Will Alexa work in a 5.1 Setup with playbar and Ones?

When you connect a TV. I guess you probably plan to set the speakers up by 'bonding' them together for Home Theatre Surround Sound aswell as Full stereo sound. This will combine things into one Sonos Room for example called 'Living Room' ... the Alexa devices should work in this type of setup and presumably you will keep the Alexa part of the device as your chosen Alexa Group 'Enabling' (controlling) devices and the 'Living Room' Speaker as your 'preferred' speaker.

I think however there is possibly a minor bug in the current software, as the Alexa part of a Sonos One and Beam Speaker is currently 'embedded' inside the device name of the main speaker in the Alexa App device list.. this happens when the Sonos Skill is installed, for some reason. I have reported this matter to Sonos and I believe they are currently looking into the issue.?but hopefully, all being well, this will be resolved soon, as the development around this area continues by both Sonos and Amazon.

Anyhow it should all still work for you without the need to use Room Names in your voice instruction, as long as you put the Playbar Living Room as a 'preferred' speaker in your Alexa Group.

You can always post back here later, if you do encounter any problems... either myself, or plenty of others, including Sonos Support Staff, will likely be around to answer any questions you may have..?

I take it from this thread that Alexa should be able to control a Playbar output from my LG TV? Would you confirm that plz.... as I've not been able to get voice to work for turning on my ONE to output from my TV playbar; would hate continuing banging my head against an impossible brick wall. Should you confirm its possible I'll describe my set up more completely. My goal is to use voice command to turn on my playbar output in either my "DEN" or "KITCHEN" group with the sonos play1(w/echo) & ONE as primaries respectively/separately. I dont need to turn off the output from playbar when playing the sonos separate rooms.
Thanks

I take it from this thread that Alexa should be able to control a Playbar output from my LG TV?


You probably need to be more specific than 'control' as you can use Alexa commands to control the playbar in some ways, but not others. You can change the volume, initiate streaming music, pause/resume. You cannot tell the playbar to switch input to TV audio, if that's what you mean by control.


Would you confirm that plz.... as I've not been able to get voice to work for turning on my ONE to output from my TV playbar; would hate continuing banging my head against an impossible brick wall. Should you confirm its possible


Are you saying you want to do something like "Alexa, switch to TV on playbar"? If so, no, not possible.


I'll describe my set up more completely. My goal is to use voice command to turn on my playbar output in either my "DEN" or "KITCHEN" group with the sonos play1(w/echo) & ONE as primaries respectively/separately. I dont need to turn off the output from playbar when playing the sonos separate rooms.
Thanks

Not following exactly what you mean here.

Trymph,

I would take a look at the Logitech Harmony Hub device and it’s own Alexa Skill for your TV control.. that coupled with the Sonos Skill may achieve a majority of the things you are 'possibly' looking for... but as Danny mentions, you have not been too specific in your post as to exactly what you hope to achieve.

Sonos 'automatic' Room Grouping is possible with Amazon Alexa Groups, but you may find that grouping your PlayBar with another Sonos Room for playing your TV audio, may result in audio lip-sync delays to the grouped Sonos 'Rooms’, which may create a slight echo-effect in some cases, particularly when playing a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio source.

@ ken
Yes:
Are you saying you want to do something like "Alexa, switch to TV on playbar"? If so, no, not possible...

Thanks for your replies....what i meant is just using alexa voice to activate my kitchen ONE or my den play1/echo to play audio output from my tv playbar concurrently....vs using sonos app to turn either on from list with a check mark adjacent to each....seems its not possible

@ ken...Thanks for your replies....what i meant is just using alexa voice to activate my kitchen ONE or my den play1/echo to play audio output from my tv playbar concurrently....vs using sonos app to turn either on from list with a check mark adjacent to each....seems its not possibleNo not possible with Alexa, but perhaps try this instead.... turn on the TV and let the TV audio start to play on the Playbar.

Now go over to your Play 1 (or Sonos One) Speaker in the Kitchen and keep the play button pressed... it should auto-Group your speaker with the PlayBar and output the same TV audio.

If you have other audio sources playing on Sonos, elsewhere in the home, if you keep the “play button” pressed, the Kitchen speaker will cycle through the different playing sources. Just let go when you hear the source you wish to listen to.

This at least saves you having to open the Sonos App to play your TV audio on your Kitchen Speaker and it’s a quick way to Group a Speaker with playing audio... it’s not a feature though that is currently supported via voice control.

See if that helps achieve what you were hoping to do.?

@ ken...Thanks for your replies....what i meant is just using alexa voice to activate my kitchen ONE or my den play1/echo to play audio output from my tv playbar concurrently....vs using sonos app to turn either on from list with a check mark adjacent to each....seems its not possibleNo not possible with Alexa, but perhaps try this instead.... turn on the TV and let the TV audio start to play on the Playbar.

Now go over to your Play 1 (or Sonos One) Speaker in the Kitchen and keep the play button pressed... it should auto-Group your speaker with the PlayBar and output the same TV audio.

If you have other audio sources playing on Sonos, elsewhere in the home, if you keep the “play button” pressed, the Kitchen speaker will cycle through the different playing sources. Just let go when you hear the source you wish to listen to.

This at least saves you having to open the Sonos App to play your TV audio on your Kitchen Speaker and it’s a quick way to Group a Speaker with playing audio... it’s not a feature though that is currently supported via voice control.

See if that helps achieve what you were hoping to do.?

Will try that....
did I read correctly that Beam names the TV audio as "TV" enabling alexa to allow a command like: "alexa play tv on kitchen"? If so or not would be great to be in kitchen with TV playing on my playbar and simply say same while in kitchen. Our house is open concept and i can see the tv while in kitchen or den but not hear too well w/o cranking up vol on playbar.... make it so as capt Pickard would say...thanks

That's only thing I can't do with my Echo Dot Playbar, Play:1's and Sub; "Alexa play TV". Can live with that though!.

My One lives in the Kitchen, ideal for music while cooking/ washing up!.