Odd behaviour with Alexa

[macx979]

Hi,

I just recently bought a WiiM mini to connect to my Amazon Echo Studio via Aux-In.
I also set up a group in the Alexa App consisting of the Wiim device as well as the Echo Studio and set the Wiim device to be the preferred speaker.

This way I can say something like "Alexa play Pop Music" and it start playing from the wiim device. That's the way I like to have it, since I wanna start a music stream via voice and then control it via the wiim app. so far so good.

But if I say "Alexa stop the music" Alexa tells me that it can't control devices via Aux-In and it mutes the Aux-In entirely. Technically that makes sense to me but from a user experience point of view that's a bummer. Especially since the only way to reactivate the Aux-In on the Echo Studio is to restart the device.

I could say " Alexa stop music on Wiim Diningroom (that's the name of the wiim device) but how to tell my wife to do it exactly this way??
It there any workaround to solve that issue?

Best MacX

 

[Burnside]

i’m a bit confused as to this setup and not surprised Alexa is too I don’t see why the WiiM mini is involved at all when in effect you can achieve playback on the Studio on its own. You do mention control from the WiiM app, but why do that - doesn’t the Alexa app (or the Amazon music app) do that for you?

 

[macx979]

I also understand that Alexa is confused. ;-) From my point of view the Alexa app is really crappy. Even worse Alexa doesn't support using two different Spotify Accounts. Yes, you can set em up via the family option but then you need to switch between the account before starting a stream.

I really would love to have one app for everything and that's why I tried out the Wiim device and it's app.

So I guess the Idea of using Alexa voice commands in conjunction with a wiim device is to have the wiim device connected to a none-Alexa device, right?

For my setup, it seems that the only option accidentally prevent dropping the line "Alexa stop music" is to switch of the Echo mic!?

 

[Burnside]

I could say " Alexa stop music on Wiim Diningroom (that's the name of the wiim device) but how to tell my wife to do it exactly this way??
It there any workaround to solve that issue?

If that works, you could always simplify that using a voice activated routine of something like “Alexa, cancel music” with a stop audio or customised action with the above request.

I really would love to have one app for everything and that's why I tried out the Wiim device and its app.

To a degree that’s what’s bringing the confusion when basically all you seem to be doing is playing music on a single Echo Studio - you’d get the same confusion if you had linked, say, an echo dot to the Studio.
As I’ve said before, I personally don’t see the WiiM app as a universal front end to all the services it might support - I much prefer using the native music apps as they offer so much more in the terms of features.

So I guess the Idea of using Alexa voice commands in conjunction with a wiim device is to have the wiim device connected to a none-Alexa device, right?

Yeah, like connecting a high quality stream to your hi fi

For my setup, it seems that the only option accidentally prevent dropping the line "Alexa stop music" is to switch of the Echo mic!?

You might want to try setting up a routine with that vocal trigger and simply have a stop audio action, specifying the WiiM as the “hear Alexa from” device. This ruse of intercepting standard Alexa requests and replacing them with something else has saved the sanity of many parents when an echo is asked “play baby shark”

 

[macx979]

Thanks for your very helpful hints.

I didn't even know that you can redirect voice commands and I also didn't know about "baby shark"

After playing around even more, I think I came to the conclusion that I gotta tell my wife she shouldn't use voice commands at all. Trying to catch every "misuse" of alexa commands in this setup is probably going to take ages and cause a lot of "discussions".

For now, I do have two wiim minis. each is connected to an alexa speaker via line in. One in the dining room, the other one is in the bathroom. I furthermore have an Onkyo Receiver which is capable of Airplay streaming. I set up zigbee switches controlled by Home Assistant to simply start scripts to start a specific radio channel on the wiim devices (including setting up the volume of the alexa device as well as the wiim device first and then start the stream).

Everything else - like grouping speakers or playing spotify music - has to be controlled via Music Assistant while using the Airplay protocol.

Using the Wiim App and it's own Multiroom System is rather a backup solution now if MA as a service or my MA Server breaks down.

Let's see how the WAF is going to develop over time by this set up.