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March 12, 2016
Question

Yesterdays (March 11th, 2016) Sonos Anouncment

  • March 12, 2016
  • 112 replies
  • 4912 views
Not as much talk about yesterdays sonos anouncment as I would have expected from such a passionate community. So what are people thinking?

Obviously Amazon Echo has impacted SONOS but how do you go from hiring new people and planning a retail store to cutting staff?

What's next ? Should we be concered about making more current investments in sonos hardware (I really want to buy a sub)?

People have been posting for months about voice support and for years about DTS.

The standard response is sonos doesn't comment on future enhancements or new products.

We know what we have today and there pretty darn good products but we all want to be excited and look forward to what's coming next.
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      112 replies

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      jgatie
      jgatie
      March 30, 2016
      Why would they need to support another API if the Alexa tech is embedded in the Sonos devices? There would be no need.
      GreenI
      GreenI
      Avid Contributor I
      March 30, 2016
      If the Alexa tech is embedded, this would be for a new series of Sonos products - as unlikely this could be retro-fitted .... this would leave some millions of existing installations out in the cold - so an integration with one (or many) other providers via some form (or forms) of API may provide a shorter time to market for voice control over Sonos..... maybe they could integrate it within the Sonos app on your phone - as this already has a microphone.

      It is all guesswork to those outside of Sonos at the moment.
      jgatie
      jgatie
      March 30, 2016
      Well, the Play:5 Gen 2 has microphones. But yes, the rest would have to be retrofitted, or Sonos would have to come out with an Echo Dot type standalone microphone array.
      mwiseman
      Enthusiast II
      March 30, 2016
      Well, the Play:5 Gen 2 has microphones. But yes, the rest would have to be retrofitted, or Sonos would have to come out with an Echo Dot type standalone microphone array.

      Why not just integrate with the Echo Dot?
      jgatie
      jgatie
      March 31, 2016
      Why not just integrate with the Echo Dot?

      I'm speculating they will. However, techies can be pretty fickle. For those who are loathe to purchase an extra piece from someone else, or are anti-Amazon, or are against (to use an old SE phrase) "hanging a bag off the box", incorporating the Alexa tech into future hardware is an elegant solution.

      As an aside, I (and others) find it interesting that a recent job listing at Sonos has "microphone array" experience as a desired skill, whereas there are no listings desiring voice recognition. Seems to point to the hardware being done in house and the voice recognition itself being pre-packaged.

      Again, all speculation on my part.
      mwiseman
      Enthusiast II
      March 31, 2016
      Why not just integrate with the Echo Dot?

      For those who are loathe to purchase an extra piece from someone else, or are anti-Amazon, or are against (to use an old SE phrase) "hanging a bag off the box", incorporating the Alexa tech into future hardware is an elegant solution.

      Agreed, but for those of us with a lot of current Sonos hardware, the Echo Dot makes the most sense.
      chicks
      chicks
      April 2, 2016
      Have done a bit of reading on Amazon Voice Service. Looks like Amazon has built in a major restriction: 3rd party products need to activate the service using a button press, not by speaking "Alexa". That's a major roadblock for Sonos adopting AVS. It would require the end user to purchase an Echo or Dot for the full voice command experience.
      chicks
      chicks
      April 2, 2016
      Google just opened access to its speech recognition API, a more generalized API than AVS, but interesting. I developed a large traffic information system for a large state using the Nuance engine in the "cloud" (actually well before the word "cloud" was in general use), so this stuff is interesting to me. VXML and grammars back then, none of this "skills" stuff, lol.

      http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/23/google-opens-access-to-its-speech-recognition-api-going-head-to-head-with-nuance/
      chicks
      chicks
      April 2, 2016
      Frankly surprised Sonos has ruled out SoundHound. It's amazing.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=M1ONXea0mXg
      Chris
      Chris
      Lead Maestro
      April 2, 2016
      Hey must be pretty impressed with echo. I have been impressed if it just had more skills. Compared to Siri and the like Amazon still falls behind. Although seems to be catching up quickly and the stand alone device does make a difference. I have my dot on way to compliment the full echo. It wasn't much use to me until I integrated it with my Smartthings routines. It will do play and stop on Sonos for me in addition to much of my home automation. Flexibility and relying on one voice device instead of many seems to be key and being open source Amazon has started a nice ecosystem
      Respect the Queue (2)Move (3)Beam (1) Era100 (2)ARC (1)SonosOne (1)Playbar (4)Play5 (4)Play1 (3)Play3 (1)Port (2)Connect (1) Roam (2) Ace (1)Connect:Amp (4)Sonos Amp (1)Sub + (9) Echo + Smartthings; (2)Play)
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