Sonos speakers will soon take commands from Amazon Alexa

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The Amazon Echo may finally have competition from Apple.
Alexa just got even more useful.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Sonos has teamed up with Amazon to bring Alexa voice control to its range of wireless speakers. The long-term deal will soon allow users to interact with their Sonos speakers via Alexa using voice commands.

This functionality will first be available with Amazon Echo speakers, but in early 2017, it will extend to all Alexa devices — including the Tap and Dot. That means that you’ll be able to add voice control to your Sonos setup without breaking the bank.

What’s more, you won’t need special voice commands to take advantage of this; as you’ll see in the video below, phrases like “Alexa, play my favorite songs” and “Alexa, play in the living room” are enough to bring your Sonos speakers to life.

https://youtu.be/NFJ7O7N5Yok

This is a big move for both Amazon and Sonos. There are already 3 million Echo devices out there, according to analyst estimates, and this will only boost sales as Sonos fans rush to add voice control to their existing setups.

For Sonos, it means the company can add useful functionality to its lineup without actually changing its existing hardware, or ploughing resources into creating new software that would make voice control possible.

Sonos also announced today that users will also be able to control their speakers from inside the Spotify app using the Spotify Connect protocol. That means you can send Spotify music to your speaker from your smartphone, tablet, and PC.

Via: Gizmodo

 

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