re: Sonos vs Bose vs Definitive Tech - preference

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So I'm hijacking this thread some. I think I have this skill enabled but haven't used it much. What exactly are the commands?
I have a Playbar+Connect:AMP tied to the same room, a Play:5 in 1 room and then 2 separate play:1s in two other rooms.
When I was telling Alexa to play something, it kept doing that "There's multiple devices with that name" crap so I quit.

Suggestions?

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thats my biggest gripe as well. you have to have unique names for EVERYTHING. i have a 'den' in my house that has smart hue lights, smart ge lights, sonos playbar and a smart outlet.

nothing worked in alexa until i changed names to like "den playbar", "den hue lights", etc.

what are all your speakers named? what groups do you have?

at the moment i have these (and they work fine with alexa)
- bookshelf sonos (a play:1 that i had to add 'sonos' to the name because i have a smart plug also named 'bookshelf' )
- stereo paired play:3 with sub (named "back porch" because i like saying "alexa play groove armada radio on back porch")
- playbar (named "den playbar")

all accept most commands..but its SUPER ANNOYING when alexa misses the "on" part of the command and starts playing music through that tiny arse dot speaker instead. the problem is magnified when you've got the sonos cranked up and you're trying to talk to the dot. what happens is you end up with one radio station playing on the SONOS and another one playing on the DOT and alexa goes into frick OFF mode and won't respond to anything. you have to get that bitch to cancel just the dot music and leave the SONOS alone or cancel both and start over.


so in short, i think your issue is just a naming issue. its annoying because sonos likes to name your speaker group 'den' when you select 'den' as the room and you have to manually change it....then go into alexa and say 'alexa discover my devices' so alexa will pull in the new name.

eta the commands i use most often are

- alexa set the volume to 3 on back porch
- alexa play next track on back porch
- alexa pause music on back porch
- alexa play Billy Ray Cyrus radio on back porch

i dont use the 'alexa turn the volume up/down on back porch' too often because it seems to only go up a fraction. its easier to go from 1 to 10 as i've gotten a pretty good feel for how loud each number is.

eta2

i also like how easily alexa adds stations. if someone comes over and wants to hear something different they can say "alexa play new kids on the block radio on back porch" and if it doesn't exist alexa says "you don't have a station called new kids on the block radio; should i add one?" and if you say yes, alexa says "creating new kids on the block radio, playing on back porch".