Can Echo And Sonos Play Together?

The Echo devices have become immensely popular due to the convenience they offer to the users. Presently, they come enabled with Alexa’s support.

However, for all its advantages, the sound quality it offers is not at par with high-quality sound systems like Sonos. For all music lovers, listening to music on a high-quality output device is of primary significance. So, many like you out there are eager to know if you can play music on Echo and Sonos together. We have good news for you! You can do this now easily if you follow some simple steps.

You may also like: What is Sonos? Here’s Everything You Need to Know About the Wireless Sound System

In this article, we will tell you how to connect your Echo and Sonos devices and play your music seamlessly across both systems. You have found your way to the right place to know how to do this, so without further ado, let us dive into the processes that you can follow to get the best music listening experience in your home by combining the smartness of Alexa using your Echo device with the best quality of sound offered by the Sonos sound systems.

Steps To Follow To Play Music On The Echo And Sonos

The first step in playing music on these two systems is to group them using the Alexa App. Here are the stepwise instructions to follow to get this done.

• Find the Alexa app on your device and start the app by tapping on the icon.

• Once you are inside, you will be able to find an icon named Devices.

• Select the Devices icon and then find a + sign which you should be able to locate on the right-hand side corner at the top of your screen. Locate and choose the Add Group option.

• At this stage, you will see that there are few names already available for you to choose from. You can select either of these or press Create a room or device group. Once you are done with the naming of the group, move to the next step by tapping the Next option.

• It is at this point that you need to add the Echo devices and Sonos speakers to this newly created group. At first, you must select the Echo devices that you intend to use to give commands for playing your choice of music.

• Scrolling down the Devices tab and press Choose speakers – you should find the Sonos speakers being displayed on the list. Select the ones you want to add to the group.

• Once you are done selecting the speakers, you need to proceed to the next step. This combination of speakers you have chosen will get saved only if you have tapped the Save icon which you can find at the bottom end of the screen. So, do not forget to press Save!

• Now come back to the main screen. You will now be displayed the group you just created in the above steps. Select the group and find the Preferred Speaker option. In this section, you should be able to see a Setup option. Select it, and you will be displayed the list of speakers you had previously added to the group.

• Tap on one or more speakers you want to make as the default option for playing music every time. You will once again find the Save option, and you know what to do to save the changes! So just click the Save button, and that’s it; you are done with setting up your Echo and Sonos devices to play music together.

Some Pointers To Get The Best Experience

• First, you should initially scan your Sonos speakers using the Alexa app and ensure that they get identified under the smart device category on the Alexa app.

• Aside from Sonos speakers, there are many smart devices in your home that you can connect to your Echo device having Alexa support. In case you feel that there are too many items listed on the Alexa enabled device having a similar type of name, then, in that case, you can go for renaming the Sonos speakers as per your convenience.

• There are some standard issues that you face when there are conflicting commands that are present in the Alexa system. For this, you can just follow the guidelines or best practices for using an Alexa device. This is because these issues are not specific to playing music together on the Echo and Sonos but needs to be followed nonetheless to get the best experience.

• If you have more than one Sonos speaker and you want to play music on more than one Sonos speaker along with Echo using the Alexa app, it is recommended that you add only one of the Sonos speakers on the device, as explained above, and selecting it as the primary Sonos speaker. To play music by connecting the rest of your Sonos speakers, you will get the best experience when you add the other Sonos speakers to the primary one using the Sonos app. You can try adding the Sonos speakers separately to the group if the number is few, but it is best to group them as explained above using the Sonos app so that any chance of sound lagging is eliminated.

• Another major issue that can be faced is the ducking situation. This situation results in the muting of the Sonos speakers across all the spots in your home. Let us discuss in detail how you can resolve this critical issue.

Ducking of Sonos

Technically known as Ducking, this issue pertains to any speakers that are not Echo or Alexa speakers. It does not matter where you place your Sonos speaker in your home, close to the Echo receiving your command or at a distance from it. You will notice that all your Sonos speakers’ output gets reduced drastically, and you can feel that it is almost as if it is on mute. This sometimes happens when you have issued a command to Alexa using your Echo speakers.

In case you have not still faced this issue, you will understand what this issue is all about if we take you through a common example. Suppose you have set up the speakers, as explained in the above section, to play music. Now, you are getting ready in your bedroom to go out shopping. You need to know what the weather is going to be outside so that you can dress suitably. You ask Alexa to use the Echo near you to tell you about the weather forecasting for the day. You will notice that while Alexa provides you with an answer, the sound on the Sonos speakers playing the music got turned down automatically to a very low level.

This was a widely faced issued till Sonos took note of it. There is a way around this issue, and we are here to tell you how to resolve this.

The best way to solve this is when you group the Sonos speakers and the Echo speakers using the steps mentioned in the earlier section of the article. Creating a group and then selecting your Sonos speakers as default music players is just the first step in this process.

You must toil through the process of grouping all the speakers and renaming them to avoid this ducking situation. If you do not do it, then you will keep facing the ducking situation.

Let’s go back to the earlier example. Suppose you have a Sonos playing in your bedroom, and it is listed on the Alexa app as Bedroom Sonos. Now, assuming that you have already grouped your Bedroom Echo with the Bedroom Sonos and a couple of other Sonos in the adjacent room. So, when you had commanded Alexa to tell you the weather, Alexa will identify the Bedroom Sonos and reduce its volume so that you can hear the weather report from Alexa. Simultaneously, the sound on the Sonos speakers in the adjacent room does not get affected.

But you will face the ducking issue if the Echo was a non-grouped one. Suppose in the above example; there is no Sonos speaker in the bedroom. Your family is listening to music on Sonos in the adjacent room. The sound on those speakers will get ducked by Alexa while you get the answer to your command on the Echo device in your bedroom.

You can use multiple permutations of grouping the sound devices to get a suitable solution:

• The best solution to this problem is by creating a group in which all Echo devices are added, which were previously left ungrouped. You can rename the other Echo devices to give them a unique identity.
• You can also go for grouping for every room where one or more Sonos speakers are present, but the Echo is absent.
• You can also go for grouping all the Sonos speakers that you do not want to connect with the Echo and want to play the music separately.

Further reading: What Is The Amazon Echo Dot? Everything You Need To Know About Amazon’s Compact Smart Speaker

And finally, if you are missing one of those two speakers, you can go to Amazon to choose a suitable Echo and Sonos speaker for your home.