Renaming issue using Alexa smart home groups and Sonos

Regardless if the Alexa app allows it or not it would be bad practice from a voice control perspective to have the same name used for different things even if those things are in different classes. The reason is that it makes it difficult to form functional voice commands that do not get confused about what you are referencing because of insufficient context cues.

Some good guidelines would be:

Reserve Room names and other general references for group labels.

If the name uses multiple words then the first word should be unique. "Desk Lamp" and "Desk Fan" will not be as reliable as "Work Lamp" and "Desk Fan" for example.

Avoid excessively short or excessively long names. You will soon run out of ideas if you try to do only one syllable names and they may sound similar enough to cause incorrect responses. Extremely long names seem to get misheard a lot. Either part of the name isn't heard correctly or pronunciation is more likely to vary and cause confusion.

I put ‘My ...’ in front of the Smart home group name... it’s very easy to have multiple names imported into Alexa that are the same. Before they could all be controlled together this made sense. Now you have to rethink based on the commands you want to say.

upstatemike - Mind sharing your best practices on this? Perhaps with one of your real world examples?

I put ‘My ...’ in front of the Smart home group name... it’s very easy to have multiple names imported into Alexa that are the same. Before they could all be controlled together this made sense. Now you have to rethink based on the commands you want to say.

This is a good idea so you basically created a room name called "My living room", for instance. That is food for thought.

upstatemike - Mind sharing your best practices on this? Perhaps with one of your real world examples?

The Automation Group for the Living Room is called "Living Room"

The Alexa Audio Group that includes the Living Room is called "Downstairs"

There are a pair of S5s on the living room fireplace mantel wired to an Echo Dot called "Mantel". It is part of the "Downstairs" Audio Group

The living room is mostly used for formal entertaining so the lights are called "Formal Lighting". "Formal Lighting" is included in the "Living Room" automation group.

There is a lamp on the end table called "End Table Lamp". It is also part of the "Living Room" automation group.

Alexa does not seem to get confused about what device or group I am using in a command with this setup. If instead I had called the living room lights "Living Room Lights 1" and the end table lamp "Living Room Lights 2" and kept the automation group name at "Living Room" and called the Echo Dot "Living Room Echo" then I would expect Alexa to get confused, especially if there is background noise or I happen to mumble or am across the room.

Just to put my input in, I've renamed all of the Sonos players by adding SONOS to end of each, this ensures a clear distinction (e.g. Kitchen Sonos, Lounge Sonos, etc) and means that your Alexa group name can be shorter (e.g. Group 'Kitchen' contains Kitchen Echo, Kitchen Main & Kitchen Background lights and Kitchen Sonos)

Just to put my input in, I've renamed all of the Sonos players by adding SONOS to end of each, this ensures a clear distinction (e.g. Kitchen Sonos, Lounge Sonos, etc) and means that your Alexa group name can be shorter (e.g. Group 'Kitchen' contains Kitchen Echo, Kitchen Main & Kitchen Background lights and Kitchen Sonos)

The first rule of thumb is try it and see if it works. If this setup works for you then you are golden. Best Practices just help to figure out what could be causing problems when things do go wrong.I would hesitate to follow your example only because I have had problems with some aspects of your method:

Having a name that is the shorter version of a different name seems like a good opportunity for confusion. A group called "Kitchen" and a player called "Kitchen Echo" could be a problem if Alexa missed the "Echo" part of the name and thought you were trying to do something with the group. Likewise if you had Sonos players called "Connect" and "Connect Amp" you stand a pretty good chance of the wrong player responding to a voice command.

When Alexa listens to a command it has to narrow the device reference down to the specific device you are trying to operate, The sooner it hits a unique identifier the more reliable the identification and less chance for confusion. Having multiple names with the same first word just adds to the steps Alexa must go through to get to something unique.

Having duplicate words later in the name is not as bad because Alexa has already narrowed the list some based on the first word(s) but it still can cause a problem if the first part of the name is not understood clearly and you can get a response like "I found multiple devices with the name lights" or something similar.

It might be worth asking yourself if you really need to include "lights" or 'Sonos: or "Echo" in the name if there is an alternative or if it is already obvious what you are referring to. Alternatives like lighting, sconces, spots, walls, track, ceiling, music, audio, etc. can provide more uniqueness for Alexa while still making sense to the person speaking.

There is no single naming convention that will work for every situation but if you think about the idea of making a name unique as early in that name as possible then you will likely improve the chances of your commands being processed accurately.

Just to put my input in, I've renamed all of the Sonos players by adding SONOS to end of each, this ensures a clear distinction (e.g. Kitchen Sonos, Lounge Sonos, etc) and means that your Alexa group name can be shorter (e.g. Group 'Kitchen' contains Kitchen Echo, Kitchen Main & Kitchen Background lights and Kitchen Sonos)

I had thought of doing this, but I stopped since I wasn't sure how the "living room" room would work as "living room sonos" doesn't fit as there is a character limitation. How did you rename it? Did you rename is something like "LR sonos"? If so, how do you call to alexa to play in the living room sonos? Something like this "alexa, play blah in LR sonos"?

I did want to mention that i have entered a feedback into amazon and they responded like below. I know there is a chance they may not understand what the problem is, but maybe they agree that this naming issue shouldn't happen.


"Hello Miguel,

I'm sorry to know that Alexa app doesn't let you to create a new room called “living room.

I regret to inform you that we are receiving lots of customers having the same query and the basic troubleshooting is not working for this issue. Hence, we have informed it to our technical team. Our technical team is aware of this issue and working on a fix. The reference number of the same is 0129081756

However, I've also reported your concern to our technical team, and they're working on taking care of it. Errors like this are usually corrected shortly after they're reported.

I would kindly request you to please wait a little longer so that it will help us to complete our research, there are times that it may take us a little longer as it is in this case. I truly apologize for this delay."

Hi Upstatemike

Very valid points and I understand your logic ?

The only problem I get is if I ask Alexa to switch Kitchen Main lights on she also turns the Kitchen Background lights on. (I've tried to adopt a standard naming of Main and Background throughout the house and this issue only occurs in the Kitchen) I don't think this is a recognition issue and it's not causing me enough of a problem to change things as yet.