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Smart speakers - Sonos, Amazon and Google

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  1. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    I use them mainly for my home automation, they hookup with my Xiaomi lights, robot vacuum cleaner, air purifier, temperature and humidity sensors, Smart Kettle, etc. I just tell it to turn the lights on and off, start the vacuum cleaner etc. Occasionally I ask it to play something from spotify and it obliges. One nice feature is the way it sync's all the devices. So when I ask it to play something on all speakers then all 4 rooms of the house playing the same song at the same time is nice. A very cheap way of getting a multi room sound system.
    Can you do something like say "play <songname> only in the living room and the kitchen" and have it play something completely different in the other two rooms? Assuming that Spotify lets you stream multiple songs concurrently, that is.

    On the sound quality tangent, I used to have a well reviewed Cambridge Audio soundbar thingy which included 2" tweeters and 6.5" woofers. I got bored and ended up building a cheap DIY bookshelf speaker kit and ran them through a cheapo bluetooth amp. And realised that the soundbar which I thought was good, was murky garbage. I would not call myself that picky with sound, but I've recently become aware that 'convenience' consumer audio products are highly, highly compromised.
    imparanoic and bdw like this.

  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    Can you do something like say "play <songname> only in the living room and the kitchen" and have it play something completely different in the other two rooms? Assuming that Spotify lets you stream multiple songs concurrently, that is.

    On the sound quality tangent, I used to have a well reviewed Cambridge Audio soundbar thingy which included 2" tweeters and 6.5" woofers. I got bored and ended up building a cheap DIY bookshelf speaker kit and ran them through a cheapo bluetooth amp. And realised that the soundbar which I thought was good, was murky garbage. I would not call myself that picky with sound, but I've recently become aware that 'convenience' consumer audio products are highly, highly compromised.
    also tend to be mono sounding as well.

  3. #23

    What do small apartments have to do with good sound? Just because you live in a small apartment doesn't mean the google home will sound good. It still sounds like crap. There is a big difference with how loud something can get and how good something sounds!


  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    Can you do something like say "play <songname> only in the living room and the kitchen" and have it play something completely different in the other two rooms? Assuming that Spotify lets you stream multiple songs concurrently, that is
    Yes this should be fine. Google is able to recognise different voices and a separate spotify account for each member of my family, so if I say "Hey google, play my playlist" will play something completely different than if my wife or son say the same thing. Also by default will only play on the speaker that picked up the voice and not the other speakers in other rooms, unless you specifically request it to play on all speakers or in specific rooms.

    It's a similar logic with lighting. I've got 8 lights in 5 different rooms. If you say "Hey google, turn on the lights" when you are in the bedroom, then only the bedrooms lights turn on. You have to specifically request it to turn on all lights if you want the whole house on, or if you are in the living room and want to turn on the bedroom then have to request the specific room otherwise the living room will turn on.
    jgl, shri and imparanoic like this.

  5. #25

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    Oct 2014
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    Quote Originally Posted by Walter White:
    What do small apartments have to do with good sound? Just because you live in a small apartment doesn't mean the google home will sound good. It still sounds like crap. There is a big difference with how loud something can get and how good something sounds!
    The size of the flat means I can't even fully utilize the sound system I have to watch TV in the evenings because the sound carries to my kid's bedroom and wakes them up.

    If I lived in a multi-story home I could set up my TV room to my heart's content and bedrooms would not hear anything.

  6. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by merchantms:
    The size of the flat means I can't even fully utilize the sound system I have to watch TV in the evenings because the sound carries to my kid's bedroom and wakes them up.

    If I lived in a multi-story home I could set up my TV room to my heart's content and bedrooms would not hear anything.
    that's where you can get TVs and streaming devices with bluetooth audio (but only regular bluetooth 4.2), even the ps4 has this as standard, plug in any headphones to the controller and watch netflix, amazon prime and soon to be released disney plus, this is very useful for kids and if you don't want to disturb the family

    if you're an audiophile, there are sony streaming bluray players with high resolution wireless audio ldac, or even better high end cambridge audio edge amp and even more expensive naim uniti amps with aptx hd high resolution wireless connectivity.

  7. #27

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    Wow, forgot to update this. Ended up getting the JBL Link 20. Overall really nice speakers. Took a while to set up and sometimes the wifi is flaky but overall happy with the set up. Linked up to Spotify and YouTube Music.

    Only annoyance is that is charges through micro-usb. When will companies stop producing micro usb charging components???

    Anyway looking for a second (and maybe third) google home speaker. One for downstairs and one for the bedroom, both can be wired. Leaning towards Sonos....


  8. #28

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    Just bought a Sonos One for downstairs as our internet radio keeps on flaking out recently.


  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by pin:
    Just bought a Sonos One for downstairs as our internet radio keeps on flaking out recently.
    Sounds like... you need to get a new wifi router!


  10. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by jgl:
    Sounds like... you need to get a new wifi router!

    Ha ha, Arlo now actually comes a router with a speaker and Google assistant built in.