My Alexa and Sonos feedback

So, I know these threads tend to generate some heated debate, but this is my view and my feedback to Sonos. I also know very well what a Beta programme is, and have worked for a major OS vendor and know exactly what good or harm such public betas can do for a product.

I don't think you can call this a beta product. It's more an open Alpha test which IMO is very risky. I get that this whole market is evolving rapidly, and is getting very competitive, so missing out on being there is in itself a risk, but sometimes being open and honest about the problems that are not yours can do wonders for public perception.

I've had Sonos since 2009 and now have a mix of Connects, and Play speakers for different rooms. Most of my listening is via local library, but I do find myself using streaming more and more, with Qobuz being my favourite service. So straight away, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage. I do have limited Amazon music access as any CD's I've bought are mostly available through that, so there's some music available to Alexa.

I now have two Echo Dot devices, thanks to the Sonos discount, and these are in different rooms. I also have other smart devices, including a Logitech Harmony hub and smart lights, and use both Alexa and Siri with Apple homekit, so have a point a reference against which you can compare Alexa function to another voice assistant and smart home eco-system.

My issues are:

1) Multi-room ducking - virtually a deal breaker
2) No room support in Alexa
3) No local library support
4) Limited streaming service support
5) Lack of integration between Sonos One and Play:1

So, that ducking multi-room ducking... It's just awful. Sonos, you have to get Amazon to add proper room support to Alexa. It's quite frankly the most annoying feature you could ever have on a multi-room system, period. One of the things we were looking to do this year was put one of the new Echo's into children's rooms, or maybe even a Sonos One. However, as it stands using a Sonos One would be impossible. Household Armageddon would ensue once the children had a) figured out if they just say "Alexa" that all audio on Sonos in *ALL* rooms goes quiet, and b) got past a) and found that having their music paused every time someone else uses Alexa anywhere in the house is so annoying there is no point using it.

At present the only way around this would be to use one of the new Echo devices with a better speaker than an Echo Dot in the children's rooms, as different echo devices only mute the audio on the device that responds. I don't know if there is an interim way to use Alexa device groups to somehow limit this, but it's a huge problem. Even asking an Echo dot for the weather mutes all Sonos devices. It really does make the Sonos integration a no go in a multi-room system.

Which is where I think the most important thing Sonos can do for both itself and it's users, as well as Alexa users is put as much pressure as you can on Amazon to sort this out. Apple have it sussed with rooms. If Amazon don't do this, it won't just be Sonos that loses out. The current Device Groups are no good if we can't get Sonos and Alexa groups to work together. What you want to do, is in a room where you have Alexa, Sonos and possibly even lights for example, is walk in and go Alexa turn lights on, and Alexa play music and for Alexa to know that it is in a room, and therefore by default should only control the devices in that room. You should be able to then link a Sonos group to an Alexa room. You could then get ducking to work properly by only ducking the Sonos in that room if it is playing.

This should be called out in the release information that at present the Alexa integration is not ready for multi-room systems and place the blame firmly on Amazon's doorstep on lack of proper room support. This is also made worse by some of the limitations on number of streams which again limit the use of this integration in multi-room systems. It really is only usable at present in simple single room setups IMO.

I'm not going to go into too much detail on 3 and 4, we all know that 4 is probably a consequence of the initial deal with Amazon, and that Spotify is likely to follow at some point, but it would be very useful to have local library support, and perhaps some kind of user poll thereafter to determine which streaming services can be support next.

I don't personally buy the excuse that local library support can't happen because the Sonos Cloud has no knowledge of my local library as simple tests show that it clearly can get that information if it wants to. I usually give remastered versions of the same album specific names that I make up. If I start one of these playing in a room with no Alexa device in it, and then from a different room where you cannot hear the music, ask Alexa what is playing in the Sonos room, it tells me exactly what is playing. Even including my naming of the CD, which is completely unique to my local library. So there can be no Shazam type tech in play here, and nothing on Amazon music uses the naming I do. So clearly Alexa has queried my local Sonos system to get the playing track, and if it can do that, I don't really see much difference between that and querying a Sonos device for it's library index, which each device holds in memory. :)

Also, as we get more services enabled, *please* can we have some way to specify a search order preference between those services?

Finally, the lack of Play:1 and Sonos One integration. I don't get this, why would I need or even want two different (maybe more for surround sound) devices in the same room competing with each other to respond to my voice? Surely one device per room is enough, and if, or should I say when, Amazon sort out room integration, I bet one of the scenarios they will struggle with is having multiple 'Echo' devices in one room... Unless it's some kind of huge room, then most people will want just one device that responds. With that in mind, it would make perfect sense to allow a Play:1 And Sonos One to pair. Likewise Play:3 and 5's, although I'd accept that this would only work if the new Sonos Three and Five with voice enablement were very similar to the current Play speakers. (Old Play:5's for example would be out of luck and I have one of those...)

I have some Play:1's in some rooms and there's no way I'm replacing them with a single Sonos One... If I want to voice enable those, then it will be an Echo Dot or other equivalent. However, *if* you could pair a 1 and a One, then I would be tempted to upgrade to voice control by creating stereo pairs. This would add both better sound and voice which would seem like a decent deal. Replacing like for like just for voice control right now is not a compelling upgrade.

Maybe the above would change if and when a Sonos One supports more than just Alexa, but I'm not sure we will ever see Siri on Sonos...

I would however be interested to see Apple Homekit support next now that Apple have dropped the need for the hardware based encryption keys. Better room integration with Sonos groups should be possible, and I find that Siri is far better at interpreting vague requests than Alexa. Many times Alexa gets it very wrong. Siri 9 times out of ten doesn't.

I'm going to end on a small positive for the Sonos/Alexa integration... As I mentioned briefly, I also have a Harmony Hub, and the way you use Alexa to control it is "Alexa - tell harmony to ..." and one of the things you learn with voice control very quickly is that the simpler you can make commands the more likely you are to use it... So a big thumbs up for trying to integrate Sonos with Alexa in a way that is more natural, having to say "Alexa - tell Sonos to..." would get too lengthy. It's just a real shame Alexa isn't up to the same level as Sonos in it's room integration, so at the moment doing this seems to have more severely restricted the experience in the short term. In the longer term I guess we'll see.

I know this is quite long, but it's my impressions of using the new Sonos/Alexa integration in something more complex than a single room environment, and unfortunately, there's a lot of things that need fixing to make it even slightly usable in that scenario... Am waiting expectantly... 😃