Hello all,
I have fully bought into the Alexa controlled smart home... I have two WeMo smart plugs, four Echo devices, five Hue lights, and six Sonos speakers. I was very excited to upgrade the Echo in my kitchen, my most used one, with a new Sonos One. However, I had trouble getting Alexa on the Sonos One to respond to my commands, and the Echo in the nearby living room would almost always answer. After reading about connectivity issues, I spent significant time reloading apps, rediscovering devices, relinking services, and restarting my extensive home network (I'm a software engineer in the networking industry), all to no avail. Sonos One Alexa would still not respond to me.
However, I did discover a solution that was quite basic... and frustrating.... I have to pause speaking after saying "Alexa" and wait for the Sonos wake up tone before continuing with my command. Alexa on the Echo will consistently respond to "Alexa, what time is it?" when spoken at almost any speed and even jumbled. I don't understand Sonos' need to require me to pause after speaking "Alexa". I feel *I* shouldn't have to be retrained to use Alexa in my home. Even with the pause, Alexa in the living room Echo will 'win' sometimes. Grrrrr!
Looking at this issue from a software developer's perspective, it seems to me that those who wrote and approved the functional specification that permitted the pause after the Alexa wake word never truly used Alexa in Echo devices. This oversight also seems to have gotten past beta testing.
This issue seems like a good reason for me to pick up the Sonus API and see if I could fix it. :-)
Regards,
Ira
Question
Basic confusion for Echo users migrating to Sonos One
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+9I have not experienced this with my any of my Sonos One devices. As a long-time echo user, with multiple Echos and Echo Dots and now four Sonos Ones, I've never had to pause as you suggest. I speak to the Sonos Ones exactly as I do to the Echo devices, issuing the command without any pause after the wake word. My wife and I both speak over the wake sound (which I find annoying and obtrusive and hope one day to be able to disable) all the time and don't give it a second thought.
That is not to say that, like most users, there haven't been times when the Sonos Ones have either been over- or under-sensitive to the wake word and other sounds, but hopefully, as Sonos staff has suggested, we will see ongoing adjustments and improvements to that sensitivity over time.
That is not to say that, like most users, there haven't been times when the Sonos Ones have either been over- or under-sensitive to the wake word and other sounds, but hopefully, as Sonos staff has suggested, we will see ongoing adjustments and improvements to that sensitivity over time.
+1I been doing some experimenting with my Sonos One and I can only get *consistent* responses from Alexa when pausing for the tone after the wake word.
I found another difference with Alexa and microphone functionality between the Sonos One and the Echo. Ask the Echo "Alexa, who are you" and she'll respond with "I am Alexa and I'm designed around your voice..." Asks the Sonos One the same question and it will stop responding at "I am Alexa" when it hears the wake word. I think the Echo can tell when it says "Alexa" and ignores the wake word whereas the Sonos One cannot.
I found another difference with Alexa and microphone functionality between the Sonos One and the Echo. Ask the Echo "Alexa, who are you" and she'll respond with "I am Alexa and I'm designed around your voice..." Asks the Sonos One the same question and it will stop responding at "I am Alexa" when it hears the wake word. I think the Echo can tell when it says "Alexa" and ignores the wake word whereas the Sonos One cannot.
+9Again, I haven't had your experience getting consistent responses from Alexa without pausing. In our case, doing so doesn't make a difference. That's not to suggest that everyone's experience is the same. Clearly yours isn't, but different voices, accents, and room acoustics may very well play into how well it works for each of us.
As for the Sonos One reacting to it's own vocalization of "Alexa," I agree that is something the Sonos One does and my Echos and Echo Dots don't. Kind of an unusual circumstance, and I'm not sure what it does or doesn't suggest with respect to Sonos' implementation of the Alexa feature.
As for the Sonos One reacting to it's own vocalization of "Alexa," I agree that is something the Sonos One does and my Echos and Echo Dots don't. Kind of an unusual circumstance, and I'm not sure what it does or doesn't suggest with respect to Sonos' implementation of the Alexa feature.
Same to me is like a virus and now all divices of amazon said the same of Sonos One " Pandora is not available in you area. Pandora was running Perfect by 2 years.
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