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Huh. That's an interesting thought. I guess it depends on whether all Echos have the same hardware microphone. The reason for not doing it on Android was the substantial variation in hardware microphones in all those devices, but I really like your suggestion!
Ah, but the fly in the ointment is that the Amazon device wouldn't necessarily be in your optimal seating position. Which would make it hard to get the real value of the Trueplay experience, which is why it works so well on a handheld device like an iPhone or iPad.
Bruce
I hear you. I was thinking more along the line of CEDIA installers carrying an Amazon Tap on the truck for this purpose. OR the suggestion I made 2 years ago at CEDIA, Sonos should make and sell a calibration microphone. This could be added like a bridge, and since Sonos makes it, the quality would be better than that of Apple iPhone microphone. But directional like a Trinnov setup for 5.1/7.1 sonos setups
Yup, the issue there would be how to restrict it to just installer's use. Otherwise, mom and pop would run it with the Tap on the table in the corner, and wouldn't be able to figure out why their Sonos speakers sounded worse. No objection to a microphone device like you suggest, but the cost would be possibly prohibitive, since it would need to be on the wifi network / Sonosnet. But perhaps useful, especially for installers. Which begs the question, what percentage of Sonos systems do you think are installed by 3rd party installers?
I just don't see a simple solution that wouldn't be a problem for Sonos to support. The iOS solution was smart, if there was a way to extend that to Android in some way. But the problem would end up being the fact that you'd have to calibrate the microphone on the android before using it, which would complicate it's use as a calibration tool. At least I can hope that smarter minds than mine at Sonos have been giving it consideration for some amount of time.
I just don't see a simple solution that wouldn't be a problem for Sonos to support. The iOS solution was smart, if there was a way to extend that to Android in some way. But the problem would end up being the fact that you'd have to calibrate the microphone on the android before using it, which would complicate it's use as a calibration tool. At least I can hope that smarter minds than mine at Sonos have been giving it consideration for some amount of time.
I would by an $99 wifi/sonosnet microphone to tune my $2000 speakers, a house full of $400 zones, or a $1800 Playbar/Sub/Play1s 5.1 system. Plus every 3rd party install company should have one for the setups they do, insuring Sonos quality control in the field. I really see TruePlay as a great tool, if the hardware is good, and the process performed correctly.
The question is are there enough of them to spare from the Alexa integration for this?!
I believe that the mic calibration step is a good way to have a common baseline for every device before Trueplay is done; I recently read here - from ratty who we know can be counted on for being reliable - that it is better to use an iPhone 6 or later to run Trueplay in preference to iPhone 5 because of, take a guess - mic quality differences. So much for Apple device mic performance being standard then. And this step will allow all Android devices to be useable too.
I wonder if you could "side load" the app onto Alexa........ you could port it over and try it, they have the API on the microphone array published, just re-write the TruePlay algorithm a little bit and try it on some hardware laying around.
You raise a good point, as always, Kumar. In the grand scheme of things, I hope that they don't have any engineers assigned to the issue at this moment. I don't consider it to be as pressing an issue as Amazon/Alexa integration. But then again, I don't have any clue how many teams of engineers Sonos has, or how they're split up into functional units. And my experience with these types of things has been that not all engineers are useful for one single issue, it's better to split them up, so that they can do things that they're skilled at, so who knows?
It was a 6th gen iTouch, versus an early 5th gen. The microphone is tiny on the latter, and in a non-obvious place. But my main gripe with the 5th gen iTouch was the lack of CPU horsepower (plus the fact that it can't run higher than iOS9). Trueplay's IIR filters are computed in the handheld, and the iTouch 5G was just so slow at doing so.
As for the OP's request for a '$99 wifi/sonosnet microphone' well the basic iTouch 6G can't be that far off surely? And for the price you get a full-blown handheld computer thrown in.
+24Alexa Skills have no access at all to the low level audio stream, which would be required for this feature.
Even before Trueplay, i noted here that ELAC was room tuning their subs using an app that worked fine even on Android devices, and (accurately) predicted Trueplay. Since then, ELAC has extended their room tuning to full range, still on Android devices. Sonos really should talk to ELAC.
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