Echo Dot on Sonos Connect Line-in

1) The line-in needs to wake up first. Setting the Wake Up tone to on in the Alexa app will wake up the line-in in time to hear the responses. It's in Settings > Your Echo’s Name > Sounds. From there you can turn on 'Wake up sound, Play a confirmation sound when you wake the Echo'.

2) The setup above is not the newly announced Alexa voice control. It merely sends Alexa audio to your Connect line-in. For the actual Alexa skill, you do not need a cable and it will allow you to control audio on all of your Sonos speakers. See this link on how to setup the actual Alexa skill:

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/alexa-now-playing-on-sonos-6791301

I've got the same setup with an echo dot audio-out connected to a play5, which has been setup since last year and worked without issue. Recently (within the last week or two), when Alexa "talks" through the audio-out, the play5 is VERY quiet, but then when it plays music via spotify through Alexa, it's normal volume. So I can't hear Alexa's responses when i ask for the time or set a timer, but when i play music it sounds normal.

I understand the new skill eliminates the need for connecting through audio out, but it didn't work when I tried to use spotify as the default music player in Alexa, so I've kept is hard-wired for the time being.

Have you had any reports of this, or know what i can do to fix the issue of Alexa whispering to me except when she is playing music through audio-out?

What you're seeing John is part of a feature called Ducking. We talked about it here.

Some more work is being done on it right now, but for now, it's actually working the way it's supposed to.

jgatie wrote:

1) The line-in needs to wake up first. Setting the Wake Up tone to on in the Alexa app will wake up the line-in in time to hear the responses. It's in Settings > Your Echo’s Name > Sounds. From there you can turn on 'Wake up sound, Play a confirmation sound when you wake the Echo'.

Okay so I changed the sounds setting to the ones in the attached image, but still nothing.

it might be the ducking functionality that Ryan pointed out. If you turn it up a lot, do you hear anything? When you ask her to play music, does it play anything?

probably unlikely, but if you have the sonos paused, it won't play the audio via the audio-in either.

@johnleese I'm not playing any music at the moment via my Sonos, does that count as "paused", the volume of both my dot and my Sonos are at maximum and the receiver is fairly loud as well, normal music okay and even during setup of the dot I could hear the audio from the dot perfectly via the line in on my connect.

by paused i mean the play/pause button on the top of the unit. it toggles between play and paused (same functionality in the app). I don't have a connect to know much about any limitations on functionality or troubleshooting. I'd verify that if you unplug the audio-out from the dot, that the dot plays audio as you would expect. I'd verify that if you play music through the app to your sonos, it plays as intended. and i'd check any setting in the sonos app regarding the line-in - you want the connect to play the line-in when it's detected. (don't have the app in front of me right now). and if you have the alexa sonos skill enabled but are using the audio-out, i'd inactivate the skill (to address the ducking issue if that's what going on).

jcvangent wrote:

So I got myself an Echo dot, I connected it with an RCA-Y cable to the line in of my Sonos Connect.

No longer need to connect the Dot to Sonos via analog connection, it's done in the cloud now ( except Spotify for now).

@chicks sure but I want the audio feedback of the dot coming through my sonos and not the little speakers of the dot, hence the connection to the line-in...

Do you have the Sonos skill enabled? If so, I recommend you disable it, since it's not the configuration you want to use. By connecting the dot directly to the line-in, you're effectively saying you want your connect to just be a pass through for Alexa audio, you don't want Alexa controlling Sonos.

Also, since you're using a CONNECT, you must have a an amp/receiver that the connect is feeding. I assume you verified that the amp/receiver is set to the proper input to hear the CONNECT? If you don't set that in advance, you're essentially need both your CONNECT and amp/receiver to auto sense that dot is speaking and then turn on the input so to speak.

It's a matter of opinion for sure, but I'm not at all a fan of this sort of setup. The idea of using sonos and voice control is convenience and ease of control. This seems like a setup with too many moving parts and manual steps to work well...but that's just me.

If you want to use the Echo Dot hooked by wire to the Sonos unit then DON'T ACTIVATE the Echo Sonos skill. When you activate the Sonos skill in Alexa it will lower the volume of all the Sonos speakers in your house when you ask Alexa a command. When you have an Echo Dot physically wired to a Sonos Play:5 it is acting as the Dot's speaker. So when the Dot then tries to reply something via the Play:5 the Echo Sonos skill is lowering the Play:5 volume (something you do not want).

so deactivate the Sonos skill to use wired.

Or if you want to remove the wire then activate the Sonos skill and remove the wire (and all normal Alexa replies will then come form the Dots speaker and Sonos spekaer will only be music)

I have this issue as well, and it’s still not fixed
I have tried using the dot without the line in and it works and plays the sonos (using the skill) but I do t like the fact the dot commands all come out of the dot. It sounds awful.
I have one dot in the kitchen wired up to a connect amp, a sonos one in the lounge and an echo plus in my daughters room, I sometimes want to command though any of these to play sonos in different or multiple rooms, so if I disconnect the Sonos skill this won’t work any longer will it?
Sonos surely you must be able to fix this! It worked perfectly up to your last software update so surely you can work back on this as an issue?

If you have thrbdot connected to thenconnect amp. If you leave Sonos skill on. Consider thensotnjsut like a Sonos One. If you don’t say a room name it will play on itself to the connect amp. If you give a room name after command the Sonos skill will send the music to the alternate room.