Unfortunately, “skip song” doesn’t seem to be something the Harmony Alexa skill can do. That disqualifies the setup. Also, I don’t think there is an easy way to change zones and have Alexa follow that change without going back to the Roon device settings every time.
In any event, I’ve said this before, thank you to everyone who has been of so much help to me in this adventure.
Worth checking out what @Simon_Arnold3 suggested. Presumably you’ve tried “Alexa, skip forward” as suggested in the Harmony setup guide I shared the link for?
Why not try this:
Test each zone separately first, without linking any zones. Remember to amend your Alexa commands to refer to the correct activity. If control over all the zones work individually, then try linking the zones in Roon as you usually do and see if the Alexa commands now operate correctly in all the linked zones without amending any of the Roon device settings.
I’ve gotten all 4 of my zones to recognize input from Alexa. Here are my Deep Harmony extension settings:
(I needed to change the name of my Library Echo device from “Library” to “Library Echo.” It was confused when I tried asking it to “play” or “pause” library.)
So far, this is what I’ve been able to do… I don’t know if I’ll be able to get songs started on Roon from a voice command, so I’ve always gotten things started from my computer (the “traditional way”). Once started, I can issue simple commands like “play” or “pause” or “Increase volume.”
I have not figured out how to skip songs in a playlist.
I tried grouping zones in Roon, but when attempting to play something Roon will start for a fraction of a second and will then “stall.” Nothing happens with voice commands to a grouped zone.
Maybe I’ll try setting up a new “grouped activity” in Harmony and then create a corresponding grouped zone in Roon. I have named grouped zones before in Roon, and the name will appear at the bottom right of the page, but it doesn’t seem to be saved anywhere. In other words, once the zone is un-grouped I don’t see that named grouped zone being offered again by Roon (I have to recreate it). (What am I doing wrong here?)
As of now, therefore, my problems are with the Alexa command to skip a song and the ability to group zones.
I have now tried to create a Roon grouped zone named “All” to pair with a Harmony activity named “All.” Here’s the Roon grouped zone:
However, when trying to specify the “Remote Control Zone” in Deep Harmony I am not offered the Roon grouped zone named “All.”
So unless I’m missing something, that idea won’t work. Any other ideas?
In the Deep Harmony Extension Settings in Roon, in the Options section, try changing Seek/Skip Track Function to Reverse Dual Button.
If this doesn’t fix it:
Is it still the case that grouping zones in Roon doesn’t work when you try to control playback using Roon? Is it the same whether you group 2 or 3 or 4? Does it make any difference which 2? Have you used this function before?
I will try the suggestions you have here. To answer these questions…
It is still the case and I’ve tried two rooms (two different combinations of two different rooms) and four rooms. I group zones all the time with Roon (without the remote control enabled in device settings). Sometimes kitchen and living room, sometimes library / kitchen / living room. Sometimes library / kitchen / living room / dining room. Rarely a glitch. (Rarely it seems that Roon is pausing to sync all of these zones - but that’s only my guess at what is happening, and it only very rarely occurs.)
Now to the remaining suggestions…
Changing Deep Harmony Extension settings options did not help. I tried them all.
Opening the Harmony App Application “Library” (“Library” is the room where I am now) yields this:
Pushing any of the numbers does nothing. However, if you click on the hand with the pointing finger at the bottom of the screen, you get this:
You can use your finger on that screen and if you swipe from left to right the track will advance in Roon. (Right to left will backtrack - all the way to the beginning where it will stop playing.)
Try saying ‘fast-forward’ with the option set for reversed dual button.
Pause and Play should also work. That’s all I use.
That works! Is there a way to change the command “fast forward” to “next song” (or am I asking for too much)?
Now if I can only get it to work with a grouped zone… As it is now, each separate room can be controlled separately, but I cannot group zones together anymore. I group zones all the time - at least I used to. With the remote control devices separately set for each separate room I cannot group zones at all - not with Alexa and not even with my computer. Songs will stall almost immediately if more than one zone is grouped together.
Not that I’m aware of. If you find other commands, let us know.
Am I correct to say that Deep Harmony doesn’t work with grouped zones? If so, does anyone know if there is any development work being done on enabling the extension to work with grouped zones?
Perhaps it would be helpful if you could identify precisely what you think causes this. Maybe you could disable the Deep Harmony link for two zones and see if you can still successfully link them as you used to. Is there anything else you set up in the course of your “adventure” that is not now required that may be causing a problem that should be deleted? Try turning off every component, including your Room Core and the Deep Harmony Docker Container, and then restarting them.
Wish I were a programmer, but I’m just a hobbyist and audiophile. I have no “expert opinion” on what is causing this. Has anyone gotten Deep Harmony to work with grouped zones?
I tried creating a Harmony activity called “All.” I named a Roon grouped zone “All” and tried to use the new Harmony “all” activity to control it. I was not offered that choice in Deep Harmony - it didn’t recognize my Roon grouped zone “All.”
If I were to guess the problem it might have something to do with the fact that each separate zone has a different remote control represented by separate Harmony activities. Removing all of those remote controls will give me back the ability, through my computer and my tablet (and occasionally my cell phone) with Roon installed, to group zones. But I could be wrong.
Each separate ungrouped room zone will do the minimal things I have asked Alexa to do (now that I know the command “fast forward”). But grouping any two or more zones together will ruin not only the voice control, but any playback at all of the group. If I group two zones they will not play. I can leave them grouped and then go to another ungrouped zone and it will still play fine.
I have a lifetime Roon license, and I love Roon. It seems that voice control over audio systems is gaining some ground. It would certainly be something I would like to have (as can be seen by my struggles here). I hope Roon isn’t like many old lines of business that failed to recognize the future that would become Amazon and others. The audiophile who refused to recognize the CD and now struggles with a vinyl-only collection, claiming only vinyl can render perfect musicality… Frankly, part of my struggle here has been to convince the “powers that be” at Roon that this feature is more than a passing thought. A “skill” for Alexa and Google Home would be a very welcome feature. If my struggle has in any way gotten the attention of those “powers that be,” then even if this ends in failure (and my return of the Harmony hub) I will have achieved something.
I searched this thread and there’s an old post from @Adam_Goodfellow, who wrote Deep Harmony. It was referring to a previous version. However, I think the logic still applies about grouped zones being transient, so Deep Harmony cannot permanently link to a grouped zone. If so, then this approach that you’ve just tried will not be supported by Deep Harmony.
However, that’s not the same as saying Deep Harmony doesn’t work at all with grouped zones. I know I successfully tested grouped zones when I got Roon, but I haven’t wanted to use it since then. I’ve been using Deep Harmony for a long time, but I can’t recall if I had it installed when I ran my testing. So I’ll run a test for you later to see if I run into the same problem. I don’t expect hit this problem, or I’d have said something earlier.
Yes, it all works fine, but only after making a change to my earlier suggestion to @Ronald_Lyster. As I started my test I did run into the same problem, and then I realised it’s pretty obvious that something needed changing in the situation where only one hub is being used.
To carry out this test though, I had to reconfigure my home setup. I have two hubs controlling various pieces of equipment in two physically separate rooms. To set things up as closely as possible to @Ronald_Lyster’s setup, in particular, using just one hub, first I had to suspend the Deep Harmony link to the Sitting Room hub. Then I set up two new activities in my Kitchen hub with just the Roon Controller (TCL Roku 4K TV), which were then linked in the Extension and Device settings of Roon to my two Roon Ready endpoints: an Oppo 203 and SOtM.
Here’s the screen of the Extension setup for this revised configuration:
And this works fine for me. 
So hopefully it will for you @Ronald_Lyster too!
So what have I changed? The Use source control needs to be set to No. Each time Harmony sends a signal to Roon to pause/play/skip one of the linked devices, Roon will relay this control signal to any other linked devices. I presume that if Use source control is set to Yes, then Deep Harmony also relays those signals to Harmony. Whenever Harmony receives such a signal, it checks to see if the activity is on or not, and if it’s not on, it will turn it on that activity, and in the process turn off the first activity. In doing so, playback will be stopped. (You can see there might be scope here for some sort of infintite feedback between Harmony and Deep Harmony as the activities are switched on and off, but fortunately that doesn’t happen - Roon just stops playing.)
Clearly in a setup where there is a hub in each physical location it is useful to have the Use source control set to Yes. So in my situation for example, if I start playing something from Roon, then Harmony considers whether or not the related activity is on, and if not, turns it on, so my amp will be switched on and turned to the appropriate input.
As an aside, I often don’t need to start playback from Roon, but instead use the TCL Roku 4K TV shortcuts from Harmony to start a playlist or internet radio station. I think the channel favourites are supported by Alexa’s Harmony skill, so you may want to try that as the icing on the cake @Ronald_Lyster if everything else works.
You guys just won’t let me fail, will you? It works! Grouped zones and all!
Thank you all for your help. I guess I won’t be taking back the Harmony Hub after all. It skips, pauses, plays, and increases and decreases volume. However, the volume increase and decrease function affects only the original zone to which the other zones were grouped - not the entire group.
That’s great to hear 
Well done! It’s been an epic struggle.
Nothing obvious occurs to me on this that will always work. There may be some work around that you can discover. You may be able to link the volume of all the zones to one primary zone on the Roon device tabs, but that wouldn’t work unless that primary zone was always active (you could always turn the amp off manually if you wanted nothing to be heard in that room) and you were always using it to set the volume level. But it may be that this is a wrinkle that can’t be ironed out.
I’m back! The Alexa command “fast forward” now only jumps 30 seconds in the song - not to the next song. Any fix for that?
Still have ‘Reversed Dual Buttons’ selected in Options?
