g8rfn2 Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 Is there a way to automate these into voice/media scenes? So far, I have been successful in creating a voice scene that turns on a set of lights, and sets some hardwired speakers in a particular room to one of my sonos connects (or to my new Amazon Music input directly). However, this results in the Sonos (or AM) just continuing to play whatever it was last. Is it possible to force a particular playlist (shuffled) from Amazon Music by voice scene? Nobody actually keeps hard-drives full of mp3s any more, do they? Control4 seems DRAMATICALLY behind the times on media control in general. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g8rfn2 Posted December 31, 2018 Author Share Posted December 31, 2018 Also, anyone else having trouble with the Amazon Music control only playing 3 or 4 songs of a playlist and then stopping, and making the app unresponsive? Doesnt quite happen EVERY time... but, enough that it's incredibly frustrating. Maybe 70-80% of the time? I've reverted back to running everything through the sonos connects again (which has its own large list of annoyances). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SMHarman Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Also, anyone else having trouble with the Amazon Music control only playing 3 or 4 songs of a playlist and then stopping, and making the app unresponsive? Doesnt quite happen EVERY time... but, enough that it's incredibly frustrating. Maybe 70-80% of the time? I've reverted back to running everything through the sonos connects again (which has its own large list of annoyances). Not this but I am finding napster gets skippy. Pandora is fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dw886 Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 On 12/31/2018 at 3:29 PM, g8rfn2 said: Also, anyone else having trouble with the Amazon Music control only playing 3 or 4 songs of a playlist and then stopping, and making the app unresponsive? Doesnt quite happen EVERY time... but, enough that it's incredibly frustrating. Maybe 70-80% of the time? I've reverted back to running everything through the sonos connects again (which has its own large list of annoyances). I know that if I manually search Amazon music and add things to the queue using a T3 touchscreen, as soon as all of the songs are played, it'll stop (regardless of whether or not I have "repeat" turned on or not). Then the only way to get it to start back up is starting over (and re-creating the entire queue). Pressing Play does nothing, nor does manually selecting a song from the list... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dw886 Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 On 12/31/2018 at 3:11 PM, g8rfn2 said: Is there a way to automate these into voice/media scenes? So far, I have been successful in creating a voice scene that turns on a set of lights, and sets some hardwired speakers in a particular room to one of my sonos connects (or to my new Amazon Music input directly). However, this results in the Sonos (or AM) just continuing to play whatever it was last. Is it possible to force a particular playlist (shuffled) from Amazon Music by voice scene? Nobody actually keeps hard-drives full of mp3s any more, do they? Control4 seems DRAMATICALLY behind the times on media control in general. Not sure if this is completely what you're trying to do, but with my Connect, I can program it to play a specific favorite station. For example, in the Exercise room, if you press the "Music" button on the wall keypad, it'll turn everything to the Sonos input, and start a particular Sonos favorite. For programming, the command is on the Sonos Connect, and not in any of the media locations for the project. I struggle with the same thing that you're calling out. I have 4 connections from my EA5 to my audio matrix, and 2 connections from Sonos Connects. The Sonos integration is lacking, as you can only access "Favorites", so if you need to control it, you have to jump from Control4 to Sonos which isn't a great end-user experience. On the EA5 side of the house, I do have issues with streams stopping, repeat not working (as I stated in my previous post), and the Spotify connection requires me to use the Spotify app on my phone vs being able to search from a touchscreen... Sonos is more complete functionality wise by itself, but you need a separate app to control it. The EA5 streams obviously have the best integration since it's native, but the experience is missing a few things... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BraydonH Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 Umm not sure if this is what your after but this works pretty slick. Get two Alexa Echo Dots, Put one in the room you want to speak to it, and the other one in the rack with the audio output plugged into a Control4 amp. Label/Name the rack Alexa "Ceiling Speakers" You will need to issue two commands "Alexa Turn on Control4" (Executes a macro to turn on the rooms you want to the Alexa input)(Like kitchen at 32%, Dining at 25%, Great room at 20% ect...) "Alexa Play ***whatever song in the world*** on the ceiling speakers." At this point you can keep issuing commands, "Play ACDC on ceiling speakers" "Play smooth jazz on ceiling speakers" "Play humble by kenrick lamar on ceiling speakers" "Play certain playlist on ceiling speakers" Then when you are done listening to the tunes "Alexa turn off control4" - executes the opposite macro to shut everything off. But that is still pretty gimmicky. Just pull out your phone and select what you want to listen to. Problem Solved. And if your using a Sonos with this setup it might not work as good. I do this all the time with Control4 hardware, such as the Control4 Matrix Amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g8rfn2 Posted January 3, 2019 Author Share Posted January 3, 2019 DW886, that is exactly right. No matter what I do... Anything involving the sonos connects, tends to wind up in a situation where everything is fighting for control instead of "giving" ultimate control to the Control4 system. Volume has to be adjusted in 3 places, trying to control the queue is virtually impossible, etc. etc. Its a nightmare. My hope was that adding the Amazon Music control directly to the C4 app would make things better and less complicated. But, if i turn on the Amazon Music app via a voice command, then the challenge is that there is no way to feed it the names of the playlists on the cloud to the media scenes in composer HE (that I know of?). It can only handle old school mp3s on a hard drive somewhere. BraydonH... that is one HECK of a workaround though! Except, you also just taught me that my THREE $500 Sonos:Connect Amps can actually be replaced by three $30 echo dots???? I know it's silly to be dissecting all these things instead of just pulling out my phone... but, isn't that the point of the "automation" part of this hobby? I want to wake up and say "Alexa, good morning" as I walk to the shower, and the magic just happens. :-) Gold star for this solution! I will try it this weekend! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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