Adding Voice control and assistant (Alexa-Amazon / Alexa-Sonos / Siri?)

Hardware
1

Hi,

i am planning to add a set of smart speakers to my HA setup.
I have some doubts about which would be the best choice between:

  • Alexa and Amazon producs (Echo Plus, etc…)
  • Alexa and Sonos
  • Siri and HomePod

As far as i read around the web Alexa capabilities are superior to Siri, also Alexa is more expandable and better supported by HA (Cloud). So I am rolling out Siri if none will disagree with the above statements.

I am tempted by Sonos (although little more expensive) due to superior music quality and chance to control music playback within HA (which i understood it is not possible with Amazon products).
What is not clear to me is if Alexa on Sonos products has the same capabilities (in terms of HA support) that Alexa on Amazon products.

Also considering new amazon products (echo auto for example) I am not sure if I will miss something going to Sonos route.

Any suggestion from more expert than me users?

2

So I have a little bit of everything. I use Alexa and Google for controlling my home. The Echo’s are awesome and with the simple NodeRed and Alexa local control you can customize commands for your Alexa. Like for example I can open my garage door now with a request to her thanks to NodeRed.

I don’t use HA for playing playlists through my Sonos speaker but I do have it play other items, like my grandfather clock chimes as well as Morning/Evening colors everyday.

I wanted to have some more speakers but really, really didn’t want to pony up the cost of another Sonos so I started going the route of the Chromecast Audio. I now have 3 of these in the house plugged into simple speakers with the aux cable. I can play things just fine and it shows up in HA whatever I’m playing. I can also tell them to play items as well and it works great. Its basically a poor man’s Sonos. I also use all of my speakers and my Echo’s for TTS as well and that works amazing.

3

Hi,

I have Sonos in almost every room so I do not want to buy extra amazon speakers.
Can I use sonos as a voice assistant by using Alexa true the sonos speakers?
I know sonos has Alexa builded in but I don’t now how to use it to speak with home assistant and how to use my commands.

4

This thread was started 6 years ago - the information in it may be out of date. It might be better to start a new thread in which you can describe your own situation, with a link to this one to provide context if necessary.