Home Assistant Voice

And that’s not specific to using voice to control smart home, or assistance on smart device.  I seriously doubt 19% of the market is using Cortana to control their smart home.  

I still think the fact that the number of Home Assistant users with Sonos Integrations at 60k, means the market is too small. Heck there is only around 500k installations of Home Assistant in total.

Statistics | Home Assistant Analytics

Dear Spotify,

We have Home Assistant at home, and we are in the market to BUY an audio system to use throughout all rooms of the house.

Sonos products would be interesting, BUT somehow its microphones only connects over the internet to voice assistants that are run by big anti-privacy companies such as Google and Amazon. We in EUROPE do not appreciate this.

In contrast Home Assistant actually is a device at home, and does all processing at home. It can respond to voice commands and close my shutters, but it can do way more.

Anyway, all Sonos should do is get in contact with Nabu Casa Inc (the business behind Home Assistant) to learn about this opportunity.

At the very least, Sonos can easily provide an official plugin to the system for audio sync, or microphone wakewords. Other vendors have official plugins, and it drives sales just like these Google/Amazon integrations you made before.

Thank you, a future customer.

And this is why you do not rely on easily gamed forum polls for your market research. 

Spotify?

Incorrect.  Sonos also has it own built in Voice Control system that does not connect over the internet.  It is there to control Sonos devices only though, not any other third party smart home devices.

You can control Sonos via HA.  I do it all the time with my setup.  I don’t know if the HA voice assistant accepts commands to control Sonos, as I have not installed the HA voice assistant, but that would be on Sonos to develop that feature.  However, it sounds more like you are wanting Sonos to process smart control commands to send to HA.

I’m not sure what you’re asking for here.   You want Sonos to be able to sync audio with other systems?  What does that have to do with wake words?  What other vendors are you suggesting have the plugins Sonos should have?

Hmmm. “We in EUROPE do not appreciate this.” May I speak for myself as a European, please? I’ve been using Google Assistant since it was released on Sonos. No need for anything else.

Ofcourse this is addressed to Sonos. It is undeniable that Europeans are avoiding big anti-privacy companies such as Google and Amazon where possible. And this feature request is to make it possible to buy Sonos. Weird how you would oppose that.

Anyway this questions is just a courtesty. Regardless since there is demand companies are already developing and rolling out products as we speak, full featured even with field mics and all. The current products already sport renowed amplifiers, plug and plus, but some are even are open source and allow custom 3d printable enclosures. The proof pudding is out. Sonos is close but apparently is not aware yet on their radar. 

So its more a question of missing the boat on sales when voice Home Assistent hits mainstream. Its already working wonders for the early adaptors. 

The Sonos assistant does not allow me to play media from Plex, or have my curtains closed, or warm me when it is about to rain, or allow integration with OpenAI.

This is the other way around. It is impossible to use the Sonos microphone to control HA, without my homes audio recordings being sent to the Internet (Sonos, Google, Amazon, or other big tech companies that want to profit on my data). There is no need for this round-trip of my data. HA can directly use the microphone and process all data at home, if they would allow to select my HA device (or Nabu Casa) as an end-point for this data, just as they added support for Google and Amazon.

I understand the request here may be confusing. Lots of people are used to only familiar with the eco system as marketed by the big-tech.

The request is not about audio sync, or having HA control Sonos. Its the other way around.

The request is to to allow HA (Home Assistant, which is a device people have at home) to utilizes the Spotify microphone. This is possible by allowing Sonos to directly stream the microphone to a HA device, and optionally even allow the wakeword to be processed on-device. Both are implemented just like Google and Amazon, it just requires a different network destination basically. A simple support feature that Sonos -if willing- is easily capable of adding besides the current supported big-tech options.

I am not opposing a deeper Sonos/HA integration. I’m just pointing out that the market for this feature looks rather small, and the cost of development and support on the Sonos side is unlikely to result in enough additional product sales to turn a profit.

Nope, it does not do those things.  Well, you can play media from Plex if the source is already queued up (resume playback) or in your favorites, but that’s not the full integration you’re looking for.  And Sonos can tell you the weather if you ask, yes, but it does alrt you if the weather.

As I stated, I understand how you’re want Sonos to integrate with HA.  Sonos integrated with Google and Amazon because there is a large market looking for this feature.  The cost of the development and maintenance of the integration was worth it.  While Sonos has their own SVC product, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it has not brought in the product sales to justify the cost.  The size of the market for the type of the integration you’re looking for with HA is the big problem.

You specifically stated that you wanted ‘audio sync’ in an earlier post.  I asked for clarification on what you asking for.  I also still would like to know what other vendors are providing the features you’re looking for.   Seriously, if it exists, I may be interested in trying out their product. I use SVC for music  control, and Alexa devices for smart home control and general information.  I would ditch Alexa if there was a good voice control option that is 100% local.

The market looks small when you look at an existing customer base, not a potential one.

Ended up here from a reddit thread… looking for good quality speakers that speak direct to Home Assistant, got the s**** with Alexa and Google years ago. Happy rolling my own with an ESP32 but the wife acceptance factor is low. Hopefully someone realises there’s a market 

Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct