Amazon Dot and Play 5 line in going quiet when replying from Alexa

Wait -- so if someone in an upstairs bedroom asks their local echo device for the time, then the sonos surround sound setup playing a movie for someone else in the living room will 'duck' for a bit?

Really?

Yep. My solution was to disconnect the hard-line between the DOT and the Play:5. Everything is working beautifully now that I have done this. I don't mind non-music requests being answered on the Echo's internal speaker, but the DOT speaker is pretty poor. I previously had switched out an original Echo with a DOT so that I could use the line-out to the Play:5. I'll probably switch that back to the standard Echo now that I don't need the line-out and because the built-in speaker is so much better.

Hmmm...well my echo dot (hard-line in to P:connect) ducked and stayed ducked, even after I rebooted it. I have now disabled Alexa skill and everything back to normal. Once Spotify is added, I'll re-enable and disconnect the dot so it can be Alexa voice. Though it would be good if all Alexa sound could go through sonos, I get that it's not that simple...

Good luck with development, Sonos, this could be great.

Wow! I have a Dot connected to one of my Play:5s and two dots connected to two Connects. I am not happy about them ducking.

Something else I'm noticing. My DOT sits only 2 feet away from a Play:5 because they were physically connected to each other by the audio cable. Even so the DOT didn't have too much trouble hearing me when music was playing. When I used the wake word the blue ring would light up and the music would duck.I could then make my request and Alexa wouod respond.

Now that I have removed the audio cable tethering the DOT to the Play:5 the DOT seems to have trouble hearing the wake word. It's blue ring doesn't light and the music doesn't duck. If I speak quiet loudly then some other Echo device in another room usually responds instead. I guess I'll try moving the DOT further away from the speakers tomorrow to see if that helps.

Oh wow! I just spent over 20 minutes with Sonos support (who claimed no knowledge of the problem and told me to call Amazon) and 45 minutes with Amazon support (who had me switch echo dots and audio cables and then credited me for $5 and had me buy an Amazon branded audio cable (arriving Sunday) and they will call me back on Monday to continue troubleshooting!

Both Sonos and Amazon Alexa support need to update their support staff with this info pronto.
I've let the technician you spoke with know about this one. It's actually a pretty unusual issue to come up, partially because everything is technically working as it should. There are just a few dots to connect to understand what's happening. My apologies for the runaround.

Ryan, thank you for your response. Like others, I have a Dot hardwired to a Play 5 and ran into the same problem with Alexa's responses. I'm happy Sonos is aware so I'm confident a solution will be coming. It's not the cheapest solution, but if I replaced the Dot with a new Sonos One and didn't hardwire it to the Play 5, would Alexa's response from the Sonos One also be muted? (I'm aways justifying buying audio equipment I don't really need!)

Sonos One will function almost exactly like your Dot does right now in those regards. The music playing on that speaker would duck, and it would play whatever audio response, the request you asked of it would have, at normal volume.

I understand why ducking was implemented. The current implementation is lacking. I'm listening to a Sonos at one end of my house and my wife asks an Alexa on the far end of the house and my Sonos ducks. We are so far apart I can't hear my wife. If I had not read about ducking I still be wondering why the volume on Sonos was going up and down.

Let me add my support for a change in this area... Ducking devices in the room that the Echo is in, is fine; ducking all the registered devices when someone talks to Alexa, is not. We have a fair number of Sonos' around the house and we're starting to roll out Dots in the major rooms as well, so "Global Ducking" would very quickly lead to all-out war!

If I were formulating the change request on this, I would allow for an Echo to be paired with a selected Sonos device and to take its name. For example, we have a Dot in the kitchen and the Sonos for the room is called "Kitchen", so we've had to name the Dot "Kitchen Dot". When someone speaks to that Echo, the pairing would indicate which Sonos to duck and avoid ducking the others. The name pairing also means that user confusion would be reduced when using the message or drop-in function... (We currently have to "drop in on the kitchen dot" 😞 )