Amazon Echo 2

I was just glancing through the new iPhone X features. I use Apple only wherever it makes sense for me to do so, and am well served by a Moto G phone for all my needs, but I was very impressed with all the engineering that has gone into the X. If Homepod is served just as well, it may well impact the market in the same way that iPods did.

At the time last year when John Mc Farlane sounded quite vulnerable about the company's future and implied that they missed a trick with voice control, I must admit I was a bit concerned. These days not so much. Not that competition is easing in any way but I think Sonos is responding in a fairly sensible way.

Firstly apart from the strength of the Apple brand which is a big factor, on a product face off perspective I think Sonos has clear selling points particularly if the next speaker launch ups the ante with speaker quality to rival the HomePod - which I heard sounds excellent. HomePod is Siri driven. Sonos taking a more agnostic approach and supporting multiple voice systems is a clear advantage. HomePod is Apple Music. Sonos is all and sundry in terms of music services. Not clear to me that Apple will have a family of speaker products. Sonos has a portfolio of products that includes home theatre options. Sonos is long in the business and have cleverly put themselves in a position to launch their new speaker ahead of HomePod. That opportunity should not be missed strategically. Sonos marketing team has angles with which to work.

What to say of Amazon echo? I suppose it remains to be seen how aggressively they choose to compete on sound quality. Are they going to go far enough to capture what I call fringe customers vascilating between both options. That remains to be seen. Again though, I maintain that Sonos and Amazon operate in slight different spaces. Sonos is a bit more niche and caters to music lovers. Amazon is a bit more mass market and more broadly focused on smart home convenience of which music is a main cog. Sonos must continue to pitch itself as the product that gives music lovers a richer and more rewarding experience and bank on there being enough people sold on it to turn a profit.

I'm not sure I see any 'engineering' in the X (and certainly the 😎 that I've not already seen elsewhere in high end Samsungs for example. That doesn't seem to stop the usual customers claiming how revolutionary and new they are each time.

I'm not sure I see any 'engineering' in the X (and certainly the 😎 that I've not already seen elsewhere in high end Samsungs for example. That doesn't seem to stop the usual customers claiming how revolutionary and new they are each time.
Perception is reality, after all? And Apple manages that a lot better than what Samsung does; I for one can't be bothered to read about their latest launch, but what I do know is that they explode in flight!!

I would agree with upstatemike re multi room Echoes. I have 3 in a downstairs group which after a little initial fiddling now play synchronised music faultlessly - great for parties etc. As 2 dots are linked to reasonable speakers sound quality is good. Very easy to use with voice control, for one or all 3 speakers. However, if I want quality sound I still use Sonos speakers as their sound quality is by far the best.

If you have an echo Show and want an interesting user experience give this a try:

Connect a Dot to an amplifier that turns on when an audio signal is present and a nice set of speakers. Mute the microphone on the Dot so it does not accidentally get triggered from the TV or random conversations. Set up a persistent group including the Dot and an Echo Show. Adjust the volume on the Dot and Show so that the Dot system dominates when music is playing but you can still hear voice command responses on the Show. You now have a high fidelity voice controlled system that displays lyrics as the music plays.

We will probably be able to accomplish the same thing with Sonos gear once the integration is released but it isn't clear exactly how that will work until we get the details in (hopefully) October.

@upstatemike, you can already do that, in a way, depending on your setup. I have a firetv with voice remote, so I can request music that way with voice, lyrics displaying on the tv. Since the tv audio is a playbar, I have voice control, lyric display, and multiroom. Of course the voice remote isn't as convenient as just speaking to an echo.

Related to that, I hadn't realized that the multiroom functionality is limited to echo devices only, firetv, fire tablets, and other Alexa enabled devices are not included. Somewhat disappointing, but understandable since these devices may not have the hardware needed, and these devices are capable of audio from sources outside of what an echo could do. I would then conclude that you would not be able to syncronize sonos and echo speakers once everything is integrated.

Out of curiousity, if you play a youtube video on an Echo show, can you synchronize the audio with an Echo or Echo Dot? I would guess not.

Another comment on the Echo multi-room functionality, it has not nearly as robust as what Sonos does. From what I can tell, you cannot change groups dynamically. By that I mean that ones you start a song or playlist in one speaker or group, you cannot transfer it to a different speaker or group. You can't play a song in the kitchen, and then decide you want to continue listening in the bedroom and family room. You have stop it and restart. They may not be a big deal to some, and non-sonos users may not realize how useful the feature can be.

Related to that, you don't have the same kind of volume control. You control the volume of each unit separately, not as a group. You can control each unit by voice, hard buttons, or the Alexa app, but still somewhat of a pain.

All that said though, persistent groups is a very nice feature. If sound quality wasn't a factor, I'd be hard pressed to chose between persistent groups and Sonos dynamic grouping capabilities.

All good points and there is still not enough information about the integration or the upcoming Echo speaker release to know how it will all play out. Maybe Sonos will not be able to do dynamic group changes when controlled by Alexa or maybe Amazon will add that feature to their speakers in an upcoming release. Maybe the new Echo speakers will get a lot closer to Play one quality. Maybe a Show will be able to be linked to a Sonos speaker to display lyrics when playing from Amazon Music.

I haven't been able to trick Alexa into playing YouTube on non-video devices.

Maybe Sonos will not be able to do dynamic group changes when controlled by Alexa or maybe Amazon will add that feature to their speakers in an upcoming release. .

My hope is neither. I don't want the integration to be so 'tight' that either system is limited by the other. Well, I want sonos to add persistent groups, and I want Alexa to fully handoff any audio related commands to sonos to deal with. I don't want to be limited to Echo sources, or lose the ability to control fully from Sonos.

I suppose it would be nice if my echos suddenly become fullfledged sonos zones, but that's really minimal value to me, and surely would limit future enhancements sonos might have in mind. Not to mention voice control from other voice assistants.