The Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and possibly other Alexa devices will soon be able to synchronize audio across multiple devices. Users have reported seeing a new audio synchronization feature appear in the Alexa app. The feature, often referred to as whole home audio, will allow you to use multiple Alexa devices to play music as if they were satellite speakers connected to the same audio source.
You’ll be able to trigger multiple Alexa devices to start playing the same thing by adding “everywhere” to the end of a request. So saying “Alexa, play music everywhere” to one device will start playback on multiple devices simultaneously. You’ll be able to select specifically which of your Alexa devices are triggered, when the “everywhere” request is made, from within the Alexa app.
It does not appear as if audio synchronization is working just yet. Those who are seeing the new setting in their Alexa app are unable to select their Alexa devices to participate because the app states a firmware update for those devices is required. The app also states “saving will interrupt streaming audio and activate Bluetooth connections,” so the feature may use the Echo and Echo Dot’s Bluetooth signal to keep audio in sync. It’s unknown when the feature will make its way to all devices, but it should be coming soon.
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I hope this functionality extend to firetv devices.
Chromecast audio multizone groups exclude Chromecast video dongles and AndroidTV devices. Apple still doesn’t natively support multizone airplay audio only possible via third party apps. The natural progression would be to enable these features. It would be nice if Amazon could avoid this type of self crippling.
Apple supports multi-zone audio through iTunes.
Yeah, forgot about that. I don’t really use iTunes for anything anymore other than for iTunes match. But you can’t route audio from other apps to it. Enabling on mobile devices with out need for a computer or server is more appealing.
Agree.
Sad fact is that you’ll need a computer somewhere to handle the synchronisation. Will be clever if Alexa can juggle audio.
Actually airaudio and allstream synchronize airplay directly the mobile device for android. Whaale will too on iOS. So it is totally possible to implement on device.
Chromecast audio (CCA) is quite amazing since it will sync using Internet source directly to the Chromecast. If it synced it’s video devices with the CCA.
Google home has it , love it, I can tell it to play music , play music on certain speakers or play music on all speakers and they are perfectly synced
Is that playing through muliple google devices or multiple linked speakers?
Only Chromecast audio dongles ($35usd) and speakers with Chromecast audio built in (Sony and lg make some). Android TV and Chromecast video dongles unfortunately cannot be linked with a Chromecast audio to play simultaneously.
And Google Home speakers too…
Wonder if this would allow two Echo’s to play music in stereo.
If you read the reddit post this article cited. There was only one user reported it. No one else in the thread can replicate the finding. It may very well be fake. Got my hopes up too soon.
And then that user deleted his username. For the lazy, it’s u/ineverknew, who – when looking through their user history *may or may not be* an Amazon plant
But then there is also this different screenshot, purporting the same functionality: http://www.echotalk.org/index.php/topic,1550.0.htm
Hope they add alarm syncing at some point, for things I cook for a while in the oven and go watch tv, if I set a timer on the echo unit in the kitchen and then ask the echo in the family room how much time is left it tells me I have no alarm set.
If you add IFTTT, you can create a trigger from alexa to devices like Philips Hue that can trigger the lights to blink. I use timers all the time in the kitchen, then the lights flash when it is time. Here is my receipt for this – Applet ID 43311046d.
This is the one feature I have been eagerly waiting for. I hope this comes out shortly, even if this is a hoax.
i have this applet setup but what he wants is different he wants to be able to hear how much time is left from an echo in another room i also would find this useful
though i only have it blink my kitchen lights
i could all the living room lights but that still won’t tell me how much longer on the timer
i just hope they have more options
for routing audio
“You’ll be able to select specifically which of your Alexa devices are triggered, when the “everywhere” request is made, from within the Alexa app.”
i don’t like the sound of this , i want it to be able to route the audio to where i want by telling alexa,and not have no rely on going in and changing app settings
when i tell alexa to play a pandora station on the kitchen echo then i go into another room i should be able to say alexa stop playing on my kitchen echo to the echo in the bedroom and it should be able to stop it ,or reroute it to the bedroom echo stop it on the kitchen echo and play in on the bedroom echo
also i would like it to be able to route audio not just to multiple echo devices but (for the dot) to any external speakers connected to the echo via the 3.5mm jack or bluetooth
i should be able to tell it to switch to bluetooth speaker or play on echo and not on bluetooth speaker or play on both or play on 3.5mm connected speaker only or play on 3.5mm connected speaker and on echo dot
they should give us full audio routing option through voice and not have us have to go to the app settings
When I read “You’ll be able to select specifically which of your Alexa devices are triggered, when the “everywhere” request is made, from within the Alexa app.”, I think it’s referring to assigning your echos to specific names in a one-time setup.
So for word “everywhere”, I would check all my echos.
For “bedroom”, check “echo 2”
For “livingroom”, check “echo 3” and “echo 4”
For “2nd floor”, check “echo 2, 3, and 4”
etc…
I think if your dot is connected to 3.5mm and you want it to play to bluetooth speakers, you can to tell it to connect. And to switch back to 3.5mm, tell it to disconnect.
Yeah I am not sure Bout that I think I called once and they told me not it is not possible I don’t know what the exact syntax would be to do that
we’re just speculating on a rumor of something that will either be an upcoming feature or just a cruel joke that someone just made up. Obviously you’re not going to get anywhere by calling amazon. Nonetheless, it’s fun to imagine how we WANT it to be implemented.
Mike, I have the same issue with timers so I set up an IFTTT trigger to flash the lights. If this is an option for you it’s a decent interim fix.
So here is how I sync my Alexa devices. First I choose a playlist a playlist im the Alexa music app then i start playing it on device 1. I switch to device 2 and hit play and so on. Once the playlist is playing on all 4 of my devices I use tha pause/play function while listening to two of the devices to get them synced up. It usually takes about 5 min to get them all ligned up. Would be much better if there was a drop down in the music app that said all devices, but for now, this works as long as you don’t want to change your playlist.
That is probably the same way cavemen had to sync devices.
So nothing constructive to add to the conversation Tony? So glad you stopped by.
Toughen up a bit, buddy.
I concur. I thought it was a funny comment. If you could laugh at yourself, I believe you would have found it funny as well.
Any update on this?
I know this is currently in “rumor” territory. It’s a feature I am extremely eager to see come to the Echo line up. I have considered switching to Google Home but I am a bit invested into Echo with a few devices.
I really hope it happens.
Thanks Paul and bump, I also eagerly await this functionality. I hope it makes it past the rumor stage.
Inasmuch as I have echo products (echo, dots, tap) all over my little house, synch is vitally important. Can’t play one without audio bleed into another space. Very frustrating to need to pause and open as I move through the house. Waiting impatiently!
Agreed!
I know of a way to do it by Bluetooth if anyone is interested. Buy a 3.5mm to 3.5mm short cable connect the cable to the Dot and other end to a 5 way 3.5mm adaptor, buy two Taotronics 2.1 low latency Bluetooth transmitters and plug these into 5 way adaptor and if you use Taotronics Bluetooth receivers and plug these into each amplifier or speakers or simply pair existing Bluetooth speakers you get whole house audio with very UN noticible lag. Obviously you can only play the same through all the speakers and not different on different speakers
Thanks Andy. I might give this a try until the echo supports this natively, please make this update Amazon!
I need my reminders to be synced between my Echo and Dot. I currently don’t hear my reminders if I am in the other room. This defeats the purpose of reminders.
“Alexa play Rolling Stones on kitchen” works today. Try it! Make sure the device name under settings in the app is a single simple word…like kitchen.
“Alexa play Grateful Dead on everywhere” does *not* work but the “on everywhere” I have not seen yet in the app
Nevermind. The multi-room feature *is* in the app and you can create groups and select which Amazon devices are in that music group. Bye Sonos! Bye Chromecast!
AMAZING! No More “Caveman” method for me!
Great, but DOES NOT WORK with bluetooth!!! If you play multi room, any connected bluetooth speaker is dropped. This is a deal killer for us with Dots.
Tried it today. Setup the group as everywhere. When you say “Alexa play (whatever) on Spotify everywhere” it says Spotify is not supported in multiple speakers. So I’ll play it on this one only. What music does it play on all speakers? I asked it to play (Whatever) on Amazon music everywhere and it said “I can’t find that song, would you like me to look for it on Amazon music?”
I have three dots and two large standard Echoes in my home when I try to create a group and add my Amazon devices I can add them in any order except for the two large echos in one group the second you select one of the echoes the other Echo immediately changes to device unavailable you untick the first echo and both Echoes become available you just cannot select both WTF
make sure all of your devices are connected to the same network. This happened to me because I have a 2.4gz and a 5gz networks
2.4 Ghz and and 5 Ghz should already be on the same network. They are different frequencies that your access points are broadcasting, in order to allow your devices to efficiently connect to the same network. If your 2.4 GHz SSID gets you on a different network from your 5 GHz SSID, then your network is configured incorrectly.