Whole Home

[wkearney99]

I don't think Sonos audio is inferior, but for whole house audio it would hardly matter.  The background level aspect of most WHA situations makes it pretty pointless to quibble over 'fidelilty'... or lack thereof.  But then hi-fi fanaticism is a whole morass perhaps best avoided here. 
 
Otherwise, yes, I agree using phones/tablets as remotes is far more irritating that most folks are willing to, or should have to, tolerate.  Yet they do.  
 
Convenience has proven the winner, time and again, over "quality".  The public just doesn't care enough to be bothered.

 

[IVB]

I don't think Sonos audio is inferior, but for whole house audio it would hardly matter.  The background level aspect of most WHA situations makes it pretty pointless to quibble over 'fidelilty'... or lack thereof.  But then hi-fi fanaticism is a whole morass perhaps best avoided here. 
 
Otherwise, yes, I agree using phones/tablets as remotes is far more irritating that most folks are willing to, or should have to, tolerate.  Yet they do. 
Convenience has proven the winner, time and again, over "quality".  The public just doesn't care enough to be bothered.

 
Oh sure, but couldn't that argument be extended for everything?
 
Homemade bread is infinitely better than store bought bread. The public just doesn't care enough to be bothered to make their own bread. (or churn their own butter. Make their own furniture. )  
 
BTW the big game equalizer for "convenience" is the Echo. Every time I need to pull out my phone and start an app I make a note, then go code up a Echo->CQC action to do it via voice recognition. I've physically removed the NuVo keypads from the wall, since its even easier to use my voice than go walk up to a fixed location. Wife loved regaining the wallspace and removing a device, added bonus.

 

[pete_c]

Yes here I have reduced the wall switch footprint using multitoggle UPB switches.  I have left the audio controllers in the walls and utilize those and the Omnitouch screens and the Homeseer table top screens. 
 
Smart phones  / tablets are in off mode and never carried around. (no tethering here)  Tablets are left wherever.  The Amazon Echo did sit prominently in the family room for a month or so; then per WAF moved behind furniture. 
 
Concurrently and for years there was always used text to speech sound (from the 80's) in the house.  VR came in the 1990's then shut off.  (IE did have a combination security panel / TTS and X10 way back (1980's) - it was primitive and PITA to program at the time - but it was impressive and worked).
 
Last experimenting was utilizing Microsoft Kinect and the Amazon Alexa Application which does give me the best of both worlds via the Kinect device (along with gesturing) and the use of the zoned audio for the text to speech (or streaming audio). 
 
Having written the above there are no dependencies on automation relating to the Amazon Echo / Alexa Application and / or Kinect.
 
The aforementioned stuff is just regarded as an option for use and that is about it.