Why do I have to specify the room name when using Alexa?

@Ken_Griffiths , whilst the iron is hot, can you check something on your system. In the Alexa App, More, Settings, Device Settings, do you see any duplicates for Sonos devices, eg on mine I see 2 speakers ‘Lounge TV’, if I click one, about says “connected via Sonos’, I assume this is via the Sonos Skill. When I clieck the other device, it has the usual Alexa device properties, description ‘Sonos Arc’ . Just wondering if this is normal?

@craigski,
There are usually three ‘devices’ in the Alexa App for a Sonos Home Theatre product created by the Sonos Skill.

There are two devices for a Sonos speaker with Alexa built in.

There is just one device for a Sonos speaker with no Alexa.

So as an example, my Lounge has a Sonos Arc called ‘Living Room’ with Alexa installed.

In the Alexa App I have these three devices for the Arc

• Living Room - this is the main speaker component
• Kens Sonos Arc - this is the Alexa component (it is often embedded inside the speaker component) I have renamed mine to ‘Sonos Living Room Alexa’
• Living Room TV - this is TV component for controlling the TV CEC volume/mute function. Obviously a normal Sonos speaker does not have this component.

Hope that assists.

@craigski,
Just to also add, the ‘Living Room’ speaker component which has the Alexa component, originally called ‘Ken’s Sonos Arc’ embedded inside it, is added to the first section of an Alexa ‘enabled’ Group to control the group, which I call Lounge in my Alexa App … it is also added to the third ‘Speaker’ section of the group (amongst other speakers). See screenshot attached… to which I’ve added some notes.

If I give a voice instruction to one of the three Alexa devices held in the Lounge Group, such as “Alexa, play Pink Floyd”*… then Alexa will group together Living Room, Portable and Fireplace and begin playback of Pink Floyd songs on the three (grouped) Sonos Rooms. 

*Note: the ‘Playback Options’ for the group need to be set to ‘Always’ in the Alexa App. It’s this that eliminates having to use the group name in the Alexa instruction.
 

Everytime I use the "Alexa” wake word too, the playing audio will ‘duck’ all Sonos speakers that are held in the first and second sections of the Alexa Group.
 

@Ken_Griffiths I found this page in my Alexa app and I’m sending a screenshot to them. When I called them they tried telling me that you always have to specify the room name. Which I knew was ridiculous because it doesn’t work that way on my Echo Pop. Now this screenshot in the app explicitly says it so we’ll see how they feel about that. 

Glad the info helps and it has always worked that way here for me.👍 I’m not sure if things differ by Country, but FWIW I’m based in the UK. However why else would there be the two playback options for such a group that say this…

It’s the reason why the group ‘Playback Options’ are set to ‘Always’.

Yes it does, thank you.

Looking closer, I also see the 3 Sonos devices in Alexa for my Arc:

‘Lounge TV’ - Speaker icon - Sonos Player in Lounge TV

‘LoungeTV’ -  Speaker Icon - Craig’s’ Sonos Arc - Alexa component

‘LoungeTV TV’ - TV icon - Sonos Player controlling TV in Lounge TV

I also see another device for the TV connected via FireTV:

‘Lounge LG TV’ - connected via FireTV - LG smart device

I also see ‘TV’ devices on the Sonos Amp, even when there is no physical TV connected.

All makes sense now 😀

Note too @craigski that its usually ‘best practice’ to uniquely name each device/room/group in the Alexa App device list, so that Alexa knows which device/room/group you’re referring to if you do incorporate a name in the voice instruction - hence my Sonos Arc has different/unique component names. So note my Alexa ‘enabled’ Group is called ‘Lounge’ rather than ‘Living Room’, just so that there is no confusion as to whether I’m referring to the speaker, or the group. So as a further example, I can ask Alexa to play music on ‘Living Room’ and in that instance the assistant will not auto-group the three rooms in the Lounge group.

Yep, as per here:

In my case Sonos device is ‘Lounge TV’ in group ‘Lounge’

Amazon sent me an email saying they’re working on it. We’ll see how long that takes. 

Hey Ken, would you mind taking a video of Alexa on your Sonos doing it’s thing and post it? Amazon support is being totally useless.