jb0101

Trying to make things as 'simple as possible'. Perhaps see if the following few paragraphs help you to understand the Alexa Group features too:

There are the three distinct Sections available in the Amazon Alexa Groups...

Section 1 .. 'The Alexa Enabling Device'
This is the Echo and/or Sonos Alexa controlling device(s) that the user speaks to and gives their voice instruction to control things in the group.

**A Sonos One and/or Echo Dot etc. are good examples of such devices.

Section 2 .. 'The Speakers'
Here is where you (optionally) add the Sonos rooms/speakers that you wish to control and duck their audio. You can select multiple Sonos devices to add to this section. If you do not wish to 'duck' their audio, then no need to use this section of the Alexa group.

**Note this section is also used for adding other devices for grouping purposes, like smart-lights and smart plugs etc.

Section 3 .. 'The Preferred Speakers for Music'
This section is where Sonos, or Amazon Speakers are set as the 'preferred' devices for playing music. When using the controlling device in Section 1, these speakers will group together automatically and will play the requested audio without mentioning the Room Name.

**Note: the speakers here must be from the same manufacturer... so you can choose Sonos Speakers, or Amazon Speakers, but not both at the same time.

U

UKTreoFan

Collaborator II

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!

I have used Alexa with Sonos since it was available in Beta (signed up for the beta programme so that I could). I group rooms according to my listening needs and what is happening in the household. If we have multiple speakers playing and the phone rings we want to stop all of the speakers as a group. We group speakers so that in the morning we have music playing in the bedroom and it's also on downstairs.

The change to the Alexa skill that causes a room you give an instruction to be removed from the group that I have set up is a complete frickin' disaster. If the phone rings we now have to tell 2 - 3 - 4 speakers to stop. Etc Etc Etc Etc

I am now spending more time than ever in the Sonos app re-grouping speakers. It's quicker (!!!!) to go into the Sonos app to stop a group then it is to use Alexa voice control to stop the speakers in a group one by one.

This really is one of the worst changes to the integration of Alexa and Sonos. As giving a command to one speaker always takes it out of the group we are bl**dy close to disabling the Sonos skill on Alexa and going back to just using the app.

Seriously, when I set up a GROUP I want to be able to manipulate what it happening IN THAT GROUP and not have Alexa decide I suddenly don't want a group.

So please put this back the way it was.

PS Sorry for the swearing and capitals but this one change has undone all the benefits of being able to use voice control with my Sonos system.

A

alanjross

Trending Lyricist I

Try renaming your group set up in the Alexa App "Sonos." Now tell Alexa to play so and so on "Sonos." That seems to work now. It groups and controls the music as a group. Good luck!
Alan

jgatie

Try renaming your group set up in the Alexa App "Sonos." Now tell Alexa to play so and so on "Sonos." That seems to work now. It groups and controls the music as a group. Good luck!
Alan

You realize the post you are replying to is over 5 months old?

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