How to Use Multi-Room Music with the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Show

retciv14

Prominent
Sep 2, 2017
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They need to have the Dot's support this through BT speakers - my Dot's are across the rooms from the BT speakers I pair them with. No one wants to hear whole house music through the crappy built-in Dot speakers.
 

hottrod1971

Prominent
Oct 5, 2017
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These never work. I have 4 dots and never more than one or two will actually play sound... If you ask "Alexa" What is playing, she tells you the song on the group that you hear in maybe one or two rooms top, but there is no sound. I have them all in a single "Group".
 

jpwhitehome

Prominent
Oct 15, 2017
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Thanks for pointing out the limitation with multi-room audio and bluetooth speakers. I thought something was wrong with my BT speakers when using multi-room audio for the first time.

Dern. I thought I had eliminated wires by using bluetooth speakers.

I presume the Echo's use bluetooth exclusively to pull off the synchronization.
 

greendivide

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Dec 27, 2017
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One dumb thing they need to fix. Multi group music only allows you to have a device in a single group. So if you have a group called "downstairs" and another called "upstairs", you can't then create a group called "everything" which would have both upstairs and downstairs echo/dot devices.

Dumb. Sometimes I'll want to play music upstairs. And other times downstairs, depends on where I am in my house. And sometimes I might want the whole house booming.

If you try to make this happen, youll quickly find that any new group can only attach devices which aren't already assigned to any group.

70% there, Amazon. Keep at it!
 

dotmpp1216

Prominent
Jan 5, 2018
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Like that Little Orphan Annie decoder ring that just decides commercial messages...

No BT with a Dot in a group... :-0

Fortunately my BT is within an Aux Cable distance to my Dot. Now it works on both my Dot and the Echo.

However I did the first test using the Ambient Sounds: Morning Sounds skill, which the article indicates you can’t do: stream from and audio skill. Maybe there’s been an update since the article was written?

They have to figure out how to do this over WiFi (probably hard to sync multiple devices up, but there’s an iPad/iPhone app called Amp Me which figured out how to do it) Go buy them Jeff!!!
 

rateeluck

Prominent
Jan 7, 2018
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Looking for a way to start listening to music on one device and switch midway to multi-room (my "everywhere" group). Is this an available skill? I've found that while my husband is listening to music downstairs, and a song that I want to hear comes on, I want to listen to the same song upstairs as well. Currently, I can't seem to get Alexa to figure this out. If I say "play music everywhere" then my command upstairs overrides the existing music downstairs and a new station starts playing on my Everywhere group.
 

spliffeh

Honorable
Oct 10, 2012
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10,510


This kind of thing drives me nuts too, Alexa sucks at dealing with groups. Here is my conversation with Alexa every single day:

- Me: Alexa play AM 640 on the everywhere group
- Alexa: What do you want to hear?
- Me: AM 640!!!
- Alexa: Okay. AM 640 playing on the everywhere group.

That's just one example, she has all kinds of issues.... I might return her before it's too late.... Is Google Home any better at this?

 

dennisdebow

Prominent
Feb 3, 2018
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Trying to link echo and echo dot,will not recognize the group,worked once then stopped. I have another group set up and no problems. I have tried resetting and starting over still will only play one or the other but not both??? Frustrated!!
 

rateeluck

Prominent
Jan 7, 2018
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This is the exact setup that I have: Echo in living room (downstairs) Dot in bedroom (upstairs). The only group I have set up is “everywhere”. I named the echo “downstairs” and I named the dot “upstairs”. If I am downstairs I can tell Alexa to play music without specifying “downstairs” and the same goes upstairs. Alexa’s proximity sensors will know where you want to play the music. You can also control volume on either unit from either unit by using the name of the device: I may be upstairs and the music downstairs is too loud, so I’ll say “Alexa, turn down the volume downstairs.” It works. Here’s the thing. If you are already playing music from Amazon Music, Alexa will tell you that music is streaming elsewhere, do you want to stream from here instead? Your answer should be Yes - then you can play music from two different echos with the proximity controls dictating which device Alexa will control. Also, you have to be logged into the same Amazon account on both devices for this to work. If you reset, log in on your Alexa app first before trying to set up your second device.
 

rateeluck

Prominent
Jan 7, 2018
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Yeah, Alexa’s lexicon is pretty limited. You have to say exactly the right combination of words to trigger the action. I always have to remind my husband the “right” way to say something and he hates it! Lol. Despite these flaws, I chose to go with the Alexa ecosystem because of the Phillips lights and overall universal compatibility with other smart things - makes everything totally worth it for me; I LOVE the voice commands for lighting - when my hands are full, as a wake up alarm, and definitely the sundown dimming. Sorry I don’t know anything about the google home experience.

 
Dec 8, 2018
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So why wont whole home music work with regular bt speakers? I have a 3rd gen echo dot and a bt speaker but it doesn't show up to create a group.
 
Dec 26, 2018
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Multi room audio apparently now supports Bluetooth speakers through the dot, not just line out, you might want to update.