Sonos Play 1 + Amazon Echo Dot?!?!

There seems to be a surprising number of Sonos-friendly trolls on this and similar threads. I wonder why...

But quite apart from questioning your motives, jgatie, (and I do), your comment reflects _exactly_ the kind of misguided thinking that appears to be leading Sonos astray. So let me spell it out:

1/ I emphatically *don't want* Sonos software to be searching multiple music sources, shuffling, doing queueing, or anything of the kind. Those problems have been solved (very well, I might add) by Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora etc. etc. In fact, I'd really rather Sonos stopped designing user-facing music management software at all, because the results are ample proof that they suck at it. Well I do want this. I don't want to rely on a paid music service when i have my own store of 400 plus CDs ripped

2/ What I would really welcome (like a majority of people on the thread, I suspect) would be the ability to use the Sonos system as a *sound output device* for whatever system I'm using. If you can do a device-independent service integration like with Spotify then great (although usability is fairly poor tbh). However, I for one would be perfectly happy if you just __finally__ let me stream sound from whatever device I'm using to the Sonos system. And yes I know that will have implications for device battery life, but I'd appreciate if that were my choice. Note that solves the Alexa integration, AppleTV integration, browser streaming question and all the rest of it in one go.

How do you know what the majority want? Have you done a survey/run a customer focus group/analyse usage stats? I want a bit more that just telling Alexa to stream what is playing to my Sonos

3/ Crossfade, volume controls per room etc. are already built into Sonos control software, so I don't see how they're relevant to the development effort for new features.

Well maybe there is work to voice enable these things? I just guessing here but I doubt it is that simple and does require development

4/ "An infrastructure that has never had to interact with other IOT devices" - unlike home appliance manufacturers? That's just silly.

TL;DR: Sonos should stop trying to develop music management software and instead focus a thin layer of communication protocols that can register the speakers / rooms on my network and stream sound from whatever device I happen to be using.

Edits: Minor edits for clarity, typo.

Please don't assume you speak for the majority. I for one want all of what you have dismissed.

Thank you, bockersjv. Could not have said it better. I have many music services that have no presence on the Amazon Echo. I prefer to be able to use them in a coordinated, fully integrated Voice Control system with a universal UI, just like I do with the Sonos app. The last thing I want is for Sonos to become a glorified Bluetooth speaker for third party hardware and/or apps.

Hahaha! This is actually hilarious!

@jgatie, @bockersvj, @Kumar: If you're claiming to be users (as opposed to paid employees), then you really need to get better at pretending (13.5k posts and the corporate-speak are a bit of a giveaway). Else, you should really learn a bit about software interfaces (@bockersvj, the 'voice enable' comment was hilarious), and you probably shouldn't be baiting customers in an online forum (but go ahead and check with marketing if you're not sure :D).

To clarify one point: I never claimed to _know_ what the majority of other customers want, I said I _suspect_ other customers _on this thread_ might want something similar to what I do. And if you do want numbers, 220k Google hits on "Sonos stream from browser" is a pretty good indication that I'm not entirely alone in this.

Anyway, continuing this discussion with a bunch of apologists is evidently a waste of time: it's quite apparent you're entirely uninterested in giving Sonos feedback on how to improve, but instead are uniquely (and inexplicably) intent on justifying why the status quo is just fine.

I'm going to get on with my life now, but I might pop back every now and again.

Those who are losing an argument are always the first to resort to personal insults.

I might pop back
Sigh.

I don't get how people can be so confident in their blind assumptions about the development process. Just as an example, the comment regarding light bulbs integrating ages ago. Yes, it was. However, as pointed out already, it should be a much better integration. As well it was developed before Echo/Alexa went live. Why would you assume the develop went quickly and smoothly? For all we knew it could have taken 2 years to complete. As well, I would imagine Amazon took on a majority of the development. Integrating smart home appliances was a major feature requirement of the original product.

And Sonos should work FASTER? Do you have any data on how many developers and hours are put in the development right now? Do we know how much effort Amazon is putting in from their side? Do we know if the integration won't be released till a later date for marketing purposes? Do we know what marketing data management is looking at to determine how much they can afford to put in development and still expect to return a profit?


The reality is that we know very very little. What we thinking we know is based on assumptions that we really can't rely on with too much confidence. Wanting an integration ASAP is quite understandable. Wanting to drop Sonos (to replace with what?) is a personal choice. However, I don't get why people take their assumptions as fact and can't understand how people couldn't possibly come to a different conclusion then they did.

Those who are losing an argument are always the first to resort to personal insults.

Quite so.

There seems to be a surprising number of Sonos-friendly trolls on this and similar threads. I wonder why...

But quite apart from questioning your motives, jgatie, (and I do), your comment reflects _exactly_ the kind of misguided thinking that appears to be leading Sonos astray. So let me spell it out:

1/ I emphatically *don't want* Sonos software to be searching multiple music sources, shuffling, doing queueing, or anything of the kind. Those problems have been solved (very well, I might add) by Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora etc. etc. In fact, I'd really rather Sonos stopped designing user-facing music management software at all, because the results are ample proof that they suck at it.

2/ What I would really welcome (like a majority of people on the thread, I suspect) would be the ability to use the Sonos system as a *sound output device* for whatever system I'm using. If you can do a device-independent service integration like with Spotify then great (although usability is fairly poor tbh). However, I for one would be perfectly happy if you just __finally__ let me stream sound from whatever device I'm using to the Sonos system. And yes I know that will have implications for device battery life, but I'd appreciate if that were my choice. Note that solves the Alexa integration, AppleTV integration, browser streaming question and all the rest of it in one go.

3/ Crossfade, volume controls per room etc. are already built into Sonos control software, so I don't see how they're relevant to the development effort for new features.

4/ "An infrastructure that has never had to interact with other IOT devices" - unlike home appliance manufacturers? That's just silly.

TL;DR: Sonos should stop trying to develop music management software and instead focus a thin layer of communication protocols that can register the speakers / rooms on my network and stream sound from whatever device I happen to be using.

Edits: Minor edits for clarity, typo.

Hi lez,

Thanks for the suggestions. We can't comment on possible future products or features but we'll send along your feedback and suggestions.

Please note that Sonos employees are marked as such. Also, please refrain from personal attacks as this violates our community guidelines.

Jeff S

I am thinking about buying a "digital assistant", possibly an Amazon Echo Dot, but am also considering Google Home and Apple HomePod. One of the main reasons is actually because I want to be able to lie in bed in the morning and just shout out, play "xyz" without moving :P

Anyhow, I appreciate the integration with Amazon isn't complete yet and that it's coming during 2017. So any purchase I make for an Amazon Dot would be purely speculative as I suspect Sonas / Amazon won't underwrite it or guarantee that the integration will definitely happen (or will they?).

My question (forgive the pre-amble), is how are you building the integration? I would hope that Sonas are developing a REST API, so that any of the aforementioned digital assistants could easily develop plugins for Sonos should the demand be there, or those of us more technical could create our own crude versions. Or is it that you are developing a proprietary plugin with Amazon which will provide greater features and control than could be achieved via a generic REST API?

I guess it would be useful from a consumer perspective to understand the future potential ease of 3rd party integration with Sonos.

For example, the Sonos strategy might be to publish a REST API to enable greater integration with multiple apps offering some basic functions which is pretty quick for app companies to program. Then for a select few Sonos "Platinum" partners, tighter integration is developed to enable more feature rich options.

To conclude, I may decide I prefer Google Home, but if Sonos doesn't integrate, I may sell my Sonos speakers on Ebay and then switch to another product, because I value my digital assistant more than my speakers. I'm not saying I do prefer Google Home, but I hope you understand the way consumers minds may work and why I am asking these questions.

Sonos has stated the following (emphasis mine):

These new voice capabilities will be delivered in a software update that will work with new and previously purchased Sonos and Alexa-enabled devices such as Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap, and Amazon Fire TV.

http://press-us.sonos.com/134980-sonos-with-partners-and-industry-leaders-ushers-in-new-era-of-connected-home-listening

So the Voice Control capabilities are going to be compatible will all Sonos/Alexa units past and present, and you can be sure that if you buy a Sonos/Alexa device now, it will work with the new implementation.