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rubberduck
Renowned Enthusiast I
Oct 5, 2017 4:07 PM UTC

Alexa and voice control excuse to be forced into paying for renting music?

It seems to me the wholealexa integration has been deliberately compromised to ensure the full feature set works only with streaming services and not with any purchased or owned media storage. What is sonos plan here? I did not purchase sonos to only be able to use Alexa for digital steaming services. It is already documented that amateur code has been out there before sonos spent nearly a year developing this version that has a far greater feature set than current. Including being able to use Alexa with local media. Why are sonos not making this feature available?
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    12 replies

    jgatie
    jgatie
    Oct 5, 2017 4:08 PM UTC
    Oh jeez. (facepalm)
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      upstatemike
      Oct 5, 2017 4:59 PM UTC
      It seems to me the wholealexa integration has been deliberately compromised to ensure the full feature set works only with streaming services and not with any purchased or owned media storage. What is sonos plan here? I did not purchase sonos to only be able to use Alexa for digital steaming services. It is already documented that amateur code has been out there before sonos spent nearly a year developing this version that has a far greater feature set than current. Including being able to use Alexa with local media. Why are sonos not making this feature available?

      The "amateur" code depends on a 24/7 PC running on your local network so Alexa has someplace to go to look up your locally indexed music. That is a little too complex for most customers so I can see why it would not be part of an initial offering from Sonos. Demand will determine if Amazon or Sonos decide to eventually create a cloud based copy of every customers local music index for Alexa to use. I'm guessing Amazon feels the ability to upload your local music to the Amazon Music Service is a sufficient solution for now.
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      Local music library with carefully constructed playlists - no shuffling!, Integration with Homeseer Automation, No touch screen devices, No streaming services, No Apple products ever
      castalla
      Local Superstar
      Oct 5, 2017 5:07 PM UTC
      As long as you don't exceed the 250 tracks limit (unless you want to pay out more)!
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      It's the courageous bee's knees - all 6 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝. - - - - - Make Sonos Great Again - - - - -
      John B
      Oct 5, 2017 5:36 PM UTC
      Always believe the cockup theory before the conspiracy theory
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        melvimbe
        melvimbe
        Oct 5, 2017 5:44 PM UTC
        Why are sonos not making this feature available?

        Why are you assuming Sonos is the one making that decision? If it really is about forcing you to buy/rent streaming services, why wouldn't you assume that the company who makes money off of streaming services is pushing the decision?

        Personally, I don't think that's the only decision factor. If you dig into the details of how this works vs how the homebrew apps or 3rd party hubs that provide some integration work, you can get a better idea of why things may be the way they are.
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        Danny
        upstatemike
        Oct 5, 2017 6:15 PM UTC
        Alexa would need to access a copy of your local music index in order to respond to voice commands about it. The index stored on your Sonos players is not accessible to Alexa so where would this alternate copy of the index reside? On an additional piece of hardware that folks need to buy? From some cloud storage space that folks need to rent? I'm just not clear what Sonos is expected to do to provide this feature without creating an additional cost.
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        Local music library with carefully constructed playlists - no shuffling!, Integration with Homeseer Automation, No touch screen devices, No streaming services, No Apple products ever
        rubberduckAuthor
        Renowned Enthusiast I
        Oct 5, 2017 6:16 PM UTC
        It seems to me the wholealexa integration has been deliberately compromised to ensure the full feature set works only with streaming services and not with any purchased or owned media storage. What is sonos plan here? I did not purchase sonos to only be able to use Alexa for digital steaming services. It is already documented that amateur code has been out there before sonos spent nearly a year developing this version that has a far greater feature set than current. Including being able to use Alexa with local media. Why are sonos not making this feature available?

        The "amateur" code depends on a 24/7 PC running on your local network so Alexa has someplace to go to look up your locally indexed music. That is a little too complex for most customers so I can see why it would not be part of an initial offering from Sonos. Demand will determine if Amazon or Sonos decide to eventually create a cloud based copy of every customers local music index for Alexa to use. I'm guessing Amazon feels the ability to upload your local music to the Amazon Music Service is a sufficient solution for now.

        The 65k track limit is already hard coded into the sonos system which does not require an upload to cloud. The sonos system is always on as is. There is no complexity about it
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        Skelton
        Prodigy I
        Oct 5, 2017 6:17 PM UTC
        Look rubberduck, you're obviously upset that you didn't get the features you'd like in the first release. However, it won't change anything to post your complaints over and over again.

        I've provided logical reasons for why you see these features first, but you aren't interested. Fair enough. Just don't think you will endear any support with these conspiracy theories in or outside Sonos.
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        rubberduckAuthor
        Renowned Enthusiast I
        Oct 5, 2017 6:19 PM UTC
        Alexa would need to access a copy of your local music index in order to respond to voice commands about it. The index stored on your Sonos players is not accessible to Alexa so where would this alternate copy of the index reside? On an additional piece of hardware that folks need to buy? From some cloud storage space that folks need to rent? I'm just not clear what Sonos is expected to do to provide this feature without creating an additional cost.

        How does Plex manage it? How did the amateur code manage to access it? If you have a nas it is already accessible without paying ANY cloud rent. Just another reason to force users to rent music.
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        Skelton
        Prodigy I
        Oct 5, 2017 6:27 PM UTC
        Plex isn't magic. It requires a server and NAS too.

        I'm not going to further engage your misunderstandings of the technology as you don't actually appear interested in learning, but I felt compelled to post this.
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