Sonos Voice Control and NAS Server?

I won’t use SVC at all since I will stay on S1, so my posts, taking a cue from your words in another thread, are made with the same objective as quoted above. Let’s see if both sets of suggestions make any sense to those posters that are the only ones actually affected in this thread - the ones that want SVC to do NAS control.

SVC on NAS is one of the features that might persuade me to move to S2, which would then require me to purchase some voice enabled devices. But I doubt that there are enough people like me to make the business case but you never know, there might be enough other edge cases to justify the investment.

I would be tempted as well, but there is so much expense in changing devices in 5 zones to get just this one useable to me feature, that better sense will prevail, I am quite sure. In any case, I agree that if this involves a major effort needed on the Sonos side to get this to work, it may never see the light of day, given the declared by Sonos small market now of NAS users. The upside to me of this outcome is the absence of temptation!

It was an Alexa service, so of course.

Obviously.  But as I stated, lets not forget about the volume of users impacted.  I just can’t imagine Sonos is going to be able to prioritize control over local libraries over popular music services yet to be supported.  Even then, I wouldn’t be surprised to see SVC venture into smart home control and other non-music related features before local library control, due to the volume of users who would be interested in such features.

For such a service, NAS users wanting voice controlled music play can still get it on Echo devices wired to line in jacks of Sonos kit via the My Media for Alexa service. The only hitch is that Sonos kit with line in jacks is needed for this to work. But for those that have such Sonos kit, that is a way to avoid the need to wait for an undefined period for Sonos to offer this via SVC. At the Echo end the cheapest Dot is all that is needed.

I was a user and still do occasionally use this and it was easily the best third party addition to voice control. A real shame Sonos did not integrate it as it was flawless, worked with local libraries and napster. I honestly wish it was still available and updated to utilise sonos voice. 

I agree with the original post of the thread - for myself I don’t see any use for SVC without the ability to play specific songs from my music library. Alexa and Google Assistant can already play specific songs and genres from the paid music subscription services. I don’t presume to judge what uses other people may find for SVC, just speaking for myself.

The best way I have found to select specific songs by voice on my Sonos speakers is using Plex (Alexa + Plex skill). This requires my music library to be accessible by an always-on Plex server. I can do that most easily on a Linux platform - but unfortunately Plex on Linux has a bug that crashes the server system after a few days due to an ever-growing list of open connections.

Aside from that, I just do the same as other have mentioned - created a few playlists that I can select by voice using Alexa or Google Assistant and choose to random shuffle.

How can you do that selection if the playlist is from tracks on the NAS? The only way to do this - other than via Plex like services - is via the Sonos app. 

@Doug Ames is using the ‘Plex Skill’ linked to the Alexa App in this instance to achieve this.

Alexa will play the local music library tracks to Sonos speakers.

"Alexa, ask Plex to play the album ‘Trick of the tail”… just as an example.

Plex will get that album from the local Plex Server, usually a local NAS, PC or Nvidia Shield TV Pro in most cases.

If you see, I had referred to the Plex solution in my post already! I know this solution since I use the my Media for Alexa one that is similar.

I asked the question of Doug for his last paragraph, because it started with - aside from that…

Trivial question probably.

I use Olisto, which combines the ability to play specific Sonos playlists with the ability to be triggered by Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands.

Technically the work to do this is simple, but I assume it is a lower priority than the other services to support (and clearly lower than Spotify, though that could be a legal issue as well perhaps).

I assume this requires the skill to be there on Amazon, which it is not on Amazon India. In any case, I don't see how this would give me anything more than what I get from the My media for Alexa solution. There is just the one time effort there to make playlists on that interface, which I did when I started using it.

The one advantage of SVC if it did local NAS play would be the local loop, eliminating the need for internet presence, and also offer lower latency and higher reliability, being local.