What is the point of Alexa?

[rf9000]

All,

So I was visiting with another member and I found out something that may convince me to sell all my Echo Dots and skip Alexa in a new home construction. I have never had Alexa before do this is new to me. In my own mind, I was just assuming that once installed I could simply ask Alexa to Play a favorite song, she would relate the info to C4, C4 would locate the song via my music service and play it. I was told it’s much more primitive and this can’t be done!! This is crazy to me. Cant this easily be done with Sonos? So in my mind, what does Alexa really do? Dim a light, lower a blind, is that really it?

[sonic30101]

It will control music playback but you need a Sonos per zone for seamless playback with a singular command. Otherwise it is a 2 part function. Play xyz on the name of the Sonos player (inside, outside, etc) then a voice scene play music in room x

Sounds like the new house will be pretty nice, you could also look at josh.ai but similar scenario just way more control and reliable/secure since they aren't selling your info

[-defunct-]

Honestly, all voice control is a fad. I personally hate all the integrations.

 

It's much more natural to go up to a touchscreen and hit a custom button or hit a keypad button on a wall than try to speak the way the voice systems are looking for commands.

 

Plus, who wants devices recording their voice in their home? Definitely not me.

[zaphod]

Why is this crazy?  One of the advantages of a C4 config is that you can send one audio source to many zones.  But you need to tell your system which input to which zone(s).  You could get around this by having one Echo for each zone and using audio triggers, but that is overkill, especially if you have many zones.

Personally I find Alexa really improves the utility of HA and vice versa.  Turning on lights, etc is very useful.  Examples:

• I am going down to the basement with my arms full.  I say "Alexa, basement on" and the lights turn on before I get down there.
• When I am putting the kids to bed I can use commands to turn the lights down to very dim as they are scared of the dark.
• I can turn on the TV or whatever with voice commands.
• And for music, it is a two step process "Alexa, play Tom Sawyer by Rush in Kitchen"  and then "Alexa, turn on Kitchen Echo"

Outside of C4 there are many useful functions as well.

• When your head is in the fridge and you see that you are running out of milk "Alexa, add milk to shopping list"
• When you are cooking and your hands are gooey or you have oven mitts on you can say "Alexa, set timer for 30 minutes"

[-defunct-]

You could do all that without voice. Motion sensors for the lights so you walk into the room or hallway, they turn on.

Pre-programmed light scenes at kids bedtimes so the lights are already down.

Keypad buttons or favorite on a touch screen to start up a favorite song, playlist, or device.

 

I never understood the personal assistant aspect. Honestly I find it obnoxious when around family that talk to Siri, Google, or Alexa. Most of the time they have to repeat themselves, lol.

[zaphod]

Anything on C4 can be controlled in numerous ways but I find voice to be very useful.  Many others do not.

Different Strokes.

Different Folks.

[rf9000]

28 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Why is this crazy?  One of the advantages of a C4 config is that you can send one audio source to many zones.  But you need to tell your system which input to which zone(s).  You could get around this by having one Echo for each zone and using audio triggers, but that is overkill, especially if you have many zones.

Personally I find Alexa really improves the utility of HA and vice versa.  Turning on lights, etc is very useful.  Examples:

• I am going down to the basement with my arms full.  I say "Alexa, basement on" and the lights turn on before I get down there.
• When I am putting the kids to bed I can use commands to turn the lights down to very dim as they are scared of the dark.
• I can turn on the TV or whatever with voice commands.
• And for music, it is a two step process "Alexa, play Tom Sawyer by Rush in Kitchen"  and then "Alexa, turn on Kitchen Echo"

Outside of C4 there are many useful functions as well.

• When your head is in the fridge and you see that you are running out of milk "Alexa, add milk to shopping list"
• When you are cooking and your hands are gooey or you have oven mitts on you can say "Alexa, set timer for 30 minutes"

In your Kitchen scenario, that would play through the C4 distributed audio, or just play from the echo?

[zaphod]

Techincally it always just plays from the Echo - you need a physical connection to get it into C4.

In my instance it will play the music on the Echo device named "Kitchen Echo". In my instance this is an Echo Dot connected to an 8 zone matrix amp in my kitchen via a 3.5mm to RCA cable so it will play via distributed audio.  But it is kind of a local-distributed audio as I have a second matrix amp as I didn't want to run several hundred feet of speaker wires back to my main rack.  This is actually the second Echo in the Kitchen, I also have a 5" Echo Show in the Kitchen so that I can get visual feedback and see people at my door.

I have another Echo Dot connected to another 8 zone matrix in my main rack that feeds other rooms.  And I have another Echo Dot connected to a 4 zone matrix amp in my office that feeds other rooms.

[rf9000]

9 minutes ago, rf9000 said:

In your Kitchen scenario, that would play through the C4 distributed audio, or just play from the echo?

 

3 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Techincally it always just plays from the Echo - you need a physical connection to get it into C4.

In my instance it will play the music on the Echo device named "Kitchen Echo". In my instance this is an Echo Dot connected to an 8 zone matrix amp in my kitchen via a 3.5mm to RCA cable so it will play via distributed audio.  But it is kind of a local-distributed audio as I have a second matrix amp as I didn't want to run several hundred feet of speaker wires back to my main rack.  This is actually the second Echo in the Kitchen, I also have a 5" Echo Show in the Kitchen so that I can get visual feedback and see people at my door.

I have another Echo Dot connected to another 8 zone matrix in my main rack that feeds other rooms.  And I have another Echo Dot connected to a 4 zone matrix amp in my office that feeds other rooms.

Sounds ridiculously complicated( no offense)! 
 

Sorry guys don’t mean to be negative, it itches at me a bit just considering all the money I’m spending and looking to spend on C4 and then discovering all it’s limitations. I’m no professional, but have come up with several things on my own I would like to have the system do and have ran into obstacles on each one. And again Im not a professional, just things that seem like they should be very simple to do. A lot of times I get the impression (besides the native lighting) that C4 takes great functioning stand alone manufacture apps and consolidated them under one umbrella that all perform just  mediocre!! Lol 

[rf9000]

8 minutes ago, zaphod said:

Techincally it always just plays from the Echo - you need a physical connection to get it into C4.

In my instance it will play the music on the Echo device named "Kitchen Echo". In my instance this is an Echo Dot connected to an 8 zone matrix amp in my kitchen via a 3.5mm to RCA cable so it will play via distributed audio.  But it is kind of a local-distributed audio as I have a second matrix amp as I didn't want to run several hundred feet of speaker wires back to my main rack.  This is actually the second Echo in the Kitchen, I also have a 5" Echo Show in the Kitchen so that I can get visual feedback and see people at my door.

I have another Echo Dot connected to another 8 zone matrix in my main rack that feeds other rooms.  And I have another Echo Dot connected to a 4 zone matrix amp in my office that feeds other rooms.

So I have (14) Echo 3rd Gens spread out over the home. I was running two  Cat6a to each, one for POE power, and one for conversion to 3.5mm. These  will be run back and connected to the matrix as 14 sources. So if I’m in a room and want to hear a song through the C4 distributed audio system, I cant tell Alexa to do this?

[msgreenf]

Sounds ridiculously complicated( no offense)! 
 
Sorry guys don’t mean to be negative, it itches at me a bit just considering all the money I’m spending and looking to spend on C4 and then discovering all it’s limitations. I’m no professional, but have come up with several things on my own I would like to have the system do and have ran into obstacles on each one. And again Im not a professional, just things that seem like they should be very simple to do. A lot of times I get the impression (besides the native lighting) that C4 takes great functioning stand alone manufacture apps and consolidated them under one umbrella that all perform just  mediocre!! Lol 

I don't disagree with your assessment that Control4 could/should do this. But playing devil's advocate for a moment there no other complete home automation that does....there are other Alexa embedded amps (Sonos and heos) but nothing in this industry is complete. Today you have to pick what is most important and optimize for that

[zaphod]

I am not a dealer, so I am not an expert on this, but you may be able to do this with audio triggers.

[msgreenf]

1 minute ago, zaphod said:

I am not a dealer, so I am not an expert on this, but you may be able to do this with audio triggers.

audio triggers have limitations too - main one being unique inputs

[rf9000]

4 minutes ago, msgreenf said:

audio triggers have limitations too - main one being unique inputs

I understand if C4 can’t do this, I was just under the assumption it could and that is why I wanted it. You know, actually walk into the Kitchen and say “Alexa, play playlist #1 (or something like that)”, and have the playlist start playing on the distributed audio. Seemed like a very basic function, but I guess not from what you guys are saying. I will probably still wire and place the Echos as it’s fairly cheap in the scope of things. Don’t know how much I will use it now though. 

[Matt Lowe]

the most used thing in our home for voice control is for hands free light control. Motion is here for this as well but it can be inaccurate in certain circumstances.

second most used voice control is alarm and timers.

[msgreenf]

3 minutes ago, rf9000 said:

I understand if C4 can’t do this, I was just under the assumption it could and that is why I wanted it. You know, actually walk into the Kitchen and say “Alexa, play playlist #1 (or something like that)”, and have the playlist start playing on the distributed audio. Seemed like a very basic function, but I guess not from what you guys are saying. I will probably still wire and place the Echos as it’s fairly cheap in the scope of things. Don’t know how much I will use it now though. 

with what you described to me this will work for you - you can have the output of the echo dot fed back to control4 matrix and then use auto on trigger in that room since they will be dedicated

[msgreenf]

but i would buy a 24x24 matrix

[eggzlot]

I use Alexa for kitchen timers and asking how height or age of various celebrities while watching TV  

even with 2-3 ways to use it within c4 I find it cumbersome.  And it’s not c4s fault it’s how voice recognition is in 2020.  

[Brownbatsbreath]

I dunno, I hate voice control. Just seems annoying and a little baggy to be yelling out random commands. 
 

I won an Alexa at a raffle years ago. It’s on my fridge, I use it for kitchen timers, and sometimes I ask what the temperature is. 

[Gary Leeds UK]

10 hours ago, rf9000 said:

All,

So I was visiting with another member and I found out something that may convince me to sell all my Echo Dots and skip Alexa in a new home construction. I have never had Alexa before do this is new to me. In my own mind, I was just assuming that once installed I could simply ask Alexa to Play a favorite song, she would relate the info to C4, C4 would locate the song via my music service and play it. I was told it’s much more primitive and this can’t be done!! This is crazy to me. Cant this easily be done with Sonos? So in my mind, what does Alexa really do? Dim a light, lower a blind, is that really it?

Sonos, is the a great winner with a Alexa and allows you to select music just by your voice - We have 4 zones 

We have a Echo dot in three rooms and you just say play "Bob Dylan" and it plays - Play radio station bla bla and it plays - You need to set this up in the Alexa app 

We have always stayed away from Audio Matrix's - Due to the flexibility of Sonos and to be honest - I think we made the correct decision 

Along with Lights and blinds - This does give a Alexa  a Job and also its a age thing - My nephews use it al the time when they come round 

[RAV]

Might want to hook up one of those Dots and see how it works before designing a system around voice.

Voice is in it's infancy, it's like getting your dog to do something.
Got to be specific, he has to know how to do it, needs training, and must be paying attention. And then maybe, he'll do what you ask.

Voice control of music, easy is recall a favorite streaming station - that's preprogram stuff.
Or, for dynamic, you need a product like Alexa or Google or Sonos that can respond to voice and search and that plugged into a matrix or similar. You still need to be specific with phrasing.

You can have a couple echo's into a matrix, and use other dots to control that, but it's multiple commands and training.

[rf9000]

19 hours ago, msgreenf said:

but i would buy a 24x24 matrix

I have a 24x24 and a 8x8 that I will use. Can you explain what you mean by using an auto trigger? What purpose does this serve? Wont the Echos always be on and listening?

[rf9000]

1 hour ago, RAV said:

Might want to hook up one of those Dots and see how it works before designing a system around voice.

Voice is in it's infancy, it's like getting your dog to do something.
Got to be specific, he has to know how to do it, needs training, and must be paying attention. And then maybe, he'll do what you ask.

Voice control of music, easy is recall a favorite streaming station - that's preprogram stuff.
Or, for dynamic, you need a product like Alexa or Google or Sonos that can respond to voice and search and that plugged into a matrix or similar. You still need to be specific with phrasing.

You can have a couple echo's into a matrix, and use other dots to control that, but it's multiple commands and training.

Thanks. I'm not designing the system strictly on voice. Its just an add on feature. I will have touch screens, keypads for blinds and lighting scenes, mobile phones for control, etc.

[zaphod]

1 hour ago, rf9000 said:

I have a 24x24 and a 8x8 that I will use. Can you explain what you mean by using an auto trigger? What purpose does this serve? Wont the Echos always be on and listening?

An auto trigger can turn on an audio zone.  So if you have an Echo connected to input 1 of a matrix then you can write code like "If (input 1 is triggered) then Set Kitchen audio input to Echo" .

Assuming that you have a different echo for each zone in your house then you can have one command start music playback on Alexa and turn on an audio zone in C4.

[ejn1]

22 hours ago, Dunamivora said:

Honestly, all voice control is a fad. I personally hate all the integrations.

 

It's much more natural to go up to a touchscreen and hit a custom button or hit a keypad button on a wall than try to speak the way the voice systems are looking for commands.

 

Plus, who wants devices recording their voice in their home? Definitely not me.

Amen