Amazon have announced an update that allows you to connect Amazon Echo’s for multi-room control. Alexa\u00a0also gets some tricks, with the ability to sync and control music across Echo’s and, reportedly soon, other connected speaker setups.<\/p>\n
Amazon Alexa’s Vice President, Toni Reid says: “In just the last few months, we’ve added dozens of new features to Alexa that enhance your entertainment experience – control of Amazon Fire TV and your home entertainment systems via Echo; music lyrics, Amazon Video, and movie trailers on Echo Show; and activity-based music \u00a0searches – and we’re just getting started. Today we’re making Alexa even smarter with an all-new feature that lets you play music synchronised on multiple Echo devices to provide room-filling music throughout your home.”<\/p>\n
With the update you can create groups, which are multiple Echos connected together, and name them to sort specific Echos you want connected together. For example you can have a group of Echos downstairs and a group for upstairs, then simply say “Alexa, (do this for me) downstairs”. Supported music services by Echo groups currently include Amazon Music, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and Pandora with more on the way like Spotify.<\/p>\n
Amazon have also created 2 new tools for voice control with Alexa that can be used by developers for multi-room control of speakers:<\/p>\n
Alexa Voice Service\u00a0(AVS) Multi-Room Music SDK<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n Amazon\u00a0is introducing new tools that enable AVS device makers to integrate with Amazon Alexa Multi-Room Music. Doing so will allow customers to play their music across supported Echo and AVS devices\u2014for example, a customer with three Echo devices and two standalone AVS speakers can play synchronised music across all five devices. These tools will be available early next year.<\/p>\n Connected Speaker APIs<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n These new tools enable device makers with connected audio systems to control music playback using Alexa. A customer can then use any Alexa-enabled device \u2013 for example an Echo Dot \u2013 to play music throughout their home on their connected audio systems.\u00a0Amazon\u00a0is excited to be working with leading brands on this offering, including Sonos, Bose, Sound United, and\u00a0Samsung.<\/p>\n Vice President of software at Sonos, Antoine Leblond said: “Alexa set the standard for voice in smart homes, so working with Amazon to bring voice control to Sonos for the first time was an obvious choice. This has been a close collaboration from the beginning as we’ve worked together to combine the magic of Alexa with the seamless multi-room audio capabilities that Sonos pioneered. We’re proud of the work we’ve done together as Amazon’s first multi-room partner – all you’ll ned is an Alexa enabled device and playing music out loud on Sonos will be as easy as saying, ‘Alexa, play music in the living room’.”<\/p>\n \u201cSound United is constantly striving to provide consumers with the best possible user experience. With AI voice services simplifying how we control our home environments and products, we\u2019re excited Denon, Marantz, and HEOS customers will be some of the first to experience Alexa multi-room audio compatibility and the power of voice control,\u201d said\u00a0Kevin Duffy, CEO and president, Sound United. \u201cSoon, users will be able to play their favorite song, alter the volume, or change an input in any room where our connected products are placed, simply by asking Alexa to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to integrate Alexa multi-room audio with\u00a0Samsung\u00a0speakers,\u201d said\u00a0Jun Young Kim, Vice President of AV Business Team, Samsung. \u201cWith Alexa multi-room audio and\u00a0Samsung, customers will simply be able to ask Alexa to play their favorite music in any room of the house \u2013 using only their voice. Listening to great music on\u00a0Samsung\u00a0speakers has never been easier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Group Amazon Echo’s together, connect them up to third-party sound systems, and stream through Sonos and others with Alexa updates. Amazon have announced an update that allows you to connect Amazon Echo’s for multi-room control. Alexa\u00a0also gets some tricks, with the ability to sync and control music across Echo’s and, reportedly soon, other connected speaker setups. Amazon Alexa’s Vice President, Toni Reid says: “In just the last few months, we’ve added dozens of new features to Alexa that enhance your entertainment experience – control of Amazon Fire TV and your home entertainment systems via Echo; music lyrics, Amazon Video, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":13037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[5508,463,4850,6516,7463,28,5204,3789,4717,1745,422,4815,3854],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n