Enthusiast II

Answered

Ducking

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
October 17, 2017
48 replies
4926 views

Reluctantly, I disabled the Alexa skill for Sonos today. The whole house ducking was causing too many complaints form everyone in the house. Ducking a Sonos speaker in a room so far away from the person using Alexa just doesn't make sense. I really would like to use voice commands with Sonos; but I guess I will have to wait even longer for Sonos to correct this problem.

I have three Echo dots connected to Sonos either through line-in jacks or Connects. This was originally done to work around the Audible issue. The bonus of doing this was that all output from the Dots sounded great going through the Sonos speakers. Even, simple things like: "Alexa, what is the weather?" sound very good. Well, they don't with ducking, because you can't hear them at all now.

Perhaps the long-term fix is to assign Alexa devices to specific Sonos products. A short-term fix would be to add the option of turning ducking off. I would be willing to accept that Alexa might not be able to hear me with this option.

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Best answer by Keith N

Hi there, mwiseman. Thanks for checking in. No news to share regarding this just yet. In the meantime, be sure to keep current on Sonos Controller app updates!

I will be sure to update this thread with any new information as it becomes available.

Show previous replies

J

Jabes

Lyricist I

My son and daughter begged to have alexa in their rooms when they learned they could control their sonos. They love their sonos.

But ducking led them to fall seriously out when either one tries to use it.

So, to restore family unity, I beg please sort it out! (and provide some context between echo dots and associated sonos)

M

majiskoot

Lyricist I

What's more to say, the duration of "ducking" pretty much renders the Echo Dots as useless as a feedback device. perhaps if the ducking duration was settable from zero upwards you could get a meaningful response. my wife just had me disable the skill though I'd be happy to still have it on my regular echo! (which by virtue of its own speakers, doesn't suffer the same challenge.)

M

MaxTKB

Lyricist I

We have 4 Sonos speakers and 3 echo dots throughout our house... the "ducking" of the volume of music on our speakers has been a huge issue in our house. Unfortunately, like others have said here, we have had to disable our sonos skill. We would LOVE to have an option to turn the Ducking feature on or off.

Here's hoping for some update or change that addresses this.

Chris

Lead Maestro

Hopefully Sonos and Amazon figure out how to link Sonos units so only the one closest to the dot ducks.

If you would like a certain speaker to be Alexa controlled. You can enable the skill but delete all the other speakers from the Smart Home section. Then only the one speaker will have alexa control but only that speaker will duck.

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)

I

Ian_S

Prodigy III

It is very disappointing that no progress has been made on this issue yet. It is a complete show stopper for houses with existing multi-room systems and echo devices. It's also disappointing that Sonos don't keep a sticky here while the skill is (still) in Beta so we know what issues are being worked on and when we might see resolution.

B

briced

Lyricist III

If you would like a certain speaker to be Alexa controlled. You can enable the skill but delete all the other speakers from the Smart Home section. Then only the one speaker will have alexa control but only that speaker will duck.

Is that true?! That helps a lot as a temporary solution for me. I'm looking forward to trying that when I get home today!

J

jacob_7

Prodigy I

If you would like a certain speaker to be Alexa controlled. You can enable the skill but delete all the other speakers from the Smart Home section. Then only the one speaker will have alexa control but only that speaker will duck.

Is that true?! That helps a lot as a temporary solution for me. I'm looking forward to trying that when I get home today!

It is true and i tried it which worked great but the Alexa app now auto discovers every few hours so you need to keep deleting the speakers! I thought i was going mad but Ryan explained in another thread ( and above in this one).

B

briced

Lyricist III

Oh 😞. Thanks for the additional info. I missed that earlier discussion. I assume that both disabling and deleting have been tried and have the same issue?

J

jacob_7

Prodigy I

Oh 😞. Thanks for the additional info. I missed that earlier discussion. I assume that both disabling and deleting have been tried and have the same issue?

Disabling doesn't work at all which would solve it for now. I've had to delete the skill as a workaround 😃 which is a shame as it was really handy.

O

oregonryan

Lyricist I

Same problem in our house. Talking to a remote Alexa ducks the entire multiroom system.

Here’s the weird thing: before a Sonos system I had a multiroom Alexa system set up. With this “poor man’s Sonos” only one Alexa would duck (the one I am talking to) while the others continue to play music at the normal level. So, it seems strange to me that a cheap multiroom system with Alexa’s works better than the premium Sonos system.

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