No Windows App

I believe the 3rd party app is called Phonos. I do not have a Windows Phone so I have not tried it out. I assume you will be able to do about everything except run system setup options with it.

Phonos is the most popular. Note on your plans to abandon Sonos: No other multi-room audio system supports Windows Mobile or UWP apps at this time. Though a poster here says he was told Denon is working on a UWP app (take that as you will), there are no formal announcements to support Windows Mobile or UWP apps by any of Sonos' competitors. Also, Sonos has officially announced that the future is in Voice Control, which relies on no particular OS, Windows or otherwise, for the vast majority of use. Certainly the current Windows program is more than sufficient for the setup and services issues not covered by the 90% of tasks which are easily accomplished by Voice Control.

Phonos is the most popular. Note on your plans to abandon Sonos: No other multi-room audio system supports Windows Mobile or UWP apps at this time. Though a poster here says he was told Denon is working on a UWP app (take that as you will), there are no formal announcements to support Windows Mobile or UWP apps by any of Sonos' competitors. Also, Sonos has officially announced that the future is in Voice Control, which relies on no particular OS, Windows or otherwise, for the vast majority of use. Certainly the current Windows program is more than sufficient for the setup and services issues not covered by the 90% of tasks which are easily accomplished by Voice Control.

thanks - I'll look at Phonos. Not sure about Voice Control - especially as I'm likely to be in the room with a wireless speaker on loud at the time! The current Windows phone is more than capable of supporting the App. The Sonos position appears to be more political than practical.

Voice control is handy for listening to a couple songs but still doesn't replace building your own playlists. But can be surprisingly useful for a quick song.

thanks - I'll look at Phonos. Not sure about Voice Control - especially as I'm likely to be in the room with a wireless speaker on loud at the time! The current Windows phone is more than capable of supporting the App. The Sonos position appears to be more political than practical.

I'm pretty sure Sonos' position is financial, not political. The Windows phone market share is miniscule and declining, and the bulk of Sonos' development resources are dedicated to voice and streaming solutions which are far more likely to drive sales.

Phonos is the most popular. Note on your plans to abandon Sonos: No other multi-room audio system supports Windows Mobile or UWP apps at this time. Though a poster here says he was told Denon is working on a UWP app (take that as you will), there are no formal announcements to support Windows Mobile or UWP apps by any of Sonos' competitors. Also, Sonos has officially announced that the future is in Voice Control, which relies on no particular OS, Windows or otherwise, for the vast majority of use. Certainly the current Windows program is more than sufficient for the setup and services issues not covered by the 90% of tasks which are easily accomplished by Voice Control.

thanks - I'll look at Phonos. Not sure about Voice Control - especially as I'm likely to be in the room with a wireless speaker on loud at the time! The current Windows phone is more than capable of supporting the App. The Sonos position appears to be more political than practical.

Actually. The feedback I read about voice control systems is that the voice interpretation interfaces are remarkably good at understanding speech - Yes, even Americans speaking English! We would assume that once Sonos integrate voice control that it would have the ability to filter any playing music out of any speech it detects making it less likely that loud music would affect voice control (That would only work if the source of the music was Sonos itself rather than some random dude with a ghetto blaster on his head).

Yes +1 to Stuart for that. A voice-controlled music system that didn't work because...er...there's music playing, isn't going to do much for Sonos' reputation. I'm sure they'll do better than that.

Hi Stuart,
I wrote yesterday in another thread about having concerns with voice control when you're playing loud music and it seems I'm not the only one. However if you're interested in a Windows 10 controller app with voice control you can try Zonos. It's a Windows 10 UWP app tghat supports Cortana. Unfortunately for me Cortana does not work in Dutch, yet.

I think you will just have to shout "Stop Motorhead" as loud as you can.

Hi Stuart,
I wrote yesterday in another thread about having concerns with voice control when you're playing loud music and it seems I'm not the only one. However if you're interested in a Windows 10 controller app with voice control you can try Zonos. It's a Windows 10 UWP app tghat supports Cortana. Unfortunately for me Cortana does not work in Dutch, yet.

The cutting edge of voice control at the moment is Amazon Echo/Alexa. They have successfully solved the problem of background noise and/or music playing over the voice commands (wouldn't be a very smart idea to release a music speaker with voice control if they didn't).