Plex Media Server is really stepping up the game on feature sets and things it can do. Sonos is not yet up to speed, and although, being in IT myself, I understand the task at hand in creating code, but when will Sonos be up to speed on having the Alexa skills (Not just the Plex skill) available to the SONOS hardware?
I understand the PLEX module in the Sonos player is still in beta, and its been like that for well over the amount of time that I have been a customer of Sonos. It works fine for me personally, so I may or may not be seeing some of the problems people are having with it.
Many times these collaborative efforts by two or more companies coming together to create a product or add features take longer then initially thought. That could be weeks or sometimes months, but when does the wait become to long? Customers want to invest in products that are quality, and Sonos certainly is that for me. Alexa (depending on who you speak to) is a quality product as far as Im concerned and PLEX is a ,leader in its field of personal media organization.
Amazon also just recently released the ability for owners of Echo and other Amazon products to create their own skills. This is certainly not a tech hurdle in many areas, but more of an implementation of a technology on a platform.
But the delays such as these effect all products involved. I for one hope that we will be seeing more integration sooner rather then later and perhaps a little more transparency as to the status of where Sonos is at with the implementation of Plex, and Alexa on the platform would go a long way with the customer base.
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First, the Plex skill for Alexa is used strictly to control other Plex apps/devices. You could actually tell Alexa to play a show or movie in your Plex library on your phone, if the Plex app is running on your phone at the moment. Plex has not made their Alexa skill able to play music from your Plex library on an Alexa-enabled device.
But that said, Sonos and Amazon still have a lot of work to do too... Sonos devices can't play the audio from a variety of other skills... whether that's something the other skill authors need to fix because of changes Amazon has made to its API, or if it's something Amazon needs to adapt, given the quantity of skills that don't work, I'm sure there will be arguments made both ways.
But that said, Sonos and Amazon still have a lot of work to do too... Sonos devices can't play the audio from a variety of other skills... whether that's something the other skill authors need to fix because of changes Amazon has made to its API, or if it's something Amazon needs to adapt, given the quantity of skills that don't work, I'm sure there will be arguments made both ways.
As far as Plex and Alexa, the Plex team recently (last week) made available a feature on their server to "Play (artist) radio" for the family of Amazon devices ... This did not (as previous skills relied on) need a player running on a nearby device to achieve this. It simply played the request. This to me is a game changer. It seems Plex is moving ahead, as well as Alexa. Can I do this on my Sonos One with Alexa? No I cannot.
I own 3 Echo's and I when it was advertised that Sonos One now comes with Alexa, I replaced all the Echo's in my home with Sonos one's ... The Sonos system is amazing from the sound to the amount of available music streaming services. But adding a voixce assistant I understand can be a task in of itself. Upon working with my new Sonos speakers, about 90% of the skills that I had operasting on my Echo's do not work on my Sonos speakers. This is not what I call intergration of a platform onto hardware. Alexa will give me the weather and the timer / alarm feature works. It can of course play my Plex server throuigh the Sonos controller, which doesnt really make much sense that it can read whats on my Plex server, yet cant do many othere things.
The bottom line for me is this. I love Sonos and I love my Plex server and Alexa has come a long way since first introduced.
I think when companies come togetehr and want to provide services to one another, its VERY attractive to the consumer. What isnt attractive to the consumer is buying a product thats advirtised as having something and it turns out the features falls way short. What you get at the end of the day are companies pointing the finger at one another about who they are waiting on to upgrade, and a lot of "its coming soon" or "we are working on it" to the consumer, whio is beyond frustrated.
I get it, this is bleeding edge technology. Its a work in progress. But its my belief that a little more time and effort needs to be spent in the lab and developing the technology before releasing or advertising it as possible. If your the consumer, in many cases both Alexa and Sonos have their money already and again, the customer has frustration.
Its business, I get it, its just that many times, its not good business. Again, I love my Sonos system, no regrets in spending the dolars to have it. Just a little more care and thought needs to go into the adaption of a technology on the Sonos platorm before advertising it to the consumer.
I own 3 Echo's and I when it was advertised that Sonos One now comes with Alexa, I replaced all the Echo's in my home with Sonos one's ... The Sonos system is amazing from the sound to the amount of available music streaming services. But adding a voixce assistant I understand can be a task in of itself. Upon working with my new Sonos speakers, about 90% of the skills that I had operasting on my Echo's do not work on my Sonos speakers. This is not what I call intergration of a platform onto hardware. Alexa will give me the weather and the timer / alarm feature works. It can of course play my Plex server throuigh the Sonos controller, which doesnt really make much sense that it can read whats on my Plex server, yet cant do many othere things.
The bottom line for me is this. I love Sonos and I love my Plex server and Alexa has come a long way since first introduced.
I think when companies come togetehr and want to provide services to one another, its VERY attractive to the consumer. What isnt attractive to the consumer is buying a product thats advirtised as having something and it turns out the features falls way short. What you get at the end of the day are companies pointing the finger at one another about who they are waiting on to upgrade, and a lot of "its coming soon" or "we are working on it" to the consumer, whio is beyond frustrated.
I get it, this is bleeding edge technology. Its a work in progress. But its my belief that a little more time and effort needs to be spent in the lab and developing the technology before releasing or advertising it as possible. If your the consumer, in many cases both Alexa and Sonos have their money already and again, the customer has frustration.
Its business, I get it, its just that many times, its not good business. Again, I love my Sonos system, no regrets in spending the dolars to have it. Just a little more care and thought needs to go into the adaption of a technology on the Sonos platorm before advertising it to the consumer.
I wasn't aware of the new Alexa feature for the Plex skill. I don't think it's yet documented on their support pages for Alexa. At least I didn't see anything when I looked at it quickly before making my post.
Anyway, like the various other skills that play audio, but in a different way than Sonos is expecting it, I would imagine that the Plex skill falls in that same vein. It can't hurt to let Plex know that you can't use their skill on Alexa-enabled devices like Sonos One. Maybe there's something they can do to specifically address Sonos devices... maybe there's a different way they need to code that part of the skill. I'm not a software developer, so I really don't know.
Alexa-enabled devices (like Sonos) ARE different than Amazon's own Echo devices though, that much I DO know.
Anyway, like the various other skills that play audio, but in a different way than Sonos is expecting it, I would imagine that the Plex skill falls in that same vein. It can't hurt to let Plex know that you can't use their skill on Alexa-enabled devices like Sonos One. Maybe there's something they can do to specifically address Sonos devices... maybe there's a different way they need to code that part of the skill. I'm not a software developer, so I really don't know.
Alexa-enabled devices (like Sonos) ARE different than Amazon's own Echo devices though, that much I DO know.
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