Can you use Alexa to play to non-standard room names?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 9, 2017
14 replies
930 views

I have renamed my play 3 from Kitchen to Pub. If I use Alexa (Dot or Play ONE) and ask it to play music in the Pub it won't play. If I rename it to a standard name, garage, kitchen, patio, whatever it works just fine.

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Chris

Lead Maestro

Nope those 2 rooms still wont respond by name ... very strange. I noticed back a few months ago but never dug into.

I named all my Alexa Dots "Room" Name and the Sonos units by just the room name.

Examples I have:

Room Kitchen (an Echo Show)
Kitchen (a Play:5)
Room Bar (an Echo dot)
Bar (a Connect:Amp)
Room Katey (an Echo dot)
Katey (a Play:1)
Room Sunroom (an Echo dot)
Sunroom (a Play:1)

In this example ... all will play to the Sonos except for if I ask for "Play song on Katey". It will not respond to that.

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)

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

Voice control, in general, is one of those things which takes more data to get better over time. Unusual room names are sometimes harder to hear properly because Alexa has less data on what the sound of that name should sound like. More regular names are easier for it to pick out. That said, even irregular room names should get better detection over time. You just have to use them so that Alexa continues to hear the sample and the sound of the room name.

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UKMedia

Nope those 2 rooms still wont respond by name ... very strange. I noticed back a few months ago but never dug into.

I named all my Alexa Dots "Room" Name and the Sonos units by just the room name.

Examples I have:

Room Kitchen (an Echo Show)
Kitchen (a Play:5)
Room Bar (an Echo dot)
Bar (a Connect:Amp)
Room Katey (an Echo dot)
Katey (a Play:1)
Room Sunroom (an Echo dot)
Sunroom (a Play:1)

In this example ... all will play to the Sonos except for if I ask for "Play song on Katey". It will not respond to that.

As a naming standard I find using Room Name + Device name is the easiest to remember and an approach that I have no issues with in my set-up. e.g. Kitchen Sonos, Kitchen Echo Dot As such I don't have any device that has a 'standard name', although they do include the standard name.

As long as you haven't set-up any Routines within the Alexa app, you could try logging on to the Alexa app on your PC via https://alexa.amazon.com (Only available in the PC version of the app) and under Smart Home>Devices scroll to the bottom of the list and select 'Forget All', then 'Discover'. (Beware: If you have set-up Routines, this will clear all Actions for all Routines!)

Also, when you get the failed command to Katey, have you checked under Alexa App>Settings>History to see what Alexa thought you said?

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

C

Clinical Precision

Prominent Collaborator I

+1 for difficulty with non standard room names. Alexa will not recognize Aimee's room. She does, though, recognize Amy's room. So my 10 year old has the frustration of her name not been spelt correctly - this is obviously a biggie when you are 10! It's interesting that Alexa seems to need the spelling correct (as she sees it) rather than using phonetics.
I do hope that at some point Sonos speakers can be included in Alexa enabled groups which would make the room name issue moot. Hopefully they are working on it?

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