How to play music on multiple amazon echo speakers (like a sonos)
Playing music around the house with your Alexa speakers just got a lot better. Here’s how to set it up.
Taylor Martin has covered technology online for over six years. He has reviewed smartphones for Pocketnow and Android Authority and loves building stuff on his YouTube channel, MOD. He has a dangerous obsession with coffee and is afraid of free time.
While Amazon’s Alexa speakers are capable of controlling your home, helping you cook dinner and order things without lifting a finger, the speakers especially excel at streaming music. However, until recently, Alexa speakers haven’t played well together. Having multiple Echo or Echo Dots spread around the house was more like having several independent speakers instead of satellite speakers that communicate and work in unison.
Added in June, the Drop In feature allows users to call one another using supported Echo devices and, within a household, the feature effectively turned a network of Echo devices into an intercom system.
Now, if you have multiple Echo speakers, you can use them to control music playback around your house, a la Sonos . In fact, this new feature could be indication that the release of the rumored Alexa-powered Sonos speaker is nigh.
To play music on another Echo speaker, you’ll need either the Echo, Echo Dot or Echo Show ($34 at Amazon) . (The feature is not yet available with the Tap or the Look .) Then, just add the name of the speaker you want to play music through to the end of your request. For example:
- “Alexa, play folk music on bedroom.”
- “Alexa, play focus music in the office.”
- “Alexa, play Band of Horses in the living room.”
- “Alexa, play Criminal podcast in the kitchen.”
With that said, it’s a smart idea to rename your Alexa speakers to something that is easy to remember and pronounce — ideally, the name of the room the speaker is in.
Asking for an audiobook to play “in the bedroom” queued a questionable sample.
Currently, remote playing only works with music and podcasts. We tested audiobooks and having Alexa read Kindle books, but these commands seemed to confuse Alexa. Saying, “Alexa, play ‘A Game of Thrones’ in the bedroom,” simply played the audiobook on the speaker used to request it. And asking something like, “Alexa, play my audiobook in the bedroom” appeared to interpret “in the bedroom” as describing the book, which queued up some questionable audiobook samples.
You can also use any Alexa speaker to control the music playback on other speakers around the house, by saying things like:
- “Alexa, next song in the bedroom.”
- “Alexa, stop on kitchen.”
- “Alexa, play in the office.”
Unfortunately, these remote commands won’t work for volume control. Instead, you’ll have to adjust volume on speakers by talking directly to them, manually turning the light ring or pressing the volume buttons, or through the Music Playback tab in the Alexa app (Android, iOS).
Like with a Google Home ($54 at Walmart) or Sonos speaker, you can also stream music to multiple rooms at once. To do this, you will need to create an Audio Group. Open the Alexa app and go to Settings > Multi-Room Music. Choose a group name from the drop-down menu, select which devices you want to add to the group and click Create Group at the bottom. Then to queue up music on your group of speakers, just ask for the group name, such as, “Alexa, play Fleet Foxes everywhere.”
If you already have some Sonos speakers in your house, they will also play nicely with Alexa in the near future .
Editors’ note, Aug. 29: Updated to reflect Alexa update with multiroom audio playback.
David Nield
Our smart speakers continue to get smarter over time, and one of the features recently added to the kit made by Amazon and Google is support for multi-room audio — in other words, the option to play the same tunes in multiple rooms at once. Here’s how to set it up with a group of Amazon Echos, Google Homes, or Sonos smart speakers.
There are various tweaks and caveats to bear in mind depending on the type of system you’re using, which we’ve mentioned below. Overall though, the setup procedure isn’t difficult to manage, and you can easily edit your speaker configuration whenever you need to (should you shift one speaker to a different room, for example).
Amazon Echo
Once you’ve got your Echo plugged in and showing an orange light on the top, you need to fire up the Alexa app for Android or iOS and choose Settings then Set up a new device from the main app menu. Follow the instructions on screen to get the Echo connected, then repeat the process for all the smart speakers you’ve got (note that third-party Alexa-enabled speakers aren’t supported).
To get your choice of music platforms added, go to Settings then Music & Media – just tap on any of the services you see, such as Spotify, to enter your login credentials and get the service working with your Echo devices. Tap Choose default music services to pick which one is started up automatically in response to a voice command.
Next, choose Settings again and pick Multi-Room Music under the Audio Groups heading. Either pick from one of the presets (like “Dining Room”) or enter a custom name and tap Next — the following screen lets you pick from all the Echos you’ve set up. Tap Save and you’re just about ready to go.
Now you can tell Alexa to play music just as you normally would, except you add in the name of the new group of devices you’ve just configured: So “Alexa, play Phoebe Bridgers downstairs” would work, for example (just drop in whichever artist you want to listen to). Your new group appears under the Smart Home entry in the Alexa app menu and can be edited from there.
Use the normal commands – like “Alexa, stop” – or the Alexa app to control playback, and your actions will take effect across all the speakers in the group. Note that if you want to play different music on different speakers or groups of speakers at the same time, you need an Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan.
Google Home
Setting up a Google Home speaker couldn’t be much more straightforward: You plug it in, wait for the welcome message to sound, then load up the Google Home app for Android or iOS. Inside the app, you should see a “device found” message at the top, so just tap Set up and follow the instructions. Repeat the process for your other Google Home speakers.
You’ll get prompted to add various music services during the setup process, but you can edit them at any time by choosing Music from the main menu in the Google Home app — just tap on the music service provider name to add it, and check the box next to the one you want to use by default (the one that gets used unless you specify another).
That’s enough to play music on one Google Home. To link them together, open the Google Home app and tap the Devices button in the top right-hand corner. Tap the menu button (the three dots) on one of the devices you want to group together, then choose Create group — give the group a name, pick the speakers and devices to include in it, then tap the Save button.
After a few seconds, this new group appears as a separate card inside the Google Home app – you can then control the group with voice commands or cast the audio from an app to it just as you can to an individual speaker. Note that Chromecast audio devices can be added to a group as well as Google Home speakers.
With that done, just talk to the group as you would a normal Google Home speaker: Say “hey Google, play rock on upstairs”, or “hey Google, play next song on upstairs”, or “hey Google, set volume to 40 per cent on upstairs”, for example.
Sonos
Sonos has of course been in the multi-room streaming game longer than Amazon or Google have, and everything is very easy to set up — though you want have any voice control. With your Sonos speaker plugged in, download the Sonos app for Android or iOS, then choose Set up a new Sonos system when you’ve launched the app. Follow the instructions on screen to configure the speaker for use, and repeat for any other Sonos speakers you’ve got.
Sonos is geared for multi-room audio right from the bat, so you can just hit the speakers button at the bottom of the playback window, then select multiple speakers to hear your tunes on all of them at once, no further configuration required. Or, just select the speakers downstairs, or the speakers upstairs… it just takes a few taps.
If you have more than one Sonos speaker in the same room, then you can group them: Inside the Sonos app, tap the Rooms tab, then tap Group next to one speaker — pick the other speakers in the same room, then Done to confirm. You can have multiple groups and jump between them.
The Sonos software includes some neat tricks that show it still has an edge over Google and Amazon. You can, for example, stop playback in one room and pick it up from the same point in another — just tap the speakers button on the playback window, tick the room you’re going into and untick the room you’re leaving, and off you go.
It’s also possible to link two speakers together in stereo configuration, if needed. Tap More then Settings and Room Settings: Pick your first speaker, then choose Create Stereo Pair, and select the second speaker. You’ll need to press the volume buttons as prompted to show which speaker is on the left, then you’re good to go.
Having three different Echo devices on offer, Amazon keeps rolling out new skills and features for their smart home system. With the eminently affordable Echo Dot, chances are that you might already have a couple of these around your house.
One of the standard features on Echo Dot is the ability to stream music directly to the device. That’s pretty cool, but not unheard of. Bluetooth speakers do that all the time, right?
Well, the tune changes when you have multiple Dots in your network. Now you can play music on all of them. At the same time!
With the feature intuitively called “Multi-Room Music”, all your Echo devices will be able to play music simultaneously. Of course, to use this Alexa skill, you’ll have to set it up first.
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Requirements
Besides Echo Dot, Multi-Room Music works on both Amazon Echo and Echo Show devices as well. But, they all have to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
To be able to stream music in this setup, you need to be subscribed to Amazon Prime Music or Amazon Music Unlimited services. Prime allows you to stream music on all supported Echo devices at the same time. And if you have Unlimited Music coupled with a Family Plan, you’ll even be able to stream separately to multiple speaker groups.
For example, you can have one stream playing in your kitchen and dining room, while having totally different music playing upstairs.
Multi-Room Music also supports streaming services other than Amazon’s own, such as Spotify, Pandora, TuneIn, SiriusXM, and iHeartRadio. Curiously enough, you won’t be able to play audiobooks, or audio from Alexa skills.
Unsupported Devices
It’s worth noting that Multi-Room Music isn’t supported outside the three Echo devices mentioned above. That means it won’t work on Echo Tap and Fire TV, or any third-party speakers made for Alexa.
Bluetooth connection isn’t supported either, but you can connect such speakers to your Echo Dot over an audio cable ending with 3.5 mm jacks.
Enabling Multi-Room Music
First thing to do is to install the Alexa app on your mobile device. You can download it from any of the popular stores, depending on the type of smartphone or tablet you’re using: Google Play, Apple, Microsoft, or Amazon Appstore. If you already have the Alexa app installed, make sure that you’ve installed the latest update.
Next, you can start setting up the Multi-Room Music feature.
- Open the Alexa app.
- Tap “Smart Home Control” in the bottom right corner.
- Tap the “Plus” sign in the top right corner.
- Tap “Add Multi-Room Music Speakers”.
- Select the group to which you’d like to add your Echo devices.
- Tap on each device icon to add it to this group.
Please note, to have the Multi-Room Music feature working, it’s necessary to organize your speakers in a group. If you don’t have the group created already, you can do it from the menu in Step 5. When creating the group, you’ll see the list of the available Echo speakers. To avoid confusion in the Alexa system, a single speaker can’t be added to more than one group.
If you want to remove a speaker from a group, you can do it in a few easy steps:
- Open the Alexa app.
- Tap “Smart Home Control”.”
- Go to the “Speaker Group” section.
- Tap the group name of the speaker you’d like to remove.
- Tap “Unpair Speaker System”.
- Tap the speaker name to remove it.
Playing the Music
With the setup completed, you can start streaming using the voice commands on any of the connected speakers. Just say “Alexa, play music on [Echo group name]”.
To stop the stream, say “Alexa, stop playing on [Echo group name]”. The stop command also enables you to stop the Multi-Room stream, so that you can play music on a single speaker or on a different speaker group.
If you want to play music from a specific artist say “Alexa, play [artist name] on [Echo group name]”. This command works with albums and playlists as well.
To play radio stations available on the Pandora service, say “Alexa, play [radio station name] on Pandora on [Echo group name]”.
Also, if you’ve started the stream from one speaker, you can stop it on any other speaker in that group. For example, you wake up in the morning and start playing the Multi-Room Music from your bedroom. When you get ready for work and you’re about to leave the house, you can stop the music from the Echo device in your entrance hall. Hey, that’s right, you just had your favorite music follow you through the house all the time!
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Multi-Room Music is a great and very affordable solution when you want your favorite beats banging all over the house. This also comes in handy if you’re listening to the breaking news on a radio station and don’t want to miss a second while going from room to room.
Did you have a chance to try Multi-Room Music? Do you perhaps have some tips to share? Please leave your comment in the section below.
