Amazon Echo Dot....

[2MuchTech]

still sitting here on my couch, listening to the Echo.  
 
with a Sonos HT setup 15 feet away, and another Sonos Play:1 about 10 feet away.  the Echo is just too easy.

 
Agreed... Echo is easy, but if you use Jishi's node-sonos-http-api from GitHub, and the echo-sonos app also on GitHub, you can use Alexa to control your Sonos system.  I've slightly extended the echo-sonos app to give it bit more functionality, and it works pretty well.  You are a bit limited in that you can't have Alexa start just any old Sonos stream, but you *can* have it start Favorites, so as long as you have a Favorite defined for the stream you want, it works.  With my current setup I'm able to start music, group and ungroup rooms, pause and restart music, change volume, play a specific genre of music, play a specific artist (this gets a little tricky and doesn't work with every artist), set or unset Shuffle & Crossfade.  Anyway, while it does require a bit of specificity in how you instruct Alexa to issue Sonos commands, it's way cool and works pretty darned well.  I love being able to just blurt out "Alexa, tell Sonos to pause the Kitchen" and presto, the music stops.  I intend to get a few Dots to spread my Sonos (and my lighting system) control to a few more rooms.  Being able to have Alexa turn on and off lights through my OmniPro II, and control Sonos throughout the house is definitely making me like voice control!  Apple should have been here with Siri a couple of years ago, but they flubbed it and let Amazon steal the show.

 

[JonW]

Being able to have Alexa turn on and off lights through my OmniPro II, and control Sonos throughout the house is definitely making me like voice control! 

 
How are you interfacing the Echo with the OPII?

 

[jkmonroe]

 
Agreed... Echo is easy, but if you use Jishi's node-sonos-http-api from GitHub, and the echo-sonos app also on GitHub, you can use Alexa to control your Sonos system.  

i can control sonos via alexa. but it's just too easy to leverage the native integrations (spotify/tunein) versus coding in favorites, remembering what theyre titled, adding extra keywords, etc ...

i wish we could snag metadata and control the echo for use in our ha systems. that would be nice.

 

[cobra]

Apple should have been here with Siri a couple of years ago, but they flubbed it and let Amazon steal the show.

I'm looking to do both... Siri for voice control from the wrist, and Alexa for local control...  

 

[wkearney99]

Echo/Dot is not also able to speak unless spoken to, so TTS is a non-starter.

 
For now.  The units that accept a Bluetooth audio input can play sound, which can be anything.  It's not TTS in the typical Echo voice, but they can be used for some degree of notification.  Also witness that you can do 'Simon Says' with the Bluetooth remote, that DOES repeat your words in the Echo voice.  There's progress on using them for TTS alerts, so don't expect it to stay the way it is presently.
 
The Echo audio is indeed ridiculously bad compared to a Play:3 Sonos.  But it's ease of use has absolutely trumped using the Sonos here at the house.  Much like mp3 and other lossless formats being plenty good enough for most folks.  SACD and FLAC and the like are indeed leaps and bounds better... but not as convenient.  

Sonos syncing is pretty decent, it essentially delays all of them to the calculated speed of the slowest.  For background music you wouldn't care.  For simulcasting a sporting event it's a little annoying.  Then again, regular cable delays a bit as well.  "Live" really isn't when it comes to most distributed media systems.

 

[IVB]

The wife agrees with you guys, has been listening to spotify on it. Then again its because I haven't implemented the "use echo to tell CQC to startup spotify", although I suspect there's a mile of difference between "Alexa play my workout playlist" and "Alexa tell Jarvis to play my workout playlist in the bedroom".
 
Which is fine, we've always had divergent opinions on sound quality. She used to listen to her clock radio and was fine, I had the killer stereo system. Just like the Siri/Echo comparison, she can use the Echo for listening but i'll use the Sonos.
 
I am *vexed* that I ripped all our CDs into 256Kbps mp3, but at the time hard disk space was super expensive. I'm tempted to pull a few targeted CDs and re-rip, but thats really low on the list.
 
I'm still leaning towards using Sonos Connect and multi-channel signal sensing amps for multi-speaker zones, and Sonos Connect:Amp for single pair zones, as then I can stick with my already-installed / no footprint / in-ceiling speakers. I'll run Dot->Sonos for 2 rooms that have no speakers. That requires the more complex voice command though, but I haven't figured out a way to use a single Dot to determine a song, send it out the line out, then distribute that to multiple devices. JKMonroe is teaching me about how to create my own radio stream for TTS purposes, maybe I can use that to create a signal to broadcast.

 

[jdk972003]

Just in case you guys do not know it.....
 
If your building nay kind of Alexa environment in your home, this should be very useful as well .  I use it as a replacement for Siri on my phone.
 
https://alexaweb.herokuapp.com/static/welcome.html?next=%2F

 

[wkearney99]

I'd caution being VERY careful about using a 3rd party interface that has both access to your Amazon account and to voice data.
 
Amazon has done a remarkably open job of making Echo services available to all kinds of development efforts.  But it's worth considering the impact of granting 'just anyone' to your voice samples and access to what Amazon makes available/possible with the Echo apis.  When you're using an Echo device 3rd party skills don't have access to anything other than text recognized data; no voice samples AT ALL.  Nor do they have purchase power.  
 
It might seem overly cautious, but I'd strongly recommending that if you're going to play around with stuff like this that you KNOW what the software is doing and that it's operated responsibly. 

 

[cobra]

If your building nay kind of Alexa environment in your home, this should be very useful as well .  I use it as a replacement for Siri on my phone.
 
https://alexaweb.herokuapp.com/static/welcome.html?next=%2F

Is there a reason you don't just use Siri?  (Or is this on Android?)
 
Does this allow any kind of integration with home control hardware?  I'm thinking no, it can just do lookups and answer questions?
 
I can understand Bills concern, although it seems this is the same as all other third party services.  It does a login on Amazon's servers for authentication, then supports using Alexa commands that way.
 
(It doesn't seem to have any third party access to your Amazon account like Bill is suggesting.)

 

[wkearney99]

It's one thing to be using the services of a genuine company, one presumably with a vested interest in maintaining user security, privacy and on-going business.  Some random website doesn't quite rise to the same level of confidence.
 
Siri sucks, and so does the company.  

 

[cobra]

It's one thing to be using the services of a genuine company, one presumably with a vested interest in maintaining user security, privacy and on-going business.  Some random website doesn't quite rise to the same level of confidence.

That website just uses the Amazon login on Amazon's secure website though...  Are you implying there is some other security hole?  I don't see any evidence that the 'random website' has access to your Amazon login, is all.

 

[wkearney99]

If it's calling the Alexa services then it has the ability to make purchases.  Granted, it's not going to ship to somewhere beyond the regular address without intervention on the website.  Yet security holes are found often with less...
 
That and it's accepting and holding audio.  Supposedly only long enough to send it to Amazon.  How comfortable are you trusting that's going to remain secure?  Remember, it's not just what a given website operator might have in mind, it's what anyone that gains access to it might have planned.
 
Look, I'm all for experimenting, and Amazon's done a bang-up job of publishing the kind of APIs that make this sort of thing possible.  I'm suggesting caution given the sensitive nature of both your Amazon account and your voice recordings.
 
Meanwhile, there's a ton of developing going on for making your own home-grown Echo setups.  Better, perhaps, to run something like this on your own gear.

 

[linuxha]

Look, I'm all for experimenting, and Amazon's done a bang-up job of publishing the kind of APIs that make this sort of thing possible.  I'm suggesting caution given the sensitive nature of both your Amazon account and your voice recordings.

 
Folks have to understand that in this age of 'Big Data' that all our habits (any data companies can get on you) will be gathered, saved, sold and analyzed. It's amazing how much of a pattern we actually follow. Companies know that and want to provide services and products we'll buy. Even going as far as directing you in various ways (some I would consider morally objectionable but none illegal) to buy things even if it's not the one you wanted (but the company does).
 

Meanwhile, there's a ton of developing going on for making your own home-grown Echo setups.  Better, perhaps, to run something like this on your own gear.

 
I've actually thinking that is what I might do (eventually). Hackaday has several examples, I think one is a Pi with Alexa API.

 

[wkearney99]

Folks have to understand that in this age of 'Big Data' that all our habits (any data companies can get on you) will be gathered, saved, sold and analyzed. It's amazing how much of a pattern we actually follow. Companies know that and want to provide services and products we'll buy. Even going as far as directing you in various ways (some I would consider morally objectionable but none illegal) to buy things even if it's not the one you wanted (but the company does).

 
Indeed, but it's one thing to trust a publicly traded company, one interested in keeping you as a customer, versus some-random-guy's-website.  

 

[pvrfan]

Indeed, but it's one thing to trust a publicly traded company, one interested in keeping you as a customer, versus some-random-guy's-website.  

Does Amazon have a plain-English policy statement regarding Alexa?  My internet search turned up a bunch of articles with various levels of concern about Amazon.
 
And this: 
 

 

 
Craig