UKH

Im considering joining the smart speaker revolution.  There are a good number available, I would like to hear what others experiences are, and also any thoughts on sound quality.

many thanks

Stephen Fry?

I've got a pair of Sonos ones. They have Alexa built in and Google assistant ''coming soon'. They have excellent quality sound and I also use them with my Sonos sound bar on the TV. The only downside is the price.

I think this is the big benefit of Google and Alex over Apple. They're licensing out the VA part to hardware makers. I've got an Alex and a Google Home and much prefer the Google Home and think they're in the best place to improve the functionality more quickly than the others simply due to the huge amount of machine learning they have at their fingertips.

I'm thinking of getting the Sonos to add to the system for actual music. For now I've got a Bose Soundtouch with a Google Chromescast attached but want something more integrated and have given up with Bose as its been rubbish since day one.

I think the sound quality is generally not very good (with the possible exception of Sonos). I have an Echo Dot which has a 3.5mm socket so I have that plugged into my hifi. The bigger Echos don't have this. The biggest issue with this is the fact that Alexa's voice volume isn't adjustable independently of music so, If you forget to turn it down after listening to music "she" can be very loud when saying "OK" to turning off the lights!