Alexa
Amazon echo just linked all speekers just like sono's. I think if sonos dont pull there finger out i will get more amazon echos instead of sonos a lot cheeper sounds not as good but. they said they would launch voice control early 2017 still waiting
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Rumour has it you'll have to wait at least another 5 weeks.
Lol.
I also find it frustrating, although having been using voice control to play audio from my Echo dot through my Play 1's for a couple of weeks I do think it does have a bit of the novelty factor about it.
Don't get me wrong, being able to ask Alexa to play a track on my Sonos speakers is fantastic, and due to Alexa's extremely good voice recognition it does work very well, but as others have said, it's not exactly difficult to use your phone or tablet etc to select and play music either.
My implementation, requiring a computer to stream the output of the Echo over my network to my Sonos results in the same final experience as I expect the official solution to do, ie saying "Alexa play heroes by David Bowie" results in the track playing on my Sonos speakers ( even though it's being accomplished in a roundabout way ), although I currently experience a small delay of 1-2 seconds due to the how my system is setup.
As I only have a stereo pair of Play 1's the official solutions additional features for playing audio in different groups etc doesn't apply to me.
What I do have concerns about is if Sonos do incorporate voice control microphones to their speakers, will this work as well as having a seperate echo device, or will Sonos also release their own seperate voice control mic?
In my experience, when my Echo dot is playing music the voice recognition ability is reduced, which makes sense as it must be more difficult to hear voice commands over the audio, and yet when I'm playing audio from my Echo dot on my Play 1's my Echo dot is able to recognise voice commands easier.
Don't get me wrong, being able to ask Alexa to play a track on my Sonos speakers is fantastic, and due to Alexa's extremely good voice recognition it does work very well, but as others have said, it's not exactly difficult to use your phone or tablet etc to select and play music either.
My implementation, requiring a computer to stream the output of the Echo over my network to my Sonos results in the same final experience as I expect the official solution to do, ie saying "Alexa play heroes by David Bowie" results in the track playing on my Sonos speakers ( even though it's being accomplished in a roundabout way ), although I currently experience a small delay of 1-2 seconds due to the how my system is setup.
As I only have a stereo pair of Play 1's the official solutions additional features for playing audio in different groups etc doesn't apply to me.
What I do have concerns about is if Sonos do incorporate voice control microphones to their speakers, will this work as well as having a seperate echo device, or will Sonos also release their own seperate voice control mic?
In my experience, when my Echo dot is playing music the voice recognition ability is reduced, which makes sense as it must be more difficult to hear voice commands over the audio, and yet when I'm playing audio from my Echo dot on my Play 1's my Echo dot is able to recognise voice commands easier.
Amazon just released their Connected Speaker API for AVS two days ago, after a year in development. Sonos can now use the developer preview version, which should finally be stable enough to develop against. Amazon has been the holdup on this, not Sonos. You can be sure that Sonos was heavily involved with Amazon in the development of this new API. Imagine the conference calls Sonos had over the past year with Amazon, Bose, Denon, etc, all with competing interests, developing this API together.
https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/7c9343ce-425b-4baa-ae63-49c36afb5341/giving-device-makers-more-ways-to-bring-voice-forward-music-experiences-to-their-products
Maybe the OP is a bit more reassured after reading this: http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/sonos-voice-speaker-october-4-1202541731/
I'd agree, Sonos just got there business killed by Amazon because they were too slow to market. I have four Alexas and 1 Sonos. A tin can sound on the dots, but the multi-room audio works awesome and I kill two birds with one stone with less devices. The echo it self is good, takes up less room, is more functional. Previously, I was looking at Sonos only because of my Home automation (Homeseer and Smartthings). Now I have no reason to and in fact there is a pretty big disincentive to go Sonos. I don't see Sonos surviving without a significant price drop. There are much better speakers out there for the audiophiles and much better value-add speakers for the budget conscious. It is a lose-lose for Sonos.
*yawn*
Nothing has changed in that regard. There have always been better speakers and cheaper speakers on the market. Sonos made their distinction in multiroom and control, along with high quality sound. While there are new players in terms of giving a customer multiroom functionality, I don't think they measure up to Sonos just yet. Amazon and others are catching up/matching on control perhaps. However, I don't think this changes much as far as customers who are interested in Sonos. For the most part, the people interested in Echo and Homepods, but not Sonos, were probably never interested in Sonos before. There are exceptions, like you, but I would guess there are just as many who became interested n Sonos with the changes voice as their were those who became disinterested.
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