I’ve got a few Amazon Echos in the house and use them extensively. The 1st Gen Echo that I use the most in my office (the room that should be the living room) has started having intermittent issues. When using Amazon ‘Speaker Group’ called “Everywhere” (that plays on all 5 Echos throughout the house simultaneously) the living room Echo will sometimes drop out of sync with the other 4. Today while playing ‘everywhere’ it dropped offline completely and required pulling the power to get it to connect back to Amazon.
Since I am going to replace it, I started reading reviews of the 3rd Gen Echo’s and was less than impressed with what I’ve read so far. So it got me wondering if I could use the Sonos One exactly as I use the Echo Gen 1? I’d want it to be able to participate in the same everywhere speaker group, need it to respond to common requests (i.e “Alexa… what time is it?”), and be able to do the same commands that I have setup now to control Hubitat devices via the Amazon Echo skill including ones that I have setup using Amazon device groups.
Is anyone here mixing and matching Sonos and Echos?
I am in the same boat. I have Alexa TTS working but currently updating the cookie once every two weeks to keep it running. I finally have a NodeJS server running on a pi but haven’t figured out the next steps yet to get the cookie refreshing.
So I also spited the Sonos One with built in Alexa. I have played with it at Bestbuy and read some reviews, but yes have the same questions as you do.
That won't work--you can group Sonoses (Sonii?) together in the Sonos app and Echos together in the Alexa app, but you can't mix and match both in the same Echo/Alexa group. It would be great if you could.
I tried a Sonos One with built-in Alexa and ended up returning it because it didn't work as well as I wanted for that purpose. I did get an Ikea Symfonisk and keep my existing Echos, then I can switch to Sonos when I want (probably a bit better sound even on the Ikea, though I honestly don't mind the Echo) and have reliable TTS. I also ended up getting a Sonos Beam to replace what I was using for TV sound, which also replaced a seldom-used Dot in that room, and in that case, I'd consider the Sonos a big upgrade.
But last I read the kind of grouping you asked about wasn't possible (and I don't think that's changed, but if it has, I don't know how). You can set "preferred speakers" for an Echo so that it will play to a specific Sonos if you ask the Echo in that room, and there might be a way to keep the Sonos devices grouped (I only have two, but they seem to lose it if I ever address one individually), but I haven't figured that out yet.
So, my verdict is: mixed bag. But hey, good sound and reliable TTS.
Just looked last night. Still not possible. Doubt it would be any good if it was. Even the AirPlay via Symfonisk and another AirPlay device is always out of sync. Not by much, but just enough to make it intolerable.
If you have AlexaCookieJs running, then it is very simple to get the cookie refresh working.
If you aren't using pm2, then simply kill and restart the node application. If you are running pm2, use the command, "pm2 restart AlexaCookie" to restart AlexaCookie.js.
A couple of friends have the Sonos One, and while they like the Sonos sound quality, they miss out on the extra features Echo offers like calling, announcements, controlling one Alexa timer from another Echo in the house, etc.
Thanks for replying. Maybe I misspoke though. I installed the nodeJS on the pi and actually I think I left it there not knowing the next step to actually get it running. I have been following the other thread and just haven’t got back to it yet. I also saw that they think they have the issue resolved where the daily reset is not necessary. Just need the time to invest in reading. I actually pick up the pi to reprogram my Teckin SP10 sonoff plugs to work with the converted SW so I am new to pi land and not very Linux savy. Again thanks for the pointer and if I have further issues I will post on the proper thread.
Also the mic pickup is incredibly sensitive. But for some reason speech recognition isn't as good as on genuine Echos. So I'll be in one room and the Sonos One in another room will respond (and maybe because of the distance, respond inaccurately).
I think the Symfonisk is an excellent deal and the integration between Alexa and Sonos is so good, that it really makes a lot of sense to purchase a dot and Symfonisk, versus a Sonos One.
Plus you get the AirPlay 2 feature, which is a nice to have if you’re an iOS or MacOS user.
