SONOS ALEXA Integration?

Just sharing .....

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/28/sonos-looks-ready-to-launch-amazon-alexa-controlled-smart-speaker.html

Another interesting development / news on this topic

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/29/16219474/sonos-voice-assisted-speaker-event

It seems increasingly obvious - from what Sonos is not saying - that there will be no capability for legacy speakers without the inbuilt microphone to be voice controlled other than by the silly idea of a line-in cable connection from a proper smart speaker like the Echo or Dot. If you've got Play:1s throughout your house, you don't even have the low-rent cable connection option. So, speaking for myself, if I have to upgrade the speakers to be smart, I'll be buying Apple Home Pods. Very disappointed.

It seems increasingly obvious - from what Sonos is not saying - that there will be no capability for legacy speakers without the inbuilt microphone to be voice controlled other than by the silly idea of a line-in cable connection from a proper smart speaker like the Echo or Dot. If you've got Play:1s throughout your house, you don't even have the low-rent cable connection option. So, speaking for myself, if I have to upgrade the speakers to be smart, I'll be buying Apple Home Pods. Very disappointed.

Except for the small fact that Sonos explicitly stated that the voice control implementation will be fully compatible with all Sonos units currently and previously sold. :8

It seems increasingly obvious - from what Sonos is not saying - that there will be no capability for legacy speakers without the inbuilt microphone to be voice controlled other than by the silly idea of a line-in cable connection from a proper smart speaker like the Echo or Dot. If you've got Play:1s throughout your house, you don't even have the low-rent cable connection option. So, speaking for myself, if I have to upgrade the speakers to be smart, I'll be buying Apple Home Pods. Very disappointed.Isn't life too short to be very disappointed by your own evidence-free speculations?

It seems increasingly obvious - from what Sonos is not saying - that there will be no capability for legacy speakers without the inbuilt microphone to be voice controlled other than by the silly idea of a line-in cable connection from a proper smart speaker like the Echo or Dot.

Pretty sure there's an app for that.
Oh wait, there is: https://www.howtogeek.com/253621/how-to-control-your-amazon-echo-from-anywhere/amp/

It seems increasingly obvious - from what Sonos is not saying - that there will be no capability for legacy speakers without the inbuilt microphone to be voice controlled other than by the silly idea of a line-in cable connection from a proper smart speaker like the Echo or Dot. If you've got Play:1s throughout your house, you don't even have the low-rent cable connection option. So, speaking for myself, if I have to upgrade the speakers to be smart, I'll be buying Apple Home Pods. Very disappointed.

It's so *not* going to work like that. Sorry, no offense RoystonFord, but you're so incredibly wrong that a built in microphone will be necessary, or that a cable connection between an echo and a sonos device will be necessary. (did you know that Amazon makes it basically free for other companies to build alexa/echo-compatible devices? The codenamed S13 device will likely mean that as long as the mikes in S13 can hear you clearly you won't need to own an echo -- it will be built into the S13 future sonos units.) https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/25/8845103/amazon-echo-alexa-voice-control-third-party-hardware

That's not how the alexa architecture is. There will be something like "linking your sonos account" to your alexa account, just like smart home devices or bank accounts, or lyft/uber, as part of enabling the sonos skill.

once that's done the voice capture from any device registered to you (actual echo of any type, or eufy, or sonos far-field microphone enabled, or whatever) is parsed & turned into text by the alexa backend, and that's sent to a sonos rest api endpoint in the cloud which will relay it down to your sonos network via the Sonos SOAP MAPI. http://musicpartners.sonos.com/?q=docs

I don't know if this is *exactly* how it will work, but basically everyone who enables voice will have a pseudo-virutal-zone-player or controller (CR300v anyone?) in sonos's AWS account that's part of your HHID that has all the control plane capabilities of the sonos music api but none of the actual sound processing. And all the ZPs and Play:x devices in your house will push or pull commands from there.

Completely hypothetical (but plausible) example.
So if you say "play b.r.m.c. in the bedroom" alexa will record that and send it to the alexa backend to turn into text, and then the alexa backend will send a precisely formatted text string to sonos and if there's a song or artist or album that matches "b.r.m.c." and a device (or group) that matches "bedroom" it will work. If there's a mismatch/error, alexa might respond "I don't know artist b.r.m.c." and you might respond "black rebel motorcycle club" and alexa would update the text string, send it to sonos, and then you might hear "shuffling songs by black rebel motorcycle club" from alexa and "Red Eyes and Tears" from your Play:3 that you named "bedroom" in the sonos controller.

(And if the next version of the Sonos software/controller lets us define named "groups" in addition to named speakers/players, well, huh, that matches the new alexa capabilities and aligns with how "scenes" work with smart lights and smart plugs. who woulda thunk?)

What's interesting to me is the sheer size of what Sonos is having to deploy at AWS, and what that means for potential future capabilities (all predicated on working broadband between the home and AWS). Like a zone player with *storage*! Figuring out how to make such things work as consistently when a home's internet connection is down is a hard problem!

I have one Echo Dot. Bought it to see if it's really all that. I have a Play:5 and multiple Play:1's throughout my home. Based on what I'm reading today, I still don't see how my one Dot can see my Sonos system and can be controlled via voice commands. I'm also realizing that will never be the case until Sonos releases some new voice controlled bridge that can then sync up with Alexa. If I have to add more hardware just to control my Sonos system then Alexa is useless to me. I already have a smart home security system that can control my door locks, thermostats and lights via an app. Do I really need it voice controlled? No. Honestly, I can control things way faster via the app than voice commands. By the time I tell Alexa which door to lock, which thermostat to change and what temp to change it to or which light in which room to turn on/off, I've already done it via my home security app. If my current Dot will never be able to control my complete Sonos system as is then I'm done with the Dot.

I have one Echo Dot. Bought it to see if it's really all that. I have a Play:5 and multiple Play:1's throughout my home. Based on what I'm reading today, I still don't see how my one Dot can see my Sonos system and can be controlled via voice commands. I'm also realizing that will never be the case until Sonos releases some new voice controlled bridge that can then sync up with Alexa. If I have to add more hardware just to control my Sonos system then Alexa is useless to me. I already have a smart home security system that can control my door locks, thermostats and lights via an app. Do I really need it voice controlled? No. Honestly, I can control things way faster via the app than voice commands. By the time I tell Alexa which door to lock, which thermostat to change and what temp to change it to or which light in which room to turn on/off, I've already done it via my home security app. If my current Dot will never be able to control my complete Sonos system as is then I'm done with the Dot.

It will see your complete Sonos system via Amazon's new API, in the cloud. You will very much be able to control any or all your Sonos devices with a single Dot, just as you can now control any or all of your Echo devices from a single Dot. The Amazon plumbing is now in place. Sonos is busily hooking into it.

Honestly, I can control things way faster via the app than voice commands. By the time I tell Alexa which door to lock, which thermostat to change and what temp to change it to or which light in which room to turn on/off, I've already done it via my home security app. If my current Dot will never be able to control my complete Sonos system as is then I'm done with the Dot.

Nonsense. The time it takes to find or fish out your phone plus login or wake it up plus open the appropriate app is already way longer than using a voice command and you haven't even gone through the menus and selected what you want to control yet. App based control is fine if you are away from home trying to control things remotely but it is a huge PITA compared to a voice commands or dedicated hard button remotes when you are at home. Even detailed tasks that are hard to do via voice like managing a large queue or playlist are better done on a PC than a phone app. Phone apps are the last resort when no better option is available.