Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
It is possible to have your Echo play music through Sonos by default
Sick of hearing your favourite song being played through your Echo Dot’s little speaker, when you actually wanted Alexa to beam it over to your Sonos? Then we’ve got some great news that you might not have known. It’s possible to associate Amazon Echo devices with Sonos speakers – even the old, non-Alexa, ones – through the Alexa app; creating groups where the Sonos speakers are the default music playback for a command heard by your Echo devices.
Previously, if you had, say, an Echo Dot in the kitchen along with a Sonos Five and you wanted to start the party, you’d have to say something like, “Alexa, play Arcade Fire, in the kitchen.” You can now ditch that extra bit, and simply say, “Alexa, play Arcade Fire,” with the output coming directly from the Sonos speaker. Be aware; this is not using Sonos speakers as part of a multi-room Alexa system. That’s not possible at the moment.
What you’ll need
- The Alexa app
- An Echo speaker
- Sonos speakers
- Your smartphone and tablet
The short version
- Open the Alexa app.
- Tap on the ‘+’ in the top right corner.
- Select ‘Group‘.
- Tap on ‘Create a room or device group‘ and tap ‘Next‘.
- Name your room or device group, like ‘Kitchen music’ and hit ‘Next‘.
- Select the Sonos speaker(s) you want to include in the group.
- Choose the Echo device you want to drive the Sonos speaker and tap ‘Next‘, then ‘Done‘.
- On the ‘Devices’ tab in the Alexa app, swipe across to find the group you just created and tap on it.
- Tap on ‘Change‘ under Speakers.
- Scroll down, past all your Echo and Sonos speakers, to where it says ‘Playback Options‘ and tap ‘Change‘.
- Then choose ‘Always‘ to make your Sonos speaker your default speaker (without the need to define it with a voice command).
You can choose more than one Sonos speakers when creating a group. To avoid any possibility of lag or latency however, we recommend sticking to grouping Sonos speakers together within the Sonos ecosystem. You could however give it a try if you often have a pair of speakers in sync.
For all the above (and the more detailed steps below) we’re assuming you’ve already had Alexa discover your Sonos speakers and they are all listed as smart home devices within the app. A little tip though – if you’re finding that you’ve got too many things called the same name (eg lights, speakers and Echos all called ‘Living room’) then it’s a good idea to rename the Sonos speakers in the Alexa app.
You might have the odd issue if there is a particular skill that clashes with a command. For example, “Alexa, play KEXP,” worked perfectly – the indie radio station came straight through our Sonos Five. However, “Alexa, play BBC Radio 6 Music,” got Amazon’s digital assistant in all sorts of bother – with it trying to get us to download the BBC Sounds skill and the radio station coming out via the Echo Show the command was made to.
That’s it! The next time you ask your chosen Echo speakers to play something, the playback will happen automatically through the Sonos speaker you have selected.
FAQs
The good news is that creating these groups prevents the annoying situation of your Sonos speakers being muted in the whole house, when an Alexa command is made in another room.
When a Sonos speaker is associated with an Echo device, or a collection of Echo devices, within a group in the Alexa app, then commands made to that specific Echo device will only cause the music on the Sonos in that group to ‘duck’.
