Home Assistant Voice

Why am I reminded of the days when a rash of “one and done” posters came on here to say Sonos must produce a Windows Mobile app or suffer imminent doom, when Windows Mobile never had more than 3.5% of the mobile device market?  

You do realize that just because a login might be new, doesn’t mean that a person is new to the forum.  This is just the first time there is an issue I felt moved to post upon. 

Your response is short-sighted.  You are failing to read the room.  TTS is just the first iteration of what is to come.  The door has barely opened for this scene.  I have little skin in this game.  I have a Sonos player integrated into my system to stream music and adopted it when Windows Media Center went defunct.

If Sonos doesn’t, someone else will.  I am happy to move on when that product arrives.  Likewise, I am happy with the products Sonos has created and would enjoy buying more of their products.  But I won’t...unless that product can do more for me than it already does.  Therein lies the rub.

Home automation as a whole, became less useful without a product like WMC in the past because it was not as much fun.  You are solely focused on HAS when, in fact, you should be looking at what the market is becoming holistically.  Now that “smart” products proliferate the market, and include entertainment devices as well as merely power modulation, interest is growing again.  

Again, the OP is only asking for a way to direct microphone input into an API which can be consumed by the TTS system of his choice.  He simply mentioned HAS.  It might also be a company who has yet to launch.  He wants Sonos to hear that there is a growing demand for securing what personal information we share and whom we share it with.  

He’s asking for the ecosystem to be opened because he *likes* his Sonos products and wants to buy more if they expand his system potential.  

I’m going to say exactly what I said to the Windows Mobile fans that came here to register because of a fan page or reddit page call to arms - Sonos will support Home Assistant when the market share makes it a positive ROI.  Nothing about ad hoc forum polls or discussions, future markets, possible expansion, predictions of what is to come, benefits to Sonos’ image, or even an effort for Sonos to “win back trust” is going to change that requirement (nor should it).  If you wish Sonos to support HA, then HA has to capture far more market share than it does now.  Period. 

I am not particularly sure what your position is...whether it’s to defend the status quo or to protect the monopoly two companies have had in this realm.

No matter, this is *not* about HAS.  It’s about open access to a consumers data input.  It’s also not about Sonos choosing HAS as an integration.  It’s about making a consumer’s voice input available to other consuming devices.  This can easily be done with little expenditure from Sonos using existing hardware architecture.

No one has moved me with a call-to-arms.  There is no grand conspiracy out there.  It’s about consumer demands.  This is a feature people want.  They are asking Sonos to give them control to choose the provider they want.

I returned to this forum, as a Sonos user for almost 10 years, because I wanted to know whether there were plans to capitalize on the growing desire to embrace the TTS movement more fully.  I was literally researching how to replace the last remaining Alexa devices now that HAS offers an alternative and had plans to make several speaker purchases--today.

Just because you find something to be perfect, does not mean you are in the majority, nor that it cannot be improved.  I don’t care about your thoughts on Windows Mobile.  TTS is non-proprietary.  Folks are asking for an open-source integration which many different developers can make use of.

I am neither protecting the status quo nor any monopoly.  Ironically though, you have hit upon the exact reason for my posts - “It’s about consumer demands”.  The consumer is not demanding this.  A few posters on this board are requesting this.  That is not consumer demand, or at least it’s not enough demand to move the needle.  And no amount of wordsmithing and heartfelt replies are going to help it move the needle.  Only market share moves the needle, and the current market share of Voice Assistants that aren’t from the Big 4 is under 1% (and currently Sonos only fully supports 1 of those that have the other 99%). 

That’s not protecting anything; monopolies, status quo, or anything else.  That’s just cold hard facts.  Would I love Sonos to support something which de-tethers me from companies where I am the product?  Of course I would, who wouldn’t?  Do I realistically think it is possible when those alternatives have a less than 1% market share?  I think you know the answer to that. 

To this, we might finally agree.  Any major company will make decisions based on market projection and potential revenue streams.  They are in the business of making money.

Few companies get into a business realm with the thought of making money today without plans for how to grow that revenue tomorrow.  We do not agree on the size of the demand we speak about today.  A simple scan of Google or Amazon...yes, the very driving forces behind this post...shows the multitude of smart devices out there.  Inherently, those devices need some form of ecosystem behind them to drive their IoT network.  

In the past, people have been happy to accept that *something* *anything* allowed them to do something in the kitchen and then continue in the back yard.  They didn’t care what they had to give up to do it.  Those consumers carried the bulk of the purchasing power.  Those consumers are now more interested in what is being done with their data.

This is why the OP made a feature request.  I support this request.  I simply don’t agree that the numbers are small, even if the bulk purchasing power fails to know how to verbalize their thoughts...but that is changing.

You sound exactly like the folks in the Windows Mobile thread.  It’s all bargaining and rationalization for something which hasn’t caught fire in the general public, and you know where that got them.  Then again, you also sound like the people in the “Please make an Android app” thread, including me.  A thread which eventually succeeded in convincing Sonos to develop an Android app.  Coincidently, that thread’s success was right around the time Android hit a 35% market share.  Make of that what you will.

https://www.theverge.com/news/719775/sonos-voice-control-smart-assistant-philips-hue

Three is an similar articles that hint at rumors that Sonos is looking at an integration that allows SVC to control Philips Hue smart devices.  No real details beyond that.  I’m not a fan  of Hue, don’t own anything from them, and I’m not really sure why they wouldn’t look at an integration that uses Matter to reach a wider audience.  Still it’s possible that whatever they are doing is a foundation to expand to other products.  We’ll see.

Could be an unfounded rumor, but most Sonos rumors are atleast partially true, from my experience.

Worth nothing though that the market for users with Hue lighting and Sonos is likely significantly larger than those with Sonos and HA, given the popularity of Hue.  I would guess those who would buy Sonos or Hue products due to this integration is probably true as well.

Danny, I think Hue uses matter. I’d have to double check, but I’m pretty sure my V2 Hue hub does support it. 
 

Edited to add link:

https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us/explore-hue/works-with/matter

The interest for IoT devices is growing significantly.  I feel there is no argument among us about that.  ​@jgatie Your scepticism about HA use may not be unfounded.  One thing is for sure, the application has persisted and continues to persist today.

The truth of the matter is, as consumers continue to integrate these devices into their homes their understanding of the hubs driving them will increase.  From 2010-2020 or so, the corporate response was to create proprietary hubs and apps to capture, collect and share that data for profit.  

Consumers are becoming more aware of the privacy implications which has driven more companies to limit sharing or make choices available to do so.  This was driven by laws in the EU and California for example.  The merit is not important.  What is, is consumer voices are changing.  

As mentioned, this may or may not sway a large company like Sonos.  Money will.  It is important to also voice a concern or request for change.  OP followed the correct process.  It should not matter whether they have one or 50000 messages on this board.  The request is still valid.  It's something I felt moved to support verbally after all these years of lurking.