2 registered members (wink, 386ka),
184
guests, and 1
spider. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
Forums69
Topics113,641
Posts1,341,442
Members1,814
|
Most Online731 Jan 14th, 2020
|
|
|
Alexa & Sonos
#1609679
15/10/2017 20:25
15/10/2017 20:25
|
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057 Southsea
Gunzi
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
|
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
Je suis un Coupé
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057
Southsea
|
About 4 years ago I was watching my then baby son crawling up to my 3 foot floor standing speakers trying to pick himself up to stand and seeing them begin to tip. Within a week or so all my Hi-Fi separates and speakers were gone and I began the switch to Sonos. Before long I found I had 4 Sonos products in my home, but stopped buying them a year or two ago as I felt like there was an upgrade due. Now Sonos are about to launch the Sonos One which has full Alexa integration with Siri and the sexily named Google Assistant to come. I've shied away from assistants up until now but am going to take the dive. Does anyone else have Sonos and are considering the One? Any advice on other products worth owning that are Alexa integrated?
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: Gunzi]
#1609711
16/10/2017 07:51
16/10/2017 07:51
|
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 21,071 Chertsey in the Thames
bockers
Hon Club Member 007
|
Hon Club Member 007
Forum Fossil
Joined: Dec 2005
Posts: 21,071
Chertsey in the Thames
|
bear in mind that the Sonos One can only be paired with another Sonos One and not a Play 1. The Ones do not have speaker mounting holes so no discreet wall mount option. I was on the Beta program for the Alexa integration and it has come a long way. I would recommend an Echo Dot rather than the One as that can be placed next to you and away from the speakers making Alexa commands far more audible for it. The voice commands can be hit and miss and I still prefer to browse via the app, but pause, resume, next, and also occasionally asking Alexa to play songs I might like, or new music is great. Other Alexa friendly products... LightwaveRf light switches are fantastic and look good. Hue latest coloured bulbs are nice too but not in bedrooms as they default to full power on in the case of even the smallest power cut. I have nest connected too but cant say I've used Alexa to do much with it other than a few tries when I first connected it. I also have garden lights linked to Wemo switchable sockets and they work well too and can be scheduled. In general Alexa has been a hit in our house. My wife normally hates all my gadgets but Alexa has been a star. If only it didn't use the godawful bing search
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: Gunzi]
#1610127
21/10/2017 06:46
21/10/2017 06:46
|
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057 Southsea
Gunzi
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
|
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
Je suis un Coupé
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057
Southsea
|
There’s some great feedback in here thanks all.
The marketing blurb says this on the main One page:
‘Be heard Sonos One is built with a custom six-microphone array to hear you from anywhere in the room, no matter how loud the music is playing. With smart voice capture and noise cancellation, the Sonos One makes sure you’re heard.‘
John good point on pairing One with Play 1, although as it stands I don’t do this in my house. I’d switch my kitchen Play 1 with the One that Play 1 would move into my sons room.
I use TuneIt radio embedded in the Sonos Controller app for all radio and I hope that Alexa would use this too rather than a separate app for which I’d be dissapppointed if it was poor for BBC. TuneIt is absolutely fine to BBC and other stations I listen to.
I’m still going to take the plunge, appreciate that there’s usually bugs but I’m a sucker for a freshly launched gadget!
Interested in the light switches, Hive and Hue, does anyone have the automatic locks for your front door?
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: Gunzi]
#1610136
21/10/2017 08:01
21/10/2017 08:01
|
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057 Southsea
Gunzi
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
|
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
Je suis un Coupé
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057
Southsea
|
I definitely will, I’m 3 Play 1’s, 1 Playbar, 1 Connect and 1 Vinyl play already, always room for more! Alexa can control what’s playing on non Alexa Sonos products, that’s a big selling point for me too. And very good bit of light comedy!
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: Gunzi]
#1610167
21/10/2017 12:39
21/10/2017 12:39
|
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057 Southsea
Gunzi
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
|
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
Je suis un Coupé
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057
Southsea
|
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: Gunzi]
#1610242
21/10/2017 23:37
21/10/2017 23:37
|
Jef_uk
Unregistered
|
Jef_uk
Unregistered
|
If, and its a big if; I wanted home automation I would Build and program a system myself based on PLCs and SCARDA. I've lived in the last few years with no mobile and home internet. Its liberating. I also Don't want a robot handling my LPs thanks. I've spent 10 years writing and perfecting a network level add blocker that not only blocks adverts from static pages but can strip the adverts out of catch up TV. I've extended this to stripping and catching malware. If malware was not distributed in adverts then I would not feel the need for this. If web pages did not embed auto play noise and trash I would not feel the need for this. A couple of years ago I paid a fortune for a 2 MB line to where I live and there was no f*ing way I was paying for the bits to sell me tat. I AM NOT THE PRODUCT! Extra From time to time I pull and add malware domains from several lists and my systems got good enough now no not add new domains when I pull other peoples lists. As of 22-10-17 there are (over) 102,831 unique domains distributing malware and adverts. I'm also geo blocking for multiple clients which reduces what I'm able to intercept
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: ]
#1610256
22/10/2017 09:17
22/10/2017 09:17
|
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 8,852 Cambridge & Cotswolds
MeanRedSpider
Je suis un Coupé
|
Je suis un Coupé
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 8,852
Cambridge & Cotswolds
|
based on PLCs and SCARDA.
Blimey, that takes me back, what, nearly 20 years. It also feels slightly ironic that you don’t want a machine that they trust to do micro-surgery to put LPs on a machine that works on mechanical interface principle from over 100 years ago. Certainly, automation has to both work and be useful. There are some exceptionally good examples of home automation (I’m a huge fan of Hue) and some really bad ones. The likes of Alexa and Google Home are still finding their feet. My interest is to watch their progress because I’m in the consumer electronics industry.
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: Gunzi]
#1610692
29/10/2017 21:37
29/10/2017 21:37
|
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057 Southsea
Gunzi
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
|
OP
Club member 189, Former Club President
Je suis un Coupé
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 8,057
Southsea
|
I've had nearly a week with Alexa and Sonos One. It lives in my Kitchen between toaster and kettle.
The speaker quality is essentially the same as the Play One as far as I can tell. So onto my opinion of our first Alexa device:
Pros Alexa linked to out Amazon Prime account means we can listen to a fairly wide variety of music using voice commands. Alexa links into the music in my phone via Sonos app, so I can play directly from my phones local storage. Can hear me over the music Can play music on other Sonos's that are not Alexa enabled
Cons Sometimes thinks other words are Alexa and so lowers the music volume while it listens Can't understand my 4 year old son 95% of the time which is frustrating for him as he was very much looking forward to telling Alexa to play nursery rhymes or Trolls soundtrack in the kitchen. Every cloud... Our kitchen is about 6m long and, depending on what else is on in the kitchen, may have to raise my voice a little if I'm sat at one end with Alexa at the other. If the kettle is on, forget it, no chance of picking my voice out without shouting, although I can forgive that.
Overall I'm very impressed, it works pretty much as expected for what we wanted it for, as voice controller for music.
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: Gunzi]
#1610698
30/10/2017 08:30
30/10/2017 08:30
|
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 5,390 Essex
Trappy
Forum is my life
|
Forum is my life
Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 5,390
Essex
|
Cons Sometimes thinks other words are Alexa and so lowers the music volume while it listens
Can't understand my 4 year old son 95% of the time which is frustrating for him as he was very much looking forward to telling Alexa to play nursery rhymes or Trolls soundtrack in the kitchen. Every cloud...
I don't have one of these things but I was reading up on it over the weekend. One of the things for me would be being able to change the name 'Alexa'. It makes me cringe just writing it... Apparently you can. Options were Amazon, Computer and another I can't remember now. Might be worth trying these out, both for the volume issue and for your son As an aside, if I can call it 'Computer' and change the voice to the computer's voice in Star Trek Discsovery, I'd get one
F****** b****** thing...
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: barnacle]
#1610936
03/11/2017 13:22
03/11/2017 13:22
|
proccy
Unregistered
|
proccy
Unregistered
|
Alexa, order 500 kilos of cabbage. Alexa, confirm... leave T out of this Neil (kidding ffs)
|
|
|
Re: Alexa & Sonos
[Re: ]
#1610948
03/11/2017 15:55
03/11/2017 15:55
|
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 23,304 North Wales
Theresa
Former Presidentessa Club member 58
|
Former Presidentessa Club member 58
Forum Fossil
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 23,304
North Wales
|
|
|
|
|