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Contributor I
Oct 28, 2026 5:59 AM UTC
Question

Can Alexa voice commands switch between overlapping groups of Sonos Amps?

 

Hi everyone,

I’m planning a whole-home audio system and I’m trying to work out whether Sonos can do exactly what I want before committing to the installation.

My plan is to have six indoor Sonos Amps, each powering four in-ceiling speakers in a different room, plus a garden bar audio zone using a Sonos Port connected to a Denon AVR.

I’ll have an Alexa Echo in each room for voice control. Ideally, I want to be able to say things like:

  • “Alexa, shuffle my music inside the flat” — plays through all six indoor Sonos Amp zones.
  • “Alexa, play my playlist throughout the entire flat” — plays through all six indoor zones plus the garden bar.
  • “Alexa, play music in the bathroom” — plays through the bathroom’s ceiling speakers.

The main thing I’m trying to achieve is switching between these groups entirely by voice, without needing to open the Sonos app every time.

My questions are:

  1. Can Alexa target Sonos Amps as playback devices while the Echo devices act as the microphones for voice commands?
  2. Can the same Sonos Amps effectively be included in two different Alexa groups, such as “Inside the Flat” and “Entire Flat”, with the garden bar included only in the latter?
  3. If I ask Alexa to play music on either group, will the Sonos rooms play in sync?
  4. Is there a reliable way to switch between these two overlapping groups using Alexa voice commands, without manually grouping and ungrouping rooms in the Sonos app?
  5. Has anyone actually tested this setup, or found a workaround that works reliably?

I understand that Alexa Smart Home groups and Alexa Multi-Room Music groups aren’t necessarily the same thing, and that Sonos has its own grouping system. I’m trying to establish whether there’s a way to make this work reliably with Sonos before I commit to buying six Amps.

AirPlay 2 and phone control are also important to me, so Sonos is still appealing even if I need to use the app as a fallback.

Thanks!

1 reply

melvimbe
Oct 28, 2026 6:26 PM UTC

It’s been years since I’ve used Alexa to control Sonos (I prefer SVC), but it does look like Alexa group can still handle this setup.

1 - Yes.  You can even tell Alexa that requests to play music will play a sonos device(s) by default without naming the speaker.  You cannot have Alexa speak to you through Sonos speakers (unless Alexa is onboard one of the Sonos speakers with mics).

2 - Yes, just did a quick look in the Alexa app and it looks like it can.

3 - Yes.

4 - You can initiate playback/pause with Alexa no problem.  What you cannot do is having music currently playing in one room (or group) moved to another room without restarting.  You can do this with SVC, but not Alexa.

5 - I used to do this with Alexa all the time, so yes?

Worth noting that it sounds like you may have you Denon DVR connect to a TV audio source.  I don’t think you’ll be able to use an Alexa command to have TV playback to a multiple rooms, although you can with SVC.  And you are correct that Amazon has their own multiroom audio system where echos play connect in sync.  Sonos does not play along with that.

 

Airplay will work, but Apple has to be the source, so you won’t be able to play TV content via airplay.

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Danny