Amazon Echo

Amazon only just announced availability of AVS to third party devices on March 23rd of this year. Two months ago. Assuming Sonos uses it, they've barely had time to assess the offering, start talks with Amazon, and maybe get a few developers trained on its use. A long, long road ahead...

Do we even know if they are going to add Alexa to the Sonos (using internal mic), or create a skill? I'm crossing my fingers for a skill, I don't see Sonos catching up with Echo's special mics in time to catch this falling knife.

The way the CEO worded it a while back, it gave me the feeling that decision to adopt Echo was fairly recent. Just my interpretation of his words.

I agree, 2 months is ridiculously short for anything. But if they are only developing a skill, it should be fairly straightforward. A couple people have already created json custom skills, doesn't seem to be that tough, but needs a server.

One big issue I see, and maybe I am completely missing something here, is that I think for an Echo Skill to work with Sonos, they will need some kind of hub on the local network (or software running on local computer). Sonos speakers, unlike many other IoT devices, are not accessible from the internet (a good and bad thing). They do not maintain a connection with 'home base', and are only accessible when the app scans the local network to see what it finds. I'm pretty sure Alexa skills needs a combination of the cloud, plus an IoT devices reachable from the cloud to send commands to. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Well, Amazon has certainly entered the wireless speaker market with a bang.

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-echo-speaker-sales-beats-bose-and-logitech-2016-1

https://www.1010data.com/company/blog/can-you-hear-me-now-the-surprising-success-of-the-amazon-echo/

Since Amazon famously never releases sales figures on anything it manufactures, take that chart with a grain of salt. I've seen market analysis that had Amazon Fire tablets outselling iPads, and other market analysis where they were trailing Chinese tablet manufacturers. Not coincidentally, the premise behind each article (pretty much "Amazon takes over tablet industry" vs. "Amazon tablet division in big trouble") exactly matched the market "analysis".

Had enough Best Buy points to pick up an Echo for $5 this morning.

Addressing the sound quality first: it's about on part with my Squeezebox Radio, which is to say far below a room-corrected Play:1. About as expected.

Went through a couple of voice training sessions from across the room. I listen to a lot of French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc music, so Alexa has a tough time understanding artist names, but when she finally does, this can be affirmed in the app. Will take some time.

I don't have Spotify account, so am currently limited to Tunein or Pandora, and a few Amazon albums, on Echo. Annoyingly, Alexa seems to want to search I Heart Radio, which I've never used, by default, even though I haven't enabled an account there. I have to specifically mention Pandora or Tunein to play from either. Maybe there's a way to change the default, but I don't see how. No Apple Music, Google Music, SoundCloud, MixCloud, or most other places where I have accounts and can access via Sonos.

Hooked it up with Yonomi to control my Sonos devices. Let's just say that this process isn't up to Sonos levels of simplicity.

Looking forward to Sonos adding voice control, which will no doubt "just work", certainly better than Alexa +Yonomi.

For things like weather and traffic, pretty cool. For music, meh, very limited do far. I'll continue using the Sonos app for music until Alexa is smarter, or Sonos does voice control much better, as I expect they will.

Consumer Reports, one of the very few magazines that still reviews equipment objectively, gives the Echo a "good" for sound quality, while Tap gets a "Fair".

http://www.consumerreports.org/wireless-speakers/amazon-tap-sound-quality/

Want the very best SQ a wireless speaker can deliver? Get a Play:5. Better, get a stereo pair.

http://www.consumerreports.org/wireless-speakers/best-wireless-speakers-right-now/

Interesting to see a licensed third part product...

http://www.invoxia.com/triby/

That's interesting.
More tick box pain for sonos, makes sonos look like a 10 year old product....

That's interesting.
More tick box pain for sonos, makes sonos look like a 10 year old product....

Why? Sonos has announced it is working on voice control. No other multi-room system has even announced this functionality, Sonos is the first. In what way could these facts make Sonos "look like a 10 year old product"? Seems to me they are ahead of the game, not behind.

Interesting to see a licensed third part product...

http://www.invoxia.com/triby/

I think they might regret naming this thing after one of the most infamously annoying Star Trek creatures (Tribble for those under 35!)