Amazon's Multi-Room Music feature lets you play the same music on different Echo speakers in your house — something even most of the best Bluetooth speakers can't do.
It's ideal for audiophiles who use Alexa, but anyone with multiple Echo speakers can take advantage of it. Here's what you'll need to set up Multi-Room Music, and how to do it.
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What you need for Multi-Room Music
For Multi-Room Music to work, you’ll need to have an Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Show—Echo Tap and Fire TV aren’t supported, and neither are third-party speakers on our the best Alexa speakers. Your Echo speakers also need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.
You'll also need either an Amazon Prime Music or Amazon Music Unlimited account. If you have Prime Music, you'll only be able to play one stream at a time to a group of speakers. You can also get Amazon Music free on your Echo. If you have Music Unlimited and a Family Plan, you'll be able to play multiple streams simultaneously to different groups of speakers.
Multi-Room Music limitations
Multi-Room Music will not work over Bluetooth, so if you have a Bluetooth speaker paired with the Echo Dot, you'll need to connect the two using the 3.5mm jack.
Multi-Room music will play music streams from Amazon's own music services, Pandora, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, and TuneIn, and an update now lets you stream Spotify and SiriusXM, too. However, it will not stream audio books or audio from Alexa skills.
How to enable Multi-Room Music
1. In the Alexa app, go to the Smart Home Control tab (the house-shaped icon in the bottom right corner).
2. Press the plus sign in the top right corner. Click “Add Multi-Room Music Speakers.”
3. You need to group your speakers together for them to play the same song. To create a group, give it a name. You can select from the presets or use a custom name.
4. You’ll see your Echo units that can be a part of a group listed. Select the ones you want to include in this group, then click “Save.” Note that each speaker can only be part of a single group.
5. To remove a speaker from a group, select its group under "Speaker Groups" in the Smart Home Control tab. Click "Unpair Speaker System."
6. Once the group is set up, you can play music by saying “Play music [Echo group name].” This will only work if you have Amazon Music set as your default music service—Spotify isn’t supported yet. You can also specify an artist or playlist to play on the group. If you want to play a Pandora Station, you can say “Play [radio station name]” on Pandora on [Echo group name].”
You can control music playback from any of the speakers in the group. So if you start playing music on the kitchen Echo, you can stop it from the bedroom Echo.
While it may not have the level of integration with music services that Sonos offers, Alexa’s Multi-Room Music is one the most affordable ways to play the same song through the entire house—and you can do it all with your voice.
MORE: For more Alexa-related tips, tricks, and how-tos, check out our complete guide to Alexa.
