Amazon Echo Devices Get Support for Multi-Room Music Playback

Amazon has announced a new Alexa feature that lets you synchronize music playback across multiple Amazon Echo devices in your home.

Starting today, you can target music to a specific Echo device or a group of devices—just ask. Soon, this ability will be extended to control multi-room music on other connected speakers using simply your voice.

“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 searches—and we’re just getting started,” said Toni Reid, Vice President, Amazon Alexa. “Today, we’re making Alexa even smarter with an all-new feature that lets you play music synchronized on multiple Echo devices to provide room-filling music throughout your home.”


Multi-Room Music on Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Show
You can now synchronize your music playback across Echo devices to play songs from Amazon Music, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and Pandora, with support for Spotify and SiriusXM coming soon. Simply use the Alexa App to create groups with two or more Echo devices by naming the group, such as “downstairs.” Once you’ve created the group, simply say “Alexa, play John Mayer downstairs.”

Customers in the US, UK, and Germany can start using multi-room music today on their Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Show devices.

New Tools Let Device Makers Create Additional Voice-Controlled Music Experiences with Alexa
Amazon also announced two new sets of tools for developers to bring multi-room music control to their speakers.

● Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Multi-Room Music SDK
Amazon is 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—for example, a customer with three Echo devices and two standalone AVS speakers can play synchronized music across all five devices. These tools will be available early next year.


● Connected Speaker APIs
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 – for example an Echo Dot – to play music throughout their home on their connected audio systems. Amazon is excited to be working with leading brands on this offering, including Sonos, Bose, Sound United, and Samsung. The Connected Speaker APIs are available in developer preview starting today.

The new feature will help Amazon fend off competition from Apple's HomePod which launches this December. The HomePod features AirPlay 2 which brings support for multi-room playback.

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