Echo Dot and Multiple Bluetooth Speakers.

[Chris__M]

Just hit my first "Oh bother" moment. My initial plan was to have a dot in both my lounge and kitchen, even though they connect. Then it occurred to me that if a single Dot can hear me both in the lounge and in the kitchen, then just switching audio between two bluetooth devices - one on my lounge stereo, one on my kitchen radio - would do the trick, and mean I didn't need a Dot in both rooms. It would even mean I could switch as I walked from one room to the next!

Pairing to Bluetooth was no problem - my Dot paired to both my stereo and radio without problem. Also they are two differently named BT devices, both which show in the Alexa app - BT Receiver and BluTune.

Here's the problem. I can connect to either, easily. But once connected, I can say "Alexa, disconnect" (to move sound back to the Dot), but my only connect option is "Alexa, connect" which connects me to whatever device I was previously connected to.

Any attempt to say "Alexa, connect to <BT device name>" fails. Let's say I am currently connected to BT Receiver. If I disconnect, then say "Alexa, connect to BluTune", all it hears is "connect", and connects to BT Receiver, this being the last device used. If I try saying "Alexa connect to BluTune" while already connected to BT Receiver, it says "You are already connected. If you wish to connect to a different device, please use the Alexa App."

So close, and yet so far. I can only switch between Bluetooth speakers by manual use of the app, not handsfree. I know the Dot has access to the name, as it says "Now disconnected from BT Reciever" when it disconnects! But you cannot use that in a spoken command, it seems.

For now the answer is two Dots, and siting them so they don't interfere with each other, which is easy, given the shape of the rooms. Hopefully, the Bluetooth connection process will get more sophisticated in time.

If I have missed anything obvious, please let me know!

[nedly]

Love your review and details - many thanks!  But have you tried to connect a regular "wired" speaker to Dot's audio output and have a bluetooth speaker connected in another room?

[mike27oct]

For people who want to move around house and keep the music playing, is one reason Amazon made the Tap -- a portable Alexa.  I have one and just take it with me when I want to.

[Chad]

Please Amazon Echo project team do implement a "connect to name-of-Bluetooth-speaker" command.   

And also, it's important to be able to rename speakers during setup.   A default like "[Samsung] Living Room" will be cumbersome to say.

Both that and implement an approximate match to the speaker name that matches the spoken word.

There are fairly nice speaker grouping capabilities, e.g. with Samsung multiroom or Google Chromecast.   With Echo can we have ad hoc groupings, as in "connect to speaker-1 and speaker-2" and then "disconnect speaker-1" or "connect additional speaker-3", etc, etc?    Is anybody having fun yet?

[Chris__M]

Didn't notice the replies here, until the latest one.

Wired connection: I haven't done that, because the system in the lounge - where a single Dot would be placed - is a stereo system that can be switched off. Using BT, when you turn off the system, the BT connection drops, and the Dot uses its own speaker automatically. Using a wired connection, when the stereo was off, I would have to remember to unplug the speaker wire from the Dot, otherwise I wouldn't hear any response from it.

Amazon Tap has only recently been available here in the UK, and certainly not when I bought my Dots.

How I am currently using Dots and Bluetooth: I bought a number of Pure Jongo devices - all of them fairly cheaply, on eBay. Best way to describe them is a cheap Sonos alternative. Each device - I have 3 speakers, and 2 "system adapters" (for plugging into existing stereos) is equiped with Bluetooth. In my house, each device is in a separate room, and paired with its own Dot, in the same room.

Here is the magic. The Jongo devices can be optionally configured so that whatever one is playing, the others also play, in synch with each other. In this configuration, only one BT device can connect to the network, but that connection can be to any of the Jongos on the network.

So:

1. I am in my lounge, I say "Alexa connect", and "Alexa Play...". Whatever the lounge Dot is playing comes out of the stereos in the lounge and my office, and the speakers in the kitchen, conservatory and bedroom.

2. I go upstairs to my office, and decide I want to play something else. I say "Alexa connect", and the network drops the lounge Dot connection, and allows the office Dot to connect and control the system.

It works like a charm, and means that I can have the same music or talk radio playing throughout the house.

The only minor problem is that, having discovered this and gotten it working; it appears that Pure have discontinued the Jongo range. I'm ok, as I have more than enough devices, but it's no longer a working solution I can share. (Although Jongo devices do still appear on eBay)