Beware the Amazon Echo Dot scam before you buy!

  • 16 April 2017
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91 replies

ROFL

Yes. Never has one been so adamant, so obnoxious, so offensive, and so bloody blatantly wrong in a series of posts. It's really quite impressive.
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Hue lights work off of zigbee which is BLUETOOTH!! Or BLE bluetooth low energy. The previous bluetooth is now called bluetooth classic. Alexa communicates to the network through WiFi and speakers and HUE BRIDGE through bluetooth.
Notice a pattern? cutie patootie.
Zigbee is 802.15.4 and bluetooth is 802.15.1
And yes you deftly pointed out what most people know: Alexa can communicate with the hue bridge which is in fact bluetooth.

Now get an adult and watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bARbx4I3xZY&t=9s
You will notice the people in the room communicating with a Dot and a Sonos Play1.
Now after you have viewed the video (repeatedly like the third grade) you may ask yourself "where does this music come from?" There is only a Dot and a Sonos Play1 on the breakfast bar!
Pretty misleading video don't you agree?


Alexa is not going to stream to Sonos via Bluetooth, nor does it need to. Alexa will be issuing commands to Sonos via WiFi and Sonos will be doing the streaming on its own. Just like the communication between Alexa and the Hue hub, or the Sonos controller and Sonos players, Alexa will only be issuing commands which Sonos will then act upon to stream from its various sources exactly like it does today without Alexa. If you need it simplified:

Echo/Alexa == Controller
Sonos == Multi-room streamer

Now that you know how wrong you are, you may proceed to feel foolish, and apologize for you demeaning accusations and name calling. Admit you were wrong and delete your silly videos before you embarrass yourself any more.


Sonos does not stream from any sources!! Lets keep this as simple as the video (not simple like the third grade was on you) there is only a Sonos Play1 and a Dot! I did mention that you should have an adult watch the video with you.
Now if you have a Dot and you say "Alexa play the wiggles" she will respond with something like "shuffling songs by the wiggles" and THROUGH BLUETOOTH (I cleared up the zigbee bluetooth thing earlier for you) ALEXA WILL PLAY TO A BLUETOOTH SPEAKER!!! AFTER STREAMING THE SONGS TO THE DOT FROM YOUR HOME NETWORK THROUGH WIFI.
If you and your guardian watch the video it depicts the Dot playing directly to the Sonos Play1.
Your little third grade (after multiple attempts I might add) equation does not include where Sonos gets the content.
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ROFL

Yes. Never has one been so adamant, so obnoxious, so offensive, and so bloody blatantly wrong in a series of posts. It's really quite impressive.

Please have your parent point out where you started it.
Good God, man. Listen up! The integration isn't done yet! It WILL NOT be Bluetooth!


Sonos does not stream from any sources!! Lets keep this as simple as the video (not simple like the third grade was on you) there is only a Sonos Play1 and a Dot! I did mention that you should have an adult watch the video with you.
Now if you have a Dot and you say "Alexa play the wiggles" she will respond with something like "shuffling songs by the wiggles" and THROUGH BLUETOOTH (I cleared up the zigbee bluetooth thing earlier for you) ALEXA WILL PLAY TO A BLUETOOTH SPEAKER!!! AFTER STREAMING THE SONGS TO THE DOT FROM YOUR HOME NETWORK THROUGH WIFI.
If you and your guardian watch the video it depicts the Dot playing directly to the Sonos Play1.
Your little third grade (after multiple attempts I might add) equation does not include where Sonos gets the content.


Sonos most certainly does stream from sources, directly from the source, in fact. Sonos players are pull based architecture. Their content is pulled from the source directly to the Sonos device, not pushed by the app. The app is just a controller, no stream either passes into it or out of it, it merely tells the Sonos units what to play, then the Sonos units pull it directly from the source.

Want me to prove it? Start a Sonos playing, either by radio or a music service. Then exit the Sonos app. Is Sonos still playing? Well, then turn off the phone/tablet. Still playing? Throw the phone/tablet out the window, dunk it in a fish tank, smash it with a hammer. Sonos still playing?

So now that you know how wrong you are about Sonos not streaming directly from sources, can you now see that Alexa will merely translate voice commands into the same commands coming from the Sonos app? It will simply be another way to instruct the self-contained streamers what sources to pull in and play.

Now you can go ahead and insult me again. You're only embarrassing yourself until a Sonos rep gets here to tell you the exact same thing I just said. Or you could back off on the insults and actually learn something. Your choice.
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I actually don't like insulting. It was a response to your condescending tone. You have been much more helpful than the clowns like chicks. Talk about struggling with the third grade! Sheesh!
I didn't appreciate you almost tricking me into dunking my phone in my 65 gallon fish tank!
I understand that Sonos will follow commands and stream from my home network. I also understand that Sonos will only play content resident on my phone after I turn the phone off until the buffer runs out.
For example my phone is currently off and I'm listening to iHeart radio on my Sonos Play1.
My problem is in the video. Did you watch it? Why publish this video long before one can use Alexa with a Sonos Play1?
It was totally irresponsible to put out such a video. Think about the people who bought a Dot and there is still no date for this functionality to work.
Sigh.
Sir, you came in here with guns blazing, blasting out complete untruths, claiming an expertise you clearly do not have, and then proceeded to abusively deride anyone who tried to correct you. I don't blame people one bit for blasting back in kind. You reap what you sow.

As to the video, it was released along with a major press release describing in detail what the implementation will entail and the basic timeline for rollout. If you would have read the accompanying press release, you'd see there was nothing misleading about the video. Sonos has promised this functionality by end of 2017, and this was made loud and clear in every public statement by Sonos. See the press release here:

http://press-us.sonos.com/134980-sonos-with-partners-and-industry-leaders-ushers-in-new-era-of-connected-home-listening
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I hate to say but chicks started it. There was no reason to reply with the "whatever". Chicks could have added something or simply got on with its day.
I see in your link the date of 2017 not end of 2017. I have also seen first quarter 2017. First quarter is over.
I have two Sonos Play1s and they are pretty nice. Horrible highs!
I also have two Dots. Cool device even if it streams content through bluetooth. I think Sonos could have a better handle on release dates prior to press releases.
I didn't reap anything. Chicks did not need to respond like that. You didn't need to be so condescending in your first reply.
People attacked my YouTube video rather than spot it was a pro Sonos review. And yes I will post a video correcting Sonos and their jumping the gun with all the press before any date of release. People should know that the Dot will not work with the Sonos Play1 before ordering either device.
Nothing from Sonos has ever officially stated first quarter. The official presser stated 2017. Thats all of 2017. There have been subsequent discussions here that stated end of this year. Your's or other's poor assumptions do not trump Sonos' official statements.

And sir, people replied "whatever" because you had no clue what you were talking about and seemed more intent on pimping your YouTube channel than anything else. "Whatever" was actually much more kind than what most were thinking. They were sparing you embarrassment. You should have taken their hint.
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"Whatever" was not kind. Moving along is kind. "What most were thinking" is speculation.
You did go on the attack with the whole Hue/Alexa thing. Many people preferred to cloud a real issue with nonsense. I did get to give a good lesson on bluetooth and that was very helpful to many people.
Oh my...
Seems to me that if you have shown us anything, it is that the video may have been prematurely released. But even to say that for sure, the context surrounding its release needs to be known, and it isn't, as far as I can tell.
"Whatever" was not kind. Moving along is kind. "What most were thinking" is speculation.
You did go on the attack with the whole Hue/Alexa thing. Many people preferred to cloud a real issue with nonsense. I did get to give a good lesson on bluetooth and that was very helpful to many people.


No, "whatever" is merely dismissive. Calling people third graders who need help from their guardians is abusive. And if you saw my Hue/Alexa thing as an attack, you need to get a far thicker skin. But I do love how you've desperately tried to shift your woefull ignorance of how Sonos operates into you schooling us somehow on Bluetooth (Which is most certainly not ZigBee, and vice versa).

By the way, tell us again how the "scam" that is the Sonos/Alexa integration will never work because "Sonos is WiFi and the Echo Dot is bluetooth", the "Sonos Play1 does not stream. It receives" and, "Sonos does not stream from any sources!!"
Seems to me that if you have shown us anything, it is that the video may have been prematurely released. But even to say that for sure, the context surrounding its release needs to be known, and it isn't, as far as I can tell.

The video was released in conjunction with the August press release. It was to announce the partnership between Amazon and Sonos, and as such was merely a device to show how the future integration of that partnership will work. Nothing premature at all, when viewed in context.
Personally, I hope none of this thread gets moderated away. None of the insults hurled at me, given the source, bothers me in the least. This thread should stand as an embarrassing monument to the OP. Fake news. Complete conviction in his superior understanding of the topic despite having no understanding at all. And delivered with astonishing rudeness, aggression and paucity of linguistic expression. The comparison to President Trump made earlier in this thread was indeed apt.
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I use the yomoni app which accepts my voice commands through my echo dot. I also have a harmony hub which also accepts voice commands. This, as you have rightly pointed out, will not be through bluetooth as sonos does not support but through wifi.

I think they annouced it so early before release because voice control is such a big thing they needed to make an announcement in regards to support for it.
The insults are neither here nor there, other than to demean the utterer. What regulars who joined this thread were plainly concerned about was not leaving nonsensical 'alternative facts' lying around unchallenged, where they could confuse a casual visitor.
Userlevel 7
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If I can also just jump in real quick I'd like to make a couple things clear to everyone who visits this thread:
  1. It's not a scam.
  2. The Amazon Alexa device and Sonos integration is being worked on, and it'll be available later this year.
  3. The timeline for this development hasn't been announced but we'll be letting everyone know as soon as we're ready to share.
  4. The Dot isn't going to send audio to Sonos over Bluetooth.
This way this will work hasn't been published yet, but it's not going to be through Bluetooth. The Dot and other Alexa devices are all wireless too. The way their voice recognition works is that it records the audio you sent following the wake word and that audio gets sent up to the Amazon cloud wirelessly. That's then translated into commands and they're issued back down to the device via WiFi. No Internet, no voice control.

Once the commands have been translated some unannounced "magic" happens and your Sonos players will take it from there. You'll have to stay tuned for what this all means. Sorry, no spoilers today.
Userlevel 7
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The echo dot doesn't play the music it sends the command for Sonos to play the music.

seanorama - example: you add to your Sonos services in the current Sonos controller something like Spotify. When you go into the phone in the Sonos app then and go under Spotify and pick a song - the phone sends a command to Sonos to go out and directly fetch that song via the internet direct to the Sonos unit. The song in that case never goes through your phone (you can turn off phone it won't effect the song or songs playing as Sonos already has the command and is playing direct via the internet).

It is the same with Echo Dot. You tell echo dot you want to play a song on sonos and it will send the command to the Sonos unit to go out and fetch that song directly (via amazon cloud and wifi). The song never goes to the Echo Dot and the Echo Dot never plays the song (and yes Dots when they do play music they do play via Bluetooth or hard wired). But that is irrelevant to the current situation as the echo is just sending commands, it is not acting as an actual player in this case (thus the confusion).

Hopefully you can understand that part of it and why Bluetooth has nothing to do with the intergration.
Internet "experts" like the OP always remind me of the Marshal McLuhan scene in Annie Hall. Always brings a smile to my mug.

Lol. Woody Allen would also have gone to town with some of the less odious OP statements about conspiracies and other neuroses!
Userlevel 2
Wow. I want to thank you for your original post. It is rare I get this level of entertainment for free. As you can see, no one so far agrees with you on any point - but the night is young. You never know. Keep digging.

Now, between you and me, tell me the truth, are you really this clueless or are you doing a gag reel? Much like the guy with one karate lesson, you seem to know just enough to get yourself killed.

The well documented Sonos / Echo partnership has been in the works for well over a year. To bound in and make the ungrounded assessments you made, and then to double down on them, makes you look silly. Please go educate yourself on the platforms and the integration pathway before continuing to dig yourself in deeper.

We are all born ignorant. Some of us choose to remain so. That's what free choice is all about.

Please do continue to yell at the rain. I am enjoying your posts. Perhaps next you could educate on AC vs DC and why this is also a scam. Have a nice day.

Or, as the first poster replied, "whatever".
@Ryan S thanxs for your post. I would have thought that as Echo's are being sold at a high pace that SONO would be jumping on the band wagon to further promote/integrate their an already exceptional speaker solution.

Voice command via a SONO skills would be great I notice that Logitech has already put their Harmony app/skills on echo which works like a charm via wireless command. How about posting that your working on a solution as it took me a while of pursing this goofy thread to glean your singular reply...:P
Hi Mike. A bit of a shame that you happened upon this thread, rather than one of the saner ones on the topic. But is it not clear from Ryan's post that Sonos / Alexa integration is very definitely being worked on, and will come this year?