upstatemike
Senior Member
Since I looks like official Sonos integration with Amazon Echo is still a ways off (no public beta yet), I've decided to expand my integration through Homeseer and this has brought up an interesting question on the best strategy for setting up Echo commands. When I tell Echo to play something on Sonos I'm basically doing two different things: I'm setting a grouping scene of which player(s) I want to play through and also telling it what content to play.
I could do this with two separate Echo commands such as "turn on downstairs scene" or "turn on living room scene" to get the speakers grouped and then use a separate command to play the playlist or radio station I want to hear. This requires a small number of commands to be set up that can be used in many different combinations but I would always need to speak two different things to Alexa to start the music.
The second option is to set up commands that include both the grouping and source in one command such as "turn on Downstairs Morning Playlist" or "turn on Living Room Morning Playlist". This uses a single command to both set the speaker grouping and to select the music source so I only have to speak one command to Alexa but it requires a separate command be set up for every possible combination of source and room grouping that I might want to request via Alexa.
I'm leaning towards the second option because a single command feels more intuitive to me in day to day use but was wondering if anyone else has thoughts about the best convention to follow for voice control of Sonos?
I could do this with two separate Echo commands such as "turn on downstairs scene" or "turn on living room scene" to get the speakers grouped and then use a separate command to play the playlist or radio station I want to hear. This requires a small number of commands to be set up that can be used in many different combinations but I would always need to speak two different things to Alexa to start the music.
The second option is to set up commands that include both the grouping and source in one command such as "turn on Downstairs Morning Playlist" or "turn on Living Room Morning Playlist". This uses a single command to both set the speaker grouping and to select the music source so I only have to speak one command to Alexa but it requires a separate command be set up for every possible combination of source and room grouping that I might want to request via Alexa.
I'm leaning towards the second option because a single command feels more intuitive to me in day to day use but was wondering if anyone else has thoughts about the best convention to follow for voice control of Sonos?
