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There seems to be a new problem that was recently introduced where music is streamed on an Amazon Echo Show instead of on Sonos speakers when Alexa is asked to play music.

 

Because of the ducking problem which lasted 12-15 seconds for all of my 10 Sonos devices, I was advised to create multiple Alexa groups and add specific echo devices to each group along with specific Sonos devices as speakers. This fixed the problem with the 12-15 second ducking occurring for all of my 10 Sonos devices and instead occurring for just the Sonos devices that are in the same group as Echo device that heard the command to play music.

 

Everything worked pretty well until a new problem started occurring in the past couple of weeks. Now, the music I ask Alexa to stream is played on one of my Echo Shows and not on my Sonos speakers. I have not changed a thing. For each Alexa group I have one or more echo devices and one or more Sonos speakers. 

 

How do I get the correct behavior back?

 

Hi ​@Claud,

I’m sorry to hear you’re having issues with Alexa on your Sonos system.

It sounds like your Amazon Echo Show is hearing the command and playing itself, rather than passing it along. When you are giving the command, are you specifying the Sonos speaker, such as “Alexa, play 80s in the Kitchen”? If you are, then I’d suggest removing and re-adding the Sonos skill in the Alexa app, then testing the commands again once you’ve done that.

I hope this helps!

Thank you for your response. In the Alexa app for the “Playback Options” I have each group set up to play “Always” so I don’t have to say the group name such as “Kitchen”. But if I do say the group name then it does play on the Sonos speaker in the group but not on all of my Sonos speakers which I have grouped together in the Sonos app. This causes all of my Sonos speakers to be ungrouped in the Sonos app, which is a pain. I always have all my 10 Sonos speakers in one Sonos group because I want the same thing to be played on all 10 Sonos speakers.

I already tried to disable and re-enable the Sonos skill in the Alexa app and this did not fix the problem.

Any other ideas?

 

 

Is “play everywhere” an acceptable “room” destination? 

I am not sure what you mean by “play everywhere”. Up until a few weeks ago when I asked to play something, the Alexa Echo device would play it everywhere because I have all 10 Sonos speakers grouped in the Sonos app. Now it only plays on an Echo Show.

Instead of “Alexa, play 80s in the Kitchen”, can you use “Alexa, play 80s everywhere”? 

I was not aware you could group Echo speakers with Sonos speakers within the Alexa app.  Can you send a screenshot of a Alexa group that includes both Echo speakers & Sonos speakers?

When I ask Alexa to stream something “Alexa, play Christmas music”, it plays on the Bedroom Echo Show and not on the Bedroom speaker which is a Sonos Play:1

 

I guess you need to add Bedroom to the request.  So say “Alexa. Play Christmas music in the Bedroom.”

If I add “Bedroom” to the request then it only plays in the bedroom and ungroups my Sonos devices which were previously grouped in the Sonos app. This is new undesirable behavior.

I just want this to work the way it used to work.

In response to nik9669a question Instead of “Alexa, play 80s in the Kitchen”, can you use “Alexa, play 80s everywhere”? 

This does not cause 80s to play in the Kitchen. The result is that Alexa responds with “I didn’t find anything called everywhere”.

 Check to see if there is a group in the Sonos app called Everywhere.  If the Sonos skill is active in the Alexa app she should be able to play the Everywhere group.

Yes, there is an Everywhere group in the Sonos app. When I ask to play music Everywhere Alexa says “I didn’t find anything called Everywhere. To play where you want, use the device name of combine speakers for multi-room music in the Alexa app.”

I cannot combine speakers in Alexa because each of my 10 Sonos speakers are already in 1 of my 6 Alexa groups.

So I combined my 6 Alexa groups into a Alexa group of groups called “Main”. The Alexa app would not let me name the group of groups “Everywhere”. When I try to name it “Everywhere” the Alexa app says “That name can’t be used, please try something different.”. 

I swear I tried creating a group of groups a month ago and was unsuccessful, something may have been fixed because today I could create the group of groups.

So after all of this, everything works the way it used to work a month ago. Ducking in only the group that heard the command works with the group of groups. So I still need the individual groups to prevent ducking everywhere and I need the group of groups to solve the Echo Show not honoring the group’s Preferred Speaker.

Sounds like a lot of work arounds to solve issues that should not exist!

I still believe there is a bug where an Echo Show overrides the Preferred Speaker setting for a group it is in. This used to work correctly a month ago where the Echo Show would honor the Preferred Speaker setting for the group it is in. I did some testing where I whispered to each of my Echo Dots that correctly honored the Preferred speaker setting for the group it is in. If the Echo Show in the same group heard the command, it did not honor the Preferred Speaker for the group. 

In summary, the Echo Show no longer honors the Preferred Speaker for the group that it is in, so a work around is necessary. This seems like an Amazon Alexa issue and not a Sonos issue. 

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