Policy Change?

[ratwayd]

I have two Echo Dots, one by my Pool and one in my Living room. I used to be able to listen to my Music by the Pool at the same time My Wife listened to her Music in the Living room. Now If I ask my Pool Echo to play my Music while the Living room Echo is playing her Music it asks if I want to stream my Music to my Pool Echo instead. The same happens from either Echo. This renders my second Echo useless.

[asianrocker]

You people can't be pleased. This feature not policy was added coz most people want multi room capabilities.

OP on the other hand doesn't like it. Amazon is to blame though. They don't seem to have an option if you want it or not.

I guess they don't know how to use the if.. else if command. Which reminds me of my instructor when she asked me. What if the user doesn't want to exit. I said oh they do. So Amazon programmers go back to school.


Though it did ask you if you want to play on the other room. Did you say no and what happened. I guess it didn't if you say it's useless.

[strayfish]

Not what I'd call the most helpful response but I agree, it's most likely due to the new multi-room feature. As I understand it (and I'm not using it myself), you define a group in the app and then, when you want to stream your music (it doesn't work for radio stations, I've tried that), you tell it to do so by using the name you gave the group. If you somehow got confused and gave your group the same name as your device, then I'm guessing it would respond by directing the music to where you gave the command. I'm not entirely clear from what you said whether or not the indoor Echo streamed your wife's music outdoors and shut off the indoor one or just streamed the same to both devices. Either way, I'd say it's the multi-room thing and you maybe need to look into that to see what it's up to.

[StevenR]

As I understand it, this is a change in policy which happened to also coincide withe the introduction of multi room audio.
It used to be possible to play different music simultaneously on multiple Echos with a standard Amazon Music Unlimited plan, but this appears to be a loophole which was closed when multi room audio was introduced. You now need to pay for the more expensive Family plan for this to work.

[ratwayd]

I have had many communications regarding this issue with Amazon and in the early days of this issue they didn't know what happened. I have since learned that if I pay more Money for the Unlimited Music Account I can have different Music on separate Devices simultaneously. It's a Money Grab and I feel for those of you who purchased many of these devices and no longer have the ability to play Soothing Music in the Babies Room and Rock n Roll in the Garage at the same time. Here's what I just received from Amazon: I'd like to inform you that, you can stream music simultaneously and both the devices but for that you need to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan. I've checked and I see that you were not subscribed to this and were able to play music simultaneously on both your devices, this is due to a bag which was rectified recently and hence you were not able to stream music simultaneously on both the devices.

Without this subscription if you try to play music on multiple devices at the same time using the same account, you will be given a choice on which device to use(as it will the music is streaming on other device).

[mike27oct]

Lots of reasons not to subscribe to Amazon nor Google Home music.  I sure don't.  Learn to use TuneIn and iHeart radio more often, or learn how to get your own music collection to play on these devices.  I do both.

[jwlv]

Lots of reasons not to subscribe to Amazon nor Google Home music.  I sure don't.  Learn to use TuneIn and iHeart radio more often, or learn how to get your own music collection to play on these devices.  I do both.

I agree. And when you use TuneIn, iHeart radio or Pandora, there is no limit to the number of streams you can have.

[renegade600]

they have to make their money somewhere, I would not be too surprise if both gh and alexa will start having monthly fees soon.   

[mike27oct]

Yes they do, but not off of me.  I have had a music monthly download service (eMusic) since 2006, and when I download music I own it, just like I do a CD I can buy.

[Jeff29]

Is ratwayd talking specifically about Amazon Music Unlimited?  If yes then I understand as I recently ran into this for the 1st time after we started the trial.  I received a message that Amazon Music Unlimited can be streamed to only one device at a time (or their might have been a pay-to-upgrade option which I've forgotten).

My wife and I have multiple Dots and stream simultaneously to all of them using the Amazon free music and tunein and maybe a few others.

FYI (link on multi-device group setup) - https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=202108910

We just bought our Alexa system and this is my 1st post.  Hi all!!

[malliekm]

I had to do my own investigation on this since I haven't used the Dots to play music in a long time.  I use one nightly for talk radio...and thanks strayfish, I hadn't thought about streaming radio on multiple devices.  I just checked my GHs and CAN stream radio on all three at the same time.  Cool!

I hope I understand what the OP is complaining about.  Here were my results. 
I told the Bathroom Dot to play White Christmas.  Once it got started, I told the Bathroom Dot to play Jingle Bells on the Den Dot.  The reply was, "Streaming on another device, would  you like to stream on the Den instead?"  Not knowing the outcome, I said "yes".  White Christmas continued to play in the bathroom and Jingle Bells played in the Den.  I waited to see if one would stop.  They both continued to play the entire songs.  I don't have Music Unlimited.  Just Prime Music.

Next I told the Bathroom Dot to play Jingle Bells on Home Group.  It played on all three Dots.  Hope this was helpful.  Sorry if it was redundant.