Ducking - Any progress?

Seeing as Alexa smart device groups let you place a 3rd party speaker in the same smart group I would beg to differ.
Interesting, that is not my understanding. Could you point us to an example of this, i.e., where third-party speaker ducking is selectively controlled and restricted to the speakers in the same device group? Thanks!

Seeing as Alexa smart device groups let you place a 3rd party speaker in the same smart group I would beg to differ. As before you are confusing music grouping with device grouping. The two are different and not linked. So an Alexa device can see what audio devices are in the same smart group and *could* in conjunction with the 3rd party skill instruct only those devices to duck... It's nothing whatsoever to do with audio grouping of either Alexa or 3rd party speakers, unless you put an audio group into a smart device group. Then I would want Alexa to instruct that audio group to duck.

Beg to differ all you like, it doesn't change the fact that ducking of all Sonos speakers is going to continue until the new SDK arrives. Not here to argue, and you being correct and me being wrong is not changing anything. Enjoy the day!

Seeing as Alexa smart device groups let you place a 3rd party speaker in the same smart group I would beg to differ.
Interesting, that is not my understanding. Could you point us to an example of this, i.e., where third-party speaker ducking is selectively controlled and restricted to the speakers in the same device group? Thanks!I'm not saying it works, merely that if you go into the Alexa app, and go to Smart Home and Groups, you can add a group, call it what you like, and then add one Alexa enabled device to that group. It allows you to also add Sonos speaker devices, however, clearly Amazon and Sonos don't use this information as even though if you talk to the Alexa device in that group, and it knows it's in a group with other devices, it can't yet instruct Sonos in just that device group to duck...

This is why I maintain it's nothing to do with audio grouping, of Sonos, Echo or any other speaker, as it's just a way for Alexa to know what devices it is co-located with. That though is very useful information....

This is how Alexa can be told simply to 'Turn lights on' and only turn on lights in the same group rather than all lights in the house... Surely it's not that hard for the Sonos and Alexa interaction to make use of this?

When the audio grouping comes along, it merely extends that functionality by allowing Alexa to recognise audio groups, which if they are using speakers in different rooms is irrelevant to ducking. However in the specific Sonos case, you could have speakers in a Stereo Pair or 5.1 setup, which would be better referred to in a device group as an audio group so that whole audio group could be ducked. Again useful in one room, no need for audio groups for single Sonos devices in multiple rooms....

A stereo pair is a bonded set of speakers, not a grouped set of speakers. Just for clarification in your last paragraph. I have no idea how it works technically, but I am looking forwards to a single room ducking too. I am also sure it will happen eventually.