Controlling playback in other rooms

[scottrods]

The Multi Dot/echo music ability comes with a trade-off... It uses Bluetooth to make the connections between the devices for mutliple device play back... so it requires your "other" dots or whatever, to drop any other Bluetooth connection and connect to the group via bluetooth from my understanding... If you are using a bluetooth speaker it drops the speaker, and becomes the redundant speaker... the only way you can take advantage between dots with external speakers is by physical connection to something like Computer speakers... or some other similar set up that could be hard connected via the little headphone jack sized connector on the dot. Since there is no connector on the echo, it will play through the echo (full size) speaker, which isn't horrible to begin with... but it has no external speaker capability in this case, unless it is the master music device, and is being used through a bluetooth speaker to begin with,,,

[malliekm]

Just tried it.  It worked but, for me, about the only time I can see  using it is if I'm listening to talk radio and don't' want to miss anything as I go from one end of the house to the other.  Music sounds better on the GH and I have them grouped as well.

[Beetle-Snake]

The Multi Dot/echo music ability comes with a trade-off... It uses Bluetooth to make the connections between the devices for mutliple device play back... so it requires your "other" dots or whatever, to drop any other Bluetooth connection and connect to the group via bluetooth from my understanding... If you are using a bluetooth speaker it drops the speaker, and becomes the redundant speaker... the only way you can take advantage between dots with external speakers is by physical connection to something like Computer speakers... or some other similar set up that could be hard connected via the little headphone jack sized connector on the dot. Since there is no connector on the echo, it will play through the echo (full size) speaker, which isn't horrible to begin with... but it has no external speaker capability in this case, unless it is the master music device, and is being used through a bluetooth speaker to begin with,,,

thanks - just got this reply back from Amazon to confirm these limitations and the reason mine was cutting out - seems pretty poor to me given the number of people who will be using an echo with a bluetooth speaker - I assume there is a valid reason why they couldn't have connected them through wi-fi?

Currently, you can only synchronize music on your Amazon Echo and Echo Dot. However, Multi-Room Music does not support:
- 3rd party Alexa devices.
- Non-music content, like Flash Briefings, timers, alarms or books.
- Media skills or music providers such as Spotify. Spotify is currently not supported. You may change your preferred music provider in the Alexa App via Settings > Music & Media > Choose Default Music Services. If you are streaming on any other device, they will not be able to stream via Alexa at the same time.
- Any Bluetooth connections whilst streaming, such as streaming from your phone to your Echo device, or from your Echo to Bluetooth-enabled Alexa remotes and external speakers. Wired connections to external speakers (i.e. from the Echo Dot) will not be affected.
- Fast-forward and Rewind are not supported during group playback.

[drfoto]

Beetle-Snake, I'm troubleshooting a different issue, but came across a statement that bluetooth connected speakers aren't liked by this feature. If I read correctly, bluetooth will be turned off as an expected behavior. I'm having trouble setting mine up, but am hoping that hard wires speakers will be acceptable.

[malliekm]

from what I read, hard wired speakers will work

[walterbear]

Is that feature work on playing Spotify music?I don't have Amazon music account....

[StevenR]

Is that feature work on playing Spotify music?I don't have Amazon music account....

Playing in multiple rooms via a group doesn't work with Spotify, but it does appear to be possible to play Spotify on a single device in a different room by using the device name.

[Beetle-Snake]

Beetle-Snake, I'm troubleshooting a different issue, but came across a statement that bluetooth connected speakers aren't liked by this feature. If I read correctly, bluetooth will be turned off as an expected behavior. I'm having trouble setting mine up, but am hoping that hard wires speakers will be acceptable.

unfortunately it wont work with bluetooth speakers as it needs your bluetooth connection to talk to the other devices. I have had to hard wire my speaker to make it work and its all good now. I have also read they are working on making this feature integrate with non-Amazon, Alexa-capable devices and smart speakers but I assume this will still need the BT connection so hard wire may be the only option.

[StevenR]

I have found another use for the ability to play music in another room. I have the Reverb Android app installed on my phone, which allows me to use Alexa when I am not near one of the devices. This doesn't actually support Amazon Music or Spotify playback (Amazon only allows this on Alexa devices and not on apps) but does support triggering multi-room playback. This allows me to use it as a sort of remote control to play music or stop playback on any of the devices.

[iolinux333]

The Multi Dot/echo music ability comes with a trade-off... It uses Bluetooth to make the connections between the devices for mutliple device play back... so it requires your "other" dots or whatever, to drop any other Bluetooth connection and connect to the group via bluetooth from my understanding... If you are using a bluetooth speaker it drops the speaker, and becomes the redundant speaker... the only way you can take advantage between dots with external speakers is by physical connection to something like Computer speakers... or some other similar set up that could be hard connected via the little headphone jack sized connector on the dot. Since there is no connector on the echo, it will play through the echo (full size) speaker, which isn't horrible to begin with... but it has no external speaker capability in this case, unless it is the master music device, and is being used through a bluetooth speaker to begin with,,,

Bluetooth spec allows connection and syncing of multiple devices. Hopefully Echo dev team will step up the code soon. The problem though is latency between the Bluetooth speaker and the Dot. They could use the mics on the Echo to measure the latency, then add that as a delay into all the hardwired Alexa's. Just a few dozen lines of code if you know what you're doing.

That being said, above concept works for ONE Bluetooth speaker. Adding in a different Bluetooth speaker with different latency trashes the concept.

For multiple, the longest latency speaker would start without any added in delay, then the speakers with less latency would have varying amounts of delay added in.

Now we're getting into code hundreds of lines long.

[shorner]

I don't think the Echo dots use bluetooth to sync with each other. I think the problem as already mentioned is that bluetooth speakers add latency and it would be hard to keep all the echo dots synced if they were playing on bluetooth speakers.

I normally use Spotify for my music but it wont currently work with groups, but tested it with the Prime music and it played to my echo dots which are certainly not within Bluetooth range of each other but it played out of the internal speaker not the bluetooth ones.

Really hope Amazon can sort out Spotify over Audio groups (Google do it on Chromecast Audios) and bluetooth if possible. I have just fitted ceiling speakers in 2 rooms which connect to Echo dots via bluetooth, can't really run cable to the echo dots.

[David T]

Hi all. I’ve just connected a new little speaker to my echo dot to replace an old one and the multi room now has an annoying time delay between the dot and the echo. It didn’t do this with the last speaker. Any ideas please?

[kenrd]

Its called 'Giving users full control'!  Why not allow it?
named Groups (simultaneous music) allows control by name.
The Group name is no different than an individual device name.
So you can say 'ECHO play <song> on <device>'
or 'ECHO '<device> <on/off> where <device> can be device name or group name.