rwparis84

[rwparis84]

I am doing my homework on SmartHome Systems for a custom home project.  I very much like the Control4 System and I have been very interested in adding the Josh.ai System along with it.  My problem is I have 2 contractors that are telling me 2 different things.  1. Is telling me for everything to work seamlessly, I need to have Sonos Streaming Components throughout the house wherever I want to be able to say "Josh, play XYZ by whomever".  2. The other contractor is telling me that the Control4 Triad Audio Matrix will do everything that Sonos will do now and Josh.ai is the bridge for the voice control.  

Obviously this system is not cheap, and here I have one person telling me I have to add the Sonos throughout (which is an even bigger expense) otherwise I will not be happy with the Josh.ai System....

Can anyone explain what the difference would be here between using the Control4 Triad Matrix, vs. the Sonos Streaming Components with a Zektor Audio Matrix in lieu of the Triad System?  

 

[eggzlot]

4 minutes ago, rwparis84 said:

I am doing my homework on SmartHome Systems for a custom home project.  I very much like the Control4 System and I have been very interested in adding the Josh.ai System along with it.  My problem is I have 2 contractors that are telling me 2 different things.  1. Is telling me for everything to work seamlessly, I need to have Sonos Streaming Components throughout the house wherever I want to be able to say "Josh, play XYZ by whomever".  2. The other contractor is telling me that the Control4 Triad Audio Matrix will do everything that Sonos will do now and Josh.ai is the bridge for the voice control.  

Obviously this system is not cheap, and here I have one person telling me I have to add the Sonos throughout (which is an even bigger expense) otherwise I will not be happy with the Josh.ai System....

Can anyone explain what the difference would be here between using the Control4 Triad Matrix, vs. the Sonos Streaming Components with a Zektor Audio Matrix in lieu of the Triad System?  

 

if you want to use Josh there is no need for Sonos

Sonos is a music streaming device, not a Josh/Voice device

C4 natively can play Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Napster, SiriusXM, Soundmachine, Spotify, Tunein, Tidal and Amazon music.  It can also do DLNA and play your own content off a NAS or something.  If you need other services not listed above, that are available on Sonos, yes you can add sonos to Control4.  But you do not need a full Sonos system per se.

[rwparis84]

That is what I was thinking as well, but it seemed that the folks pushing Sonos "knew something others didn't"....and maybe there is a setup that makes sense, but I primarily use Spotify, which should be no issue with C4.  I have used Sonos at other properties where it is a stand alone sound system, and it is great, but I did not understand the need for it here with the C4 System.  This is primarily for my young kids that will not be able to use a touchscreen easily on a wall, but they love playing music and they are always asking our current Alexa to "play something" almost every time they walk into a room. 

Am I correct in assuming with the native C4 system and Josh.ai, I do not have to do all the programming that would be involved with Alexa....correct?  I know setting scenes up and everything, but for my little girl to walk into a room and say "Josh, play the Aladdin Soundtrack on Spotify", does that phrase have to be programmed into Josh.ai, or will it just search Spotify for the Aladdin Soundtrack and begin playing it?...and obviously she would not have to say what room she is in because the Josh.ai mic will pick that up in that room and play it in that room?

For some reason, the folks pushing Sonos made it seem like that process could not happen easily without the Sonos Components? Obviously, I am just wanting to be sure because either way this is a big investment in a system, and I do not want to think one thing and then realize after the fact that it was something different and I did not completely understand it.

 

[sonic30101]

1 hour ago, eggzlot said:

if you want to use Josh there is no need for Sonos

Sonos is a music streaming device, not a Josh/Voice device

C4 natively can play Deezer, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Napster, SiriusXM, Soundmachine, Spotify, Tunein, Tidal and Amazon music. It can also do DLNA and play your own content off a NAS or something. If you need other services not listed above, that are available on Sonos, yes you can add sonos to Control4. But you do not need a full Sonos system per se.

Control4 can do many music services, but Josh is limited to only a beta of pandora radio with the native control4 music services at the moment. For other music services and a much deeper search mechanic as well as using voicecast and airplay2 functionality the sonos is the official way to do it since Josh and Sonos have such a deep relationship.

[sonic30101]

25 minutes ago, rwparis84 said:

Am I correct in assuming with the native C4 system and Josh.ai, I do not have to do all the programming that would be involved with Alexa....correct? I know setting scenes up and everything, but for my little girl to walk into a room and say "Josh, play the Aladdin Soundtrack on Spotify", does that phrase have to be programmed into Josh.ai, or will it just search Spotify for the Aladdin Soundtrack and begin playing it?...and obviously she would not have to say what room she is in because the Josh.ai mic will pick that up in that room and play it in that room?

For some reason, the folks pushing Sonos made it seem like that process could not happen easily without the Sonos Components? Obviously, I am just wanting to be sure because either way this is a big investment in a system, and I do not want to think one thing and then realize after the fact that it was something different and I did not completely understand it.

Once the Josh setup has been done and all the devices are set up in the appropriate rooms additional programing wont be needed for "Josh, play the Alladin Sountrack"

Without Sonos you would only be able to do pandora radio stations so no way to ask for a particular song/playlist/album on the spot or any other music service.

[South Africa C4 user]

56 minutes ago, sonic30101 said:

Once the Josh setup has been done and all the devices are set up in the appropriate rooms additional programing wont be needed for "Josh, play the Alladin Sountrack"

Without Sonos you would only be able to do pandora radio stations so no way to ask for a particular song/playlist/album on the spot or any other music service.

Interesting feedback... I’ve been seriously considering Josh AI but this puts me off as I have no Sono’s equipment.

[rwparis84]

1 hour ago, sonic30101 said:

Once the Josh setup has been done and all the devices are set up in the appropriate rooms additional programing wont be needed for "Josh, play the Alladin Sountrack"

Without Sonos you would only be able to do pandora radio stations so no way to ask for a particular song/playlist/album on the spot or any other music service.

This is what I was interested in hearing.  So THIS is what adding the Sonos will do?  Even if you tell Josh.ai to play it from Spotify, since Spotify is supported by the Control4 System now?   How does Sonos make that connection happen?

[rwparis84]

1 minute ago, rwparis84 said:

This is what I was interested in hearing.  So THIS is what adding the Sonos will do?  Even if you tell Josh.ai to play it from Spotify, since Spotify is supported by the Control4 System now?   How does Sonos make that connection happen?

sonic3101 - you may have answered this already above, must have scrolled past your other reply.  

So - if I am wanting that functionality, then the additional $$$ for Sonos is required....?

[sonic30101]

2 hours ago, rwparis84 said:

sonic3101 - you may have answered this already above, must have scrolled past your other reply.

So - if I am wanting that functionality, then the additional $$$ for Sonos is required....?

Unfortunately gotta have it for it to operate like the videos you see on youtube. If all you wanted was pandora for voice initiated music you could get away with it but the experience is limited functionality without sonos.

[rwparis84]

49 minutes ago, sonic30101 said:

Unfortunately gotta have it for it to operate like the videos you see on youtube. If all you wanted was pandora for voice initiated music you could get away with it but the experience is limited functionality without sonos.

Great info.  Thank you for helping me understand so that I can be sure to go the right direction.  

[DLite]

35 minutes ago, rwparis84 said:

Great info.  Thank you for helping me understand so that I can be sure to go the right direction.  

If you go with Sonos, the voice-activated music functionality you described above does not require investing in Josh.ai.  You could achieve it with a bunch of (super cheap) Echo Dots integrated with your Sonos network. 

Granted, you may want to avoid Amazon devices for other reasons, but the integration between Alexa and Sonos is very tight.  Not sure how old your kids are, but my tweens love controlling Sonos via voice as well, and Alexa works well for them.

 

 

[rwparis84]

19 hours ago, DLite said:

If you go with Sonos, the voice-activated music functionality you described above does not require investing in Josh.ai.  You could achieve it with a bunch of (super cheap) Echo Dots integrated with your Sonos network. 

Granted, you may want to avoid Amazon devices for other reasons, but the integration between Alexa and Sonos is very tight.  Not sure how old your kids are, but my tweens love controlling Sonos via voice as well, and Alexa works well for them.

 

 

Thank you for the info.  We currently have several Echo dots/spots that we have used.  May still go that route if Josh.ai is too $$$, but just do not like the idea of Amazon/Google/Apple listening in and selling off my data to advertisers.  I also like how intuitive Josh.ai seems to be with multi-tasking as well as the ability to not have to have the exact phrase correct....I kind of "geek out" at the fact that when you say "Fitness Room", Josh.ai will also recognize that as gym, workout room, exercise room, etc.  So it is very easy for a lot of people to use it without knowing the exact name/phrase.  Just seems a step above Alexa.  We will see how it pans out.

 

[SMHarman]

Josh AI interfaces well with SONOS. 

A single SONOS connected to Josh and then connected into a matrix will give you a lot of the functionality you need. 

[rwparis84]

2 hours ago, SMHarman said:

Josh AI interfaces well with SONOS. 

A single SONOS connected to Josh and then connected into a matrix will give you a lot of the functionality you need. 

Are you saying that in lieu of having multiple Sonos Ports, just a single Sonos connected to Josh.ai and the Control4 System would work?  What I have seen is that I would need to have multiple Sonos Ports/Amps in however many zones I wanted to stream the music to?  This would be a substantial savings if I only needed one Sonos connected to the system for Josh to pull from and then the Control4 system would manage the distribution.  I may be reading too much into that, I just want to be sure I am understanding what is needed.

 

[sonic30101]

6 hours ago, SMHarman said:

Josh AI interfaces well with SONOS.

A single SONOS connected to Josh and then connected into a matrix will give you a lot of the functionality you need.

This will work to some degree until someone wants to listen to something else simultaneously in another room. If you go that route you would want a sonos port per family member or quantity of minimum simultaneous audio streams required. ALL voice audio requests will be " Josh, play Alladin Sountrack on (Family member's name) sonos". Josh won't know which sonos to play onto because there is no context for which users sonos to send it to so anyone unfamiliar with the system wont be able to work it. Also I think once the stream is started an additional phrase might be required of "Josh, play (Family member's name) sonos in (room name)" that I would say needs to be double checked because if 2 separate voice phrases are needed no one would ever use it. So it might be disjointed in practice and you lose the intuitiveness since you typically link a sonos port to a zone but it could be re-imagined with limits. 

[sonic30101]

5 hours ago, rwparis84 said:

 I may be reading too much into that, I just want to be sure I am understanding what is needed.

See above. You may not need 1 per zone and may be able to consolidate certain areas. But 1 for the entire house is most likely not going to work. Having 1 per family member may work but has its design flaws by convoluting the streams from a routing perspective making it more frustrating to operate.

[South Africa C4 user]

I must say this is disappointing as it means the Josh AI integration with Control4 is not very deep at all.  Hopefully that will change and remove the need for multiple Sonos devices (or any Sono’s devices)...?