Prodigy III

Question

Sonos and Alexa Smart Groups Integration

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
November 3, 2017
32 replies
6884 views

So, Alexa smart groups seem to be working.

I have some smart lights and an Echo in the lounge along with a Sonos connect. In the kitchen I have more lights, another Echo and a Sonos Play:3 speaker.

I can now create Alexa enabled smart groups, which means that when I'm in a room with an Alexa device, and I've defined the other devices in that room, I can now say "Alexa, turn lights on" and only the lights in that room come on, and I don't have to say the room name, or the light's names at all.

This is a deliberate (and very good) move by Amazon to simplify the language you have to use with Alexa.

My request would be, please, please, please, can Sonos make their Alexa skill work with this? This to me would seem to be the most logical way of fixing multi-room audio ducking as there should be a way for Alexa to work out that it only needs to duck Sonos speakers in the same room, which it can now work out.

It would also be great if a Sonos device (or room group in Sonos) could be used in an Alexa enabled room by just saying "Alexa play music."

This does however lead to another issue when using Sonos with an Echo device, which is by default, if you say just "Alexa, play music", music does indeed start, but on the echo device and not the Sonos... So there needs to be some kind of device priority setting for music that allows you to choose which is the default music playing device in a room.

I know the latter is not exclusively a Sonos problem, but it would be great if Sonos could raise this with Amazon to get something like that to work. It would IMO make the whole integration far more intuitive and usable.

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jgatie

At current, 3rd party speakers are not supported by Alexa grouping. There is an AVS Multi-Room Music SDK coming early next year that will address 3rd party multi-room speakers and Alexa grouping. It remains to be seen how much Sonos can or will utilize this SDK.

See this announcement for details on the current and future APIs and SDKs pertaining to Alexa and 3rd party audio devices:

https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/7c9343ce-425b-4baa-ae63-49c36afb5341/giving-device-makers-more-ways-to-bring-voice-forward-music-experiences-to-their-products

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Ian_SAuthor

Prodigy III

This is not about 3rd party speaker grouping!!

This is about Sonos using Alexa smart groups to determine what group it is in so that for example, only Sonos speakers in the same room get ducked, or if you want Sonos as your preferred music speaker in a room, Alexa will use a Sonos speaker for music in preference to the built in speaker of an Echo device.

jgatie

This is not about 3rd party speaker grouping!!

This is about Sonos using Alexa smart groups to determine what group it is in so that for example, only Sonos speakers in the same room get ducked, or if you want Sonos as your preferred music speaker in a room, Alexa will use a Sonos speaker for music in preference to the built in speaker of an Echo device.

Which also doesn't exist today. I suggest that the title "AVS Multi-Room Music SDK" may intimate the capability to assign your Echo to a default group of one or more 3rd party multi-room speakers would be included in an SDK specifically created to address groups and multi-room speaker systems. Of course we won't know until it is released, but logic would point in that direction. One thing is for sure, we won't hear anything from Sonos about the capability except that the skill is developing and they hope to being more functionality in the future.

Sorry to bring a little light onto the situation. Next time, I'll keep quiet. :8

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Ian_SAuthor

Prodigy III

What I am talking about does exist today. Amazon have introduced it this week.

Before this week, you could not add an Echo (or Alexa enabled device) to a smart home group. Which in turn meant Alexa had no idea what other devices were closely located. So, even if you are sat in the lounge with an Echo (OR Sonos One) next to you, to turn the lights on you still had to say something like "Alexa, turn on lounge lights" else Alexa would not know what light you wanted on.

Alexa-enabled Smart groups specifically address that. Now, you can group Echo's (and perhaps a Sonos One Alexa instance) with other devices, and this includes Sonos speakers. As Alexa knows it's in a group with some lights, if you say "Alexa, turn lights on" all the lights in that group turn on. This is a far more natural way for us to interact with Alexa. It works really well.

What I am asking Sonos to do, is look to use this new function to make Sonos commands work in a similar fashion, and because Alexa can now tell what else is in the same group, it could also be used to limit ducking to only the same group, if defined...

So, I'm sorry, but you are not shedding any light on this, you are just confusing it with other things because you haven't read what was explained in the first post and have assumed you know better.

jgatie

Good grief. It exists for some smart devices, but not for 3rd party speakers. Specifically, it clearly says you can include a Multi-Room Music Group in a Smart Home Device Group:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201749250

Go to the menu, and select Smart Home.
Select Groups.
Select Add Group, and then select a group type:
Smart Home Group: Turn devices on/off, lock, and more.
Multi-Room Music Group: Stream the same music station, song, or playlist to compatible devices.

Now see how to create a Multi-Room Music Group (and the limitations therein) in this link off the above page:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202108910

Play Music on Multiple Echo Devices
Multi-Room Music allows you to play and control music across multiple, compatible Echo devices at the same time.

Compatible Devices

Echo (1st Generation)
Echo (2nd Generation)
Echo Dot
Echo Show
Echo Plus

Compatible Content

Amazon Music Unlimited (Individual plan or Family plan)
Prime Music
Amazon Music
Some third-party music providers

To create a Multi-Room Music group in the Alexa app:

From the menu, select Smart Home.
Select Groups and then Create Groups.
Select Multi-Room Music Group.
Use pre-set group names from the drop-down, or create your own with Custom Name.
Select which devices to include and then select Create Group.

Once enabled, say, "Play [music selection] on [group name]," to play your music on the selected devices.

Notice: "To create a Multi-Room Music group in the Alexa app". The ability to include a Multi-Room Music Group in your Smart groups is dependent on what Amazon defines as a Multi-Room Music Group, and right now, a Multi-Room Music Group is defined as compatible with Echo devices only. I submit to you (again!) that the new AVS Multi-Room Music SDK may address this definition, expanding it to 3rd party multi-room speakers.

Any questions?

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Ian_SAuthor

Prodigy III

Yes... I'm not talking about Echo multi-room music groups. So please stop going on about it.

You've completely ruined this thread.

jgatie

Yeah OK. I'm telling you the function you wish for is not available at this time. You can believe that or not, I couldn't care less.

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pluckyhd1

Trending Lyricist I

Woah harsh and rude. I know what the original poster is referring to it's called Alexa enabled grouping and is a new feature they just released. I wish Sonos could add this support as well. It has nothing to do with music grouping it has to do with smart home groups. Maybe you should research before chewing people out.

That being said it is likely Amazon with have to allow third part Alexa devices into smart home groups. Hopefully it comes soon

Saying Alexa lights on is so convient without saying a room or light name and it being aware of what room you are in.

UKMedia

What I am talking about does exist today. Amazon have introduced it this week.

Before this week, you could not add an Echo (or Alexa enabled device) to a smart home group.

Hi

My understanding is that this functionality is not enabled on Alexa enabled devices only on Amazon Echo devices.

Remember: Sometimes Red Wine helps :)

jgatie

Woah harsh and rude. I know what the original poster is referring to it's called Alexa enabled grouping and is a new feature they just released. I wish Sonos could add this support as well. It has nothing to do with music grouping it has to do with smart home groups. Maybe you should research before chewing people out.

That being said it is likely Amazon with have to allow third part Alexa devices into smart home groups. Hopefully it comes soon

Saying Alexa lights on is so convient without saying a room or light name and it being aware of what room you are in.

Or maybe someone should realize this is not enabled for third party speakers before chewing me out, because if you look at the above exchange the "chewing out" began with his post, not mine.

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