Echo - Group playing music together has issues

never_here · March 18

So, pretty much as a daily occurrence, my echos will have difficulties in playing music together. They will eventually, but usually requires to power cycle them all including the wifi. I use to have 2.4Ghz wireless speakers but they broke, and decided to go with a group of echos on sale. They worked good for a while once all setup. With a routine to start a playlist in the morning, end at night. This is for work.

After a few weeks, they stopped working well. Power cycle, worked.

Then now, its like, even with power cycle, it doesn't work. Wifi router is the same for years. Its just the generic one you get from rogers. All of them can play music individually and is listed as online. But they refuse to pretty much play at together now as a group. Any reason why? Did Amazon block this feature now?

Omon_Ra · March 18

Most likely wireless bandwidth/coverage issue. Are they all in the same locations as from when you first set it up? Are there more wireless devices connected or even just in the area(s) than there used to be? Do you have new/more neighbors in the building? First step would be ditching the 'years old' generic router for something newer/more robust.

never_here · March 26

On 3/18/2024 at 7:40 PM, Omon_Ra said:

Most likely wireless bandwidth/coverage issue. Are they all in the same locations as from when you first set it up? Are there more wireless devices connected or even just in the area(s) than there used to be? Do you have new/more neighbors in the building? First step would be ditching the 'years old' generic router for something newer/more robust.

the wireless router provided by Rogers would suffice. We actually have great signal in our use case. So signal doesn't seem to be the issue. We do have neighbors, but not enough to kill signal.

The Echo devices are in the same areas as always. Reception Area, employee workstation area, and one in the back for administration. Often times, it'll work fine. But these days, just more and more issues everytime. When I say it worked fine for a long time, i mean specificaly for about 1-2 years straight. I had a routine setup to play and stop music. In most cases it worked. It was times when i had spotify open on my phone, and it would auto go to phone sometimes, but that seems to have fixed.

But now, routines never work. Group is never awake, playing on 1 echo almost ALWAYS works, and sometimes it will work by issuing voice commands a few times straight and it'll suddenly work too.

Just odd and annoying considering this is not new, and with tech, you'd think it get better... but nope...

Omon_Ra · March 26

6 hours ago, never_here said:

-snip-

Well like anything, technology or otherwise, as the years go by the ability for things to work as it used to tends to fade away. Are the Echoes on the latest firmware and/or app versions? What about the router? Depending on how many years old the router is, it very well could be the problem and the router itself is just dying. And then that's before you get to companies 'intentionally' handicapping older devices to get you to replace/upgrade to newer models. Just because something has worked for years, especially with low-cost internet-connected devices, does not mean it will always work in perpetuity.

never_here · April 5

On 3/26/2024 at 6:03 PM, Omon_Ra said:

Well like anything, technology or otherwise, as the years go by the ability for things to work as it used to tends to fade away. Are the Echoes on the latest firmware and/or app versions? What about the router? Depending on how many years old the router is, it very well could be the problem and the router itself is just dying. And then that's before you get to companies 'intentionally' handicapping older devices to get you to replace/upgrade to newer models. Just because something has worked for years, especially with low-cost internet-connected devices, does not mean it will always work in perpetuity.

ya, echos are relatively new, i think, one of them is new, 2 of them are just a year older.

router is old, but its the current one rogers still gives out even for new customers, so, can't be helped.

but ya, i miss my old old wired ones, and my old 2.4ghz wireless. Feel like i should just route some cables again and get wired speakers. worked good for many years until we decided to remodel the office and went with 2.4ghz. good upgrade at the time though. just limited speaker amounts to connect, and in the end, reception antenna started to wear out i guess? duno.

Old tech lasts 10 year plus. new stuff lasts like 2 years, lol