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

Just adding that I too have had the problem. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon in a fix/update but in the meantime I've disabled the Skill.

Many thanks to @Stephen G for the workaround of removing recalcitrant Sonos speaker from the skill setup as I too had connected an Echo Dot to the line-in of a Play-5 in my Kitchen - seems a popular setup! :)

Perhaps Community Manager @Ryan S could amend the 'Best Answer' to include Stephen G's workaround although if @Tangochile is correct and Alexa keeps adding it back then maybe the best thing is to remove the long awaited and keenly anticipated Sonos Skill until it better integrates. :(

As others have said the 'naming' conflicts are also a frustration and the ability to 'link' Dot with specific Sonos speaker without cable and without the need to specify which room to play music unless asking for a room other than the one you're in or asking for a system wide play would also be great.

Feeling ever so slightly underwhelmed by this iteration of Sonos skill. :?

Perhaps Community Manager @Ryan S could amend the 'Best Answer' to include Stephen G's workaround although if @Tangochile is correct and Alexa keeps adding it back then maybe the best thing is to remove the long awaited and keenly anticipated Sonos Skill until it better integrates. :(

The Alexa app recently updated some of the control features for smart home devices and they added an automatic device discovery. I believe every 2 hours, your Alexa devices automatically check for new devices. Which means if you forget the player with the line-in, it'll get re-discovered regularly.

Ducking is being worked on though, so we'll see how this changes in the future.

The Alexa app recently updated some of the control features for smart home devices and they added an automatic device discovery. I believe every 2 hours, your Alexa devices automatically check for new devices. Which means if you forget the player with the line-in, it'll get re-discovered regularly.Thanks, that fits with what was happening to my system so I have now disabled the Sonos skill.

Thank you so much! That was driving me nuts!!!

Same problem here. Ok, here is an additional problem. I bought the Sonos One. I used to be very - very happy with my Echo Dot and my Play5. I was about to buy another Echo dot for my other Play5 but I saw the new Sonos One coming and I decided to pre-ordered. I have it...I paid $200 for this speaker and I can't use Spotify and there is a a lot of limitations (not able to near news or sport reports...etc). So, after experiencing the "ducking" problem on the previous setup, now to go back to normal I am learning that I have to disable Sonos skill in Alexa so the Sonos One will work like a regular speaker. Can someone at Sonos explain me why I shouldn't return Sonos One and buy another Echo Dot (I have an extra Play5)?.

@marcoecheverria, that'll kind of come down to how you want to be using your Sonos with Alexa. With the Sonos skill, you can use voice and the controller app together seamlessly, something that's hard to do with the line-in route. You can't mix groups of Echo speakers and Sonos speakers, so the Sonos One can't group with the Dot, but you can group the PLAY:5 and your Sonos One. However, you could have a group of Sonos players all playing the line-in, you just don't have much control through the Sonos app of what's on.

Ducking is something that's being worked on, so I'd expect to see some changes there which might really improve your experience with the line-in Dot connection. I can't say exactly what that will look like, since it's still in the works, so that's a bit of a grey area. If you want to get all of the audio from your Dot to play on your PLAY:5s, including Alexa's responses, you'll probably want to be disable ducking entirely on the PLAY:5, and I'm not sure if that'll be an option, though we've definitely had the request passed over to the team.

The Sonos One won't duck any of your other players when it's responding, it only ducks the room it's in.

Spotify with voice and the news briefings are also coming too. One great thing with the Alexa integration is it can keep on getting better over time, and we're hard at work on several features with the Amazon teams.

My advice, would be play around with both and see what you're really looking to get out of the integration. What features do you like the most, what are you looking to have access to, and through.

I find the biggest difference between the line-in and the Alexa skill is there is absolutely no track/artist/album/station/etc. metadata displayed with the line-in. It even drives my slightly batty that the track info is missing when playing SiriusXM via Alexa (Hint, Hint! Nudge, Nudge! Sonos team.) So the line-in approach is a deal breaker for me, but maybe not for others.

Thanks Ryan for taking the time to reply my post. Sonos One without Spotify and CNN report news is not what I really need (but I need to be fair saying that I kinda knew about Spotify but now that I have it I am finding that I need Spotify more than what I thought). For now, I will continue testing the Sonos One with just the integration with Alexa and Smartthings to control devices. This seems to work pretty well and the sound is great but w/o Spotify (I am paying the service and several accounts for my family) I need to use the free option from Amazon Music. I will wait some weeks but if I don't see progress on the integration I will return the Sonos One and wait until you fix all the problems.

Hello all. I am having the ducking issue as well, but have a question to clarify. I have 4 echo dots in the house and just added a Playbase, sub and 2 Sonos Ones in a home theater config. Nothing is connected to any of the Dots. When I was just listening to music on the Sonos home theater setup, and my daughter spoke to her Dot upstairs, I got ducking on my home theater setup. So, in one of the earlier posts, I think it was said that Sonos Ones will only duck in the room they are in, but mine ducked with the Playbase and sub. If I disable to Alexa skill for Sonos, does that also disable Alexa on the Sonos Ones, or does the skill only “enable” normal Sonos speakers and Sonos Ones have Alexa built in? If that is the case, if I disable the Sonos skill in the Alexa app, and then still talk to the Sonos Ones, will I be able to control other hom e automation devices using the Sonos Ones like an expensive Echo? Would I be able to turn volume up and down on the Sonos Ones with voice (and therefore also control volume on the home theater config since they are all paired together). That would help me immensely while the larger ducking issue is being worked on. I’d hate to disable the Sonos skill in Alexa and thereby render the new Sonos Ones as just normal Sonos Play1’s. Thanks!