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.
Alexa completely useless? Here is a review of what it can't do ! Also - help requested to configure location
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