Alexa voice control

Feedback Feature Suggestions
21

Guido, may I suggest that you start a separate thread if you have to urge to inform people about integrity and security implications with Alexa and cloud based voice control in general.

22

I wish someone were listening to everything we say in my home about the Trump administration!

Anyway, Alexa controlled Roon would be great!

1 Like
23

Could I please give this thread a gentle bump @danny as this is surely an essential feature for Roon moving forward.

If people donā€™t like the idea of an always on Amazon device in their house then donā€™t buy one - simple.

1 Like
24

I rather not have it. If people want such niche future it should be enable as an extension. This just adds bloat to the code.

1 Like
25

no need to bump, we are on it.

1 Like
26

Thatā€™s great news.

Any indication of your current progress?

27

Never thought Iā€™d find a fellow Blade on here! Can I throw one in for Google Home integration?

1 Like
28

@Stephen_Blatherwick Very proud Blade at the minute too :+1:

29

Did I mention that Iā€™d like Google Home integration tooā€¦? :wink:

2 Likes
30

Any update on Alexa voice control?

31

its being actively worked on.

32

Any chance of supporting Appleā€™s HomePod (at least for voice control), or does Apple lock it down?

33

Letā€™s start with Alexa, as it is the leader in capabilities, marketshare, and number of integrations.

If Alexa is a success, we can look at other solutions.

4 Likes
34

I have serveral echo (full sized and dots) around the house. I would love to know if youā€™re planning to have voice control of current endpoints as well as the ability to turn an echo (and its bluetooth connected speakers) into an endpoint. This alone would integrate both tidal to the echo and amazon music (prime or otherwise) to the Roon software and would more than likely tip my hand into paying for the software after my trial period endsā€¦

36

Wow. Just saw this. Delighted - and disappointed - to hear this.

Delighted 'cuz I love Alexa, and know you guys will do a great job!

Disappointed because I bought a bunch of dots specifically because I was going to try to do this myself, since the Roon API is open and all. Thatā€™s what I get for being too slowā€¦

Will be great though! :thumbsup:

37

To do this well on something like Roon which can run everywhere, youā€™d need to write something scalable to be able to send commands from AWS Lambda to Roon. Not really doable as a hobby.

1 Like
38

Never stand between a man and his hobby ā€“ the audiophile industry is built on that principle. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
39

Yeah! And it wouldaā€™ been fun to try! :wink:

40

Sure, a generic, scalable solution with some kind of Roon Cloud Service isnā€˜t in the scope of a hobbyist. But since November 2016 iā€˜m running my own Alexa custom skill. Itā€˜s neither scalable nor portable, but iā€™m able to control Roon on my Windows PC by voice.

Thatā€˜s what iā€˜ve implemented so far:

  • playback control (play, pause, next, previous)
  • volume control
  • switch zones
  • play [artistname] (play tracks of selected artist)
  • play random (play random album from beginning)
  • play album (play album belonging to current playing track from beginning)
  • play radio (start radio for current track)
  • ask for name, album and artist of current playing track
  • ask for name, album and artist of last x played tracks

Everything is done without using the Roon API, since it wasnā€˜t available at the end of last year. To control Roon iā€˜m using old fashioned mouse/keyboard macros. To get the information about the played tracks, iā€˜m querying last.fm. The communication between AWS Lambda and my Roon Controller is done via AWS SQS (Simple Queue Service). Iā€˜ve chosen SQS for security reasons, because i donā€˜t want to open a port on my router to access the Roon controller in my network.

Looking forward to an official Roon Alexa skill. Very curious which features it will offer.

41

Can you share the skill?