Introducing Sonos Voice Control

You’re correct, I forgot about that.  The initial post stated that it was available in the US, with France coming later.  I guess that should have been available in US English with French coming later?  Also a little confusing as the Sonos video on voice control specifically mentions recording in Spanish.

It must be quite difficult to cater for each of the different regional accents.

Admittedly, I still have some difficulty understanding what some folk say, just from the various parts of the UK and I have travelled the place quite a bit over the years…

https://youtu.be/i6sS6-ROLOA

If SVC is an addition to local unit capability and resides in the unit, then it is logical that it should be available at the same time globally with the relevant version release. What languages it can understand may increase over time/versions, but again, all additions should be available at the same time, globally, even if they cannot be understood everywhere. Which is why the non availability to control local NAS is perplexing, it flies in the face of the logic that SVC should allow the unit it resides in to do all it can locally today via the app.

The Spotify thing is less perplexing because there may be some Spotify related issues coming in the way of SVC not being able to do what the Sonos app can do with Spotify. But there is no outside agency with any say in what Sonos does with music on a local NAS. Maybe it just takes more time to write the code that allows SVC to do what the app can do to command music play via a local NAS.

How does Alexa do this today in the UK? Can you choose different accents? In India, I can choose English US or English Indian where accents are concerned. Or Hindi of course, but that was not there when Alexa was launched here in 2017. Something similar will happen with SVC though I don't expect English Indian or any other Indian language to get added; India is not a market for Sonos as of now, in the way it definitely is for Echo/Alexa.

So you’re saying that the various laws for different countries around the world would not apply for SVC because processing ls local rather than the cloud? I don’t know that that is the case.  

I agree that’s perplexing, but my default position is that I don’t know all the facts and/or have made some incorrect assumptions in my logic. I can’t conclude that Sonos didn’t figure that they could use the tech for local libraries or there some ulterior motive involve for Sonos to not provide a feature it seems they could easily provide when looking at it with only surface level knowledge.

I don’t think Alexa or Google did very well at all initially, looking at the various YouTube videos, but presumably things have got much better over time. I assume some folk try to speak slowly and maybe adapt how they speak to get things to work correctly in some cases, rather than just speaking naturally.

There are some regional accents like ‘black country’ in the Midlands that can be quite difficult to understand, but that’s just one of many examples.

https://youtu.be/vb4MknMqwmA

I love that y’all are doing so much speculating and guessing. I’m happy to hold off for a couple of weeks, then try it for myself 😛

Speaking for just India, I know that is indeed the case for something self contained like SVC. Not because we don't have laws - in writing laws and rules for everything by an army of bureaucrats with nothing else to do but write these, we are second to none. But the laws in this case will apply to servers of people like Twitter or Facebook, where free speech of the kind the West takes for granted is curtailed more and more via such laws. Or, should I say, what the West used to take for granted, going by what Musk says. And of course there are laws curbing wrong marketing claims, but if SVC clearly says that all that is offered is English US, this won't be a legal issue. Just as selling Sonos One units in India, with the fine print that voice will probably not work, allows legal issues to be avoided.

There isn't even a law that compels SVC to be in local languages. Alexa offers these to expand/extend their market of interest in India, not because of legal compulsions.

On the Alexa front - my question @Ken_Griffiths was not in which accent she responds, which probably is just the propah/trad. BBC newsreader accent, but in how she deals with understanding the range of accents spoken to her in the UK. Does the learning algorithm take care of this issue? Presumably SVC will do the same, if/when English UK is offered in addition to the English US that will be there at launch, where also the accent can vary widely across the 50 states. Just curious, English US accent for Alexa is Boston or Georgia?

Indians speak English in their own unique way, hence the option of English Indian on Alexa, that then works in both directions, including how Alexa responds.

My earlier reply was saying that initially it appears Alexa had difficulties with accents here, as that’s clearly shown on various videos on YouTube, but presumably things have got much better for many in the different UK regions. I’ve not had an issue with Alexa myself (even from when it/she was first introduced over here), other than if I say something like ‘A letter has just come through the door’ she still thinks ‘A letter’ is me saying the wake word.

I find Alexa’s accuracy in understanding/interpreting very good indeed. I guess though it’s taken a lot of work to get to the stage she’s at.

I expect the Sonos assistant may follow a similar rollout path, but perhaps in a shorter way, until it caters for the majority. I’m happy to think many here will be able to get away with using US English as the syntax seems ‘limited’ (mostly) anyway to just playback and control of Sonos devices, so that should reduce the time needed for the learning process, unless there’s a longer-term plan to expand its capabilities into other smart-home areas, like lighting, additional TV control etc?

While I'm wating for SVC to be introduced in Dutch, I'm curious how SVC would be learning different accents when the whole process takes place on the system - there's no cloud to send misinterpretations to, like with Alexa and GA.