Hi,
Is it just me or Alexa is an uterly useless assistant? I have been using my phone's Google Assistant for the past few years and assumed it was amongst the least performing ones since it came after Siri and Alexa. Oh boy was I wrong it seems!
I have 9 Sonos systems, 4 of which are Sonos One. I was very excited at the idea of controlling my speakers with my voice. It took many more months for this feature to arrive in Canada, but it finally did.
Setting it up has been a puzzling challenge.
Critique:
- For a start, I can't specify the location of my speakers (address). Every time I try to configure the address and press "save", I get an error message that stated: "We're sorry. We weren't able to update the address associated with this device. Please check your network connectivity and try again later". My network connectivity is fine, Alexa, thank you. This has been going on for months. Whenever I ask for the weather, it gives me the weather in Westlake, Wa. Worst, I can't set the time zone so whenever I want to setup an alarm, I must remove 3 hours from the real time I want the alarm to ring!
- Do I really need to configure the address (country, time zone, etc.) for EACH SPEAKER? Can't you figure out (or propose) that they are all in the same home? I think Jeff Bezos thought nobody would be stupid enough to buy more than one per house given it's uselessness..?
- I used to be able to control my Sonos by saying "Play", but I now get an incredibly inept message when I try to do so: "Humm, to do that, enable your Sonos skill in the Alexa app, after enabling the skill, just say Alexa (bloop!)..". Yeah, you got that right, Alexa auto-triggers itself (wow, amazing!) and doesn't complete the sentence. I don't know what she means by "enabling your Sonos skill" and that was working fine a few months ago although I didn't change anything.
- Unlike Google Assistant that speaks very good French (it gets it right 95% of the time), Alexa barely understands basic English and can't be of much use. 80% of what I ask her she can't answer, so I only ask for weather and the time.
- It seems that I can't control a Sonos system located in a different room. So, for example, if I want to set the alarm in my bedroom, I must BE in the bedroom and talk to the One in that Room. Apparently Alexa can't setup another device. That's a far cry from AI and robots invading us.
- Amazon only cares about you buying it's music so you can only search for music to be played that is stored in your Amazon library (whatever they call it). It is apparently impossible to play/queue/search for songs or playlist that are stored in my local library. Talk about useless again!
- Amazon can't start/play the Accuradio channels I want to listed to. Nor can it control my Tune-in channels. If I try to say "Play 98.5fm in Tune-in", it won't play the 98.5 station that is in my favorites (or local to me), but will randomly pick a station called 98.5 across the earth. How stupid.
- Apparently Amazon hasn't received the memo that 99% of the countries on the planet use the metric system and couldn't care less for the imperial system...
- As others mentionned: "Alexa..? ALExa? ALEXA!!! ALEXA ALEXA ALEXA!!!!" I find myself screaming at my speaker to get it to do something...
- That's my only Sonos critique: They mandatory microphone light! what a terrible design/idea. If we are to put this thing in our bedroom, to set the alarm or ask it questions (if it weren't so dumb), wouldn't you think we'd appreciate total darkness? Now I'l stuck putting permanently depositing something on top of my speaker, which probably hinders the microphones. I read that it was there for security/privacy reasons; still, you could have put a mechanical or hardware button to turn on/off, it is just annoying to have that bright light on all the time.
I can't wait for the Google Assitant to be supported. At the present time, I suggest anyone considering buying a Sonos system (truly, Sonos is the best and I adore it) not to waste extra money for the Alexa-enabled device. Or before you do so, try the Alexa app on your phone... you'll see how dumb she it and you'll quickly uninstall it.
Any help on setting up the "skills" and location on my devices appreciated.
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Wow, lots of emotion but not a lot of Sonos issues. I suggest you repeat this post on the Alexa forum!
You are right. And I could not be a biggest fan of Sonos. But with this new device, I'm on the fence. It is unclear to me how much of the integration with Alexa is Sonos' responsibility and how much is Amazon's...? The original goal of my post here was to see how my experience compared to other users. Specifically, if other non-US users were able to specify the location of their speaker..? When looking in one Amazon forum, there was no Sonos sub-forum, just for the Echo, hence why I came here.
If I keep my critique on the Sonos part, I'll say this:
1- The Alexa setup in the Sonos app (part of it was there) was truly unlike typical Sonos installation. I ran into many issues, I had to log-in multiple times, etc. Definitely not a smooth ride (again, only talking about the part specific to the Sonos app).
2- The microphone light! That's a problem that should be fixed, it is too bright to be in a bedroom.
3- Microphone sensitivity/location..? As other stated, you end up shouting "Alexa" 5 times in a row (sometimes, other times not)
4- A new item I forgot to mention above: The Play 1 could be installed both upside down (wall mounted with the buttons obviously on the bottom) or right side up (standing on a desk) and everything would be symmetric, up to the Sonos logo that is a palindrome (congratulation on that front!). With the Sonos One, there should be a way to CONFIGURE its orientation so that the (greatly appreciated) addition of the "swipe" to go to the next or previous song could be "adjusted". Doesn't seem all that hard to do from a software point of view... With my speakers wall-mounted, I need to swipe right to left to skip the song, which is counter intuitive.
5- Wish they had kept the mounting screw from the Play 1. I can imagine why they removed it, but from an aesthetic's point of view, I much preferred my old Flexson mounting bracket to the mandatory Sanus mounting bracket.
6- As stated above, the integration (selecting Accuradio or Tune-In channels) with Amazon, and I don't know if that's Sonos's fault for (I'm speculating here) not sharing through the API what are MY favorite stations (for example).
7- Google assistant ASAP please! Is this in Sonos' or Google's court?
Overall, it makes for a very poor user experience, unlike the rest of the Sonos system (especially since they brought back the permanent menu at the bottom).
Hi
1. There have been some customers that have had set-up issues which haven't been country specific. The main causes of the inability to set the location have been one of the following: Incorrect address in the Sonos profile on www.sonos.com; incorrect addess on their Amazon account; multiple Amazon accounts logged in to on the same device which has confused the account linking.
2. Not experienced that problem myself but there have been concerns about privacy.
3.This is steadly improving as was the same experience with the Echo Dot when they were first released.
4.Agreed.
5.Agreed
6. I must admit I save all my favourites within the Sonos App and so I haven't experienced this issue.
7. It will require development and testing by both companies. Sonos have committed to providing this in 2018 but no other more specific date yet.
For my perspective, yes the setup and overall user experience is more complicated but that is the nature of the beast when integrating Amazon, Google and the music providers with AI through the cloud.
1. There have been some customers that have had set-up issues which haven't been country specific. The main causes of the inability to set the location have been one of the following: Incorrect address in the Sonos profile on www.sonos.com; incorrect addess on their Amazon account; multiple Amazon accounts logged in to on the same device which has confused the account linking.
2. Not experienced that problem myself but there have been concerns about privacy.
3.This is steadly improving as was the same experience with the Echo Dot when they were first released.
4.Agreed.
5.Agreed
6. I must admit I save all my favourites within the Sonos App and so I haven't experienced this issue.
7. It will require development and testing by both companies. Sonos have committed to providing this in 2018 but no other more specific date yet.
For my perspective, yes the setup and overall user experience is more complicated but that is the nature of the beast when integrating Amazon, Google and the music providers with AI through the cloud.
I agree with you 100%, Alexa is pretty much a useless marketing ploy so far as the Sonos is concerned, at least based on my experience.
I was really looking forward to the ability to control the Sonos, stream my personal music and play my favourite radio stations, but no....at best it's an open connection to Amazon that might have a good guess at the weather and could maybe order me toilet paper.
Seriously, I just want to stream my music by voice command. Is there a way to do this?
I don't want to listen to "workout music" or "ocean sounds" but I DO WANT so badly to just play my music.
Will it ever be able to do that one, simple, fundamental thing?
I was really looking forward to the ability to control the Sonos, stream my personal music and play my favourite radio stations, but no....at best it's an open connection to Amazon that might have a good guess at the weather and could maybe order me toilet paper.
Seriously, I just want to stream my music by voice command. Is there a way to do this?
I don't want to listen to "workout music" or "ocean sounds" but I DO WANT so badly to just play my music.
Will it ever be able to do that one, simple, fundamental thing?
I don't want to listen to "workout music" or "ocean sounds" but I DO WANT so badly to just play my music.
Will it ever be able to do that one, simple, fundamental thing?
Sure, if your music is in Amazon's cloud, no problem.
But let's face reality for a second. Amazon has spent millions, possibly billions of dollars putting this Alexa service together. What would possibly be their motivation to do that? Just so you can play your music from your PC? No return on their investment there, don't you think? Or are you one of those who believes everything should just be done for you, with no expectation of you ever compensating for it in any way? Good luck...
I primarily play my music collection through Sonos and I too would love to have the ability to do that through Sonos One. Sure, I can play it through the app and Sonos One, but what’s the point of the Alexa part? As I’ve said... Sonos has pretty much forgotten about where they came from: The personal library streaming market. I do enjoy the Alexa stuff, but in my opinion it is sorely lacking a fundamental component of the Sonos system.
Spence has said it’s something they plan to do, at some point. But, perhaps Amazon won’t allow it for a year, or there are technical hurdles, who knows?
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