Sonos, Alexa and local NAS stored music

I have yet to order a Dot, although I have one teed up on amazon.

Before you spend any money, you can install either the Amazon app or the Amazon Music app on your phone and play around with it. You won't have the always listening aspect like an Echo or Sonos 1 -- you'll need to press something on the phone screen instead of saying "Alexa..." but you can speak every command and have it be processed just like an Echo would process it.

Thanks for the tip. The decision to purchase involves the confluence of a variety of tasks; sort of a "smart house" retrofit.

I get all the frustration, and it certainly is a downer if you don't want to use the services available to be controlled through Alexa. It's not bothering me really as I happen to primarily use Amazon, Pandora, and XM as my sources (other then tv line in), so I'm good. However, I get the frustration.

The way I see it, it's pretty clear that Sonos probably could have opted to design the interface the same was as the 'homebrew' skill. They probably didn't need to work with Amazon's developers hardly at all. If they did that then they probably would have had a lot fewer restrictions.

So what are some possible reasons why they didn't do that?
- Sonos wanted to have a device with Alexa built in. They obviously needed to work with Amazon on that. For design of the mics as well as using the service. I have to believe that that deal was tied to doing the speaker integration more along the way Amazon wanted it done. I doubt scraping their own Alexa enabled speaker was much of an option for Sonos, since their competitors were certainly going to go that route. Sonos can't afford to be behind on this.
- As has been pointed out in other threads, the vast majority of users use streaming services. I would also bet that the majority of people who have bought echo's primarily use the services Amazon provides. It does make sense that those services would receive the first treatment.
- There are some advantages to this design as opposed to Sonos 'going it alone'. Those being that you don't have to say 'tell sonos to' and eventually...hopefully...you won't have to specify the zone every time.
- Another advantage is the error handling. For example, If I were to say playing 'Play Tom Petty on Pandora in the Living Room', but I don't have a Tom Petty Station, Alexa will ask me if I want to create it. Other types of things. You can't do that sort of interaction with a homebrew skill.
- Then there is the visual and audio feedback. I the homebrew skill can reply (or could be programmed to) reply back that it's playing such and such in the living room, but it could give you the same visual feedback in your Alexa app, echo show and spots, or the fire tvs that are Alexa enabled.

To me, I can see how the homebrew design would have been easier to implement, and provide more for the customers initially. However, I can definitely see where doing the design this way provides for greater features in the future. Since the market is competitive and about to get even more competitive, I can see why they went this route.

Again, probably not much consolidation for those who can't use Alexa the way they want to now.

I can't see any motivation for Amazon to implement NAS, Spotify or Deezer "skills" with their Alexa integration, seems a conflict of interest. Since Sonos have teamed up and joint developed the One with Amazon I think we're out of luck with any none Amazon source.

Not a problem for me personally (I was weighing up buying my daughter a Sonos One for Christmas but the Alexa integration would be next to useless for us).

Actually, the One is going to be platform agnostic. You will be able to select the voice assistant you wish to use, with Google being next on the slate.

It strikes me that some of the furor around all of the "new" stuff in the privacy update last month will be raised again, if indeed they need to upload in a cloud location all of the names of the music that people have locally. For me, it's not an issue, but then again, I've got a fairly high threshold for that kind of privacy issues. And frankly, Amazon already knows what CDs I've purchased from them. I don't consider my music to be a sensitive issue, like I do my bank account, social security, and other more pertinent data points. What I listen to isn't an issue, other than folks making fun of me. And I'm fairly inured to that, as well.

Plex stores the library in the cloud via an external connection to my nas. I can use my library on any machine and browser. I have in fact been using it this evening remotely in the U.K. While my nas is running in LA. Plex has an app for sonos which requires the Plex library to be accessible externally and not locally. This works flawlessly. So there should have been no reason not to implement this unless amazon wants the user to be forced to rent music through an amazon subscription. As is, Alexa on sonos only works fully if you are subscribed to an amazon rental prOgram. You cannot use full functionality otherwise

hmm are you referring to Plex via remote (as in make it viewable from outside your intranet)? which of course i have set up and use it with the Plex app and the website from work or wherever.

however i only have sonos at my apartment not any at my office. i should try to bring one in for a day and test that - no way am i leaving one here (no lock on my office door).

so if that is true than you are correct... there is no reason not to be able to access our local libraries on plex via sonos via alexa.

As far as I know, Sonos only supports Plex on a local server, not the cloud, and quite frankly, the Plex implementation is terrible and Plex basically abandoned it soon after it launched.

It strikes me that some of the furor around all of the "new" stuff in the privacy update last month will be raised again, if indeed they need to upload in a cloud location all of the names of the music that people have locally. For me, it's not an issue, but then again, I've got a fairly high threshold for that kind of privacy issues. And frankly, Amazon already knows what CDs I've purchased from them. I don't consider my music to be a sensitive issue, like I do my bank account, social security, and other more pertinent data points. What I listen to isn't an issue, other than folks making fun of me. And I'm fairly inured to that, as well.

It is an interesting topic to ponder. Revealing the songs you collect in your library is probably a low risk privacy issue. Revealing how often you listen to certain tracks vs. other tracks could arguably be more of a concern. It is less about people making fun of you than it is a matter of people applying some statistical analysis like "people who listen primarily to this music genre are bad credit risks" or " they would not make good candidates to work here", etc.

Knowing in real time when you are at home listening to music is absolutely a risky piece of information to share. It can be used in a court of law to invalidate an alibi or used by thieves to establish a pattern for when your house is likely to be occupied or not.

It may sound far fetched but all of these scenarios have already occurred to some extent and are only expected to expand in the future.

Yeah, because hanging out down the street to watch you get in the car and leave is so much harder than hacking Amazon to figure out when someone isn't playing music. Jebus Christmas, do you people think about what you write? :8

Yeah, because hanging out down the street to watch you get in the car and leave is so much harder than hacking Amazon to figure out when someone isn't playing music. Jebus Christmas, do you people think about what you write? :8

Why would a thief waste time staking out a house when they can use data mining to get the info they need? Thieves are very sensitive to time management and return on investment.