Sonos sound not ducking

What is/are the types of Alexa device(s) involved here and which type (and how many) Sonos speakers/rooms are you looking to have duck their audio? It’s not clear from your post, if you are talking about “Sonos Ones” (for example) with built-in Alexa, or other types of devices?

I have 2 Sonos 3 and 2 Sonos 5 speakers in a total of 2 rooms. Sound always “ducked” until recently; Amazon Alexa forums seem to think it’s a Sonos issue.  

So presumably the 3’s and 5’s are each ‘stereo paired’ and in two Sonos rooms (perhaps?), but are these speakers in the actual same physical room within your home, or separate?  .. and do you want them ALL to duck their audio at the same time?

I’m sorry to keep clarifying things with you, but your post is still not clear and I also will need to know how many/what type of Alexa devices do you have?

I can 'likely' help you to quickly resolve the issue, but you need to be a little more specific please.

Thanks for your response.  two pairs of speakers for stereo, are each in 2 different rooms, in the same home.  I have basically 3 types of Alexa devices….2 Echos, one is the earlier tall version, a dot, and I’m not sure what the other is called, but it’s like a sphere with a screen on it.  

Yes, I’d like all of the 4 Sonos devices to duck at the same time.

Funny thing is, they were all ducking when I gave an Alexa command until a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks-

Hi, there were some recent improvements made to Alexa ducking that may be what you’re seeing here.  These changes will allow only the players in an Alexa Group to duck when you call for Alexa, even if the input device is an Echo. In the Alexa app, check what your room groups show, but the behavior should be that any speaker in the Alexa Group with the Alexa enabled device will duck, but speakers in other rooms won’t.

More details on Alexa grouping can be found here. 

Yes, I wondered if the “improvements” were part of the problem; but actually each pair of speakers is already part of a group called “Everywhere”…..

Does “Everywhere” have an Alexa enabled speaker assigned to it as the input?

I’m relatively new to all this, but what I have are Sonos speakers (series 3 and 5 which do not have the Alexa capability) that I control with Alexa.  Are you suggesting I add an Amazon Echo to the group, for example? If so, would the Echo have to actually be active (plugged in)?

Thanks for your help

In the Alexa app, under Groups the first option when you edit an existing group is to “Add an Alexa-Enabled device for simpler control of your smart home devices.” The behavior should be that whenever the device added in there hears you call for Alexa, all other speakers listed in the group as “preferred speakers” will drop in volume.

Taveller,

Here is an example of an Amazon Group… called 'Kitchen' (See Below):

On speaking any voice command to the (controlling) Echo Dot called “Alexa Kitchen Hub” the two Sonos speaker rooms called ‘Breakfast Bar” and “Utility” will both duck their audio and because they are also the Groups”preferred” speaker in the last section of the group, if your were to say to this.... “Alexa, play some Music” to the same controlling “Alexa Kitchen Hub” device, then both those Sonos rooms will automatically group together and play the requested music.

So you just need to setup your own ‘controlled’ Groups in your Amazon Alexa App to suit your setup requirements.

i hope that brief and simple Alexa Group example, helps you to understand how it works and will enable you to resolve your audio ducking issues.