Amazon Echo/ Alexa

[Martin H]

(11-11-2016 14:27)simoncn Wrote:  

(11-11-2016 13:47)brantome Wrote:  Thanks, I obviously phrased that badly - wouldn't the cloud skill be in effect the control point, accepting the voice to text output from Alexa, and in turn generating UPNP requests? The wider implication I was referring to was an account-based web service that could securely pass requests to your personal local instance of minimserver, much as how I expect, in my relative naivety, the HouseBand skill is doing for JRiver.

I understand what you are describing. JRiver is both a control point and a server. All user interaction for playing music would be handled by the control-point portion.

Just returning to this point. It does seem that this issues straddles the server and control functionality. There is no doubt that Alexa is handling/parsing the requests but there remains a gap between that and the control function. However, it's not clear how the control can easily expand to offer that function to Alexa without in its own right adding server like function (if my understanding/assumptions are correct).

It does seem to me that existing servers might gain by extending to fill that gap and conversely be considered less useful by not doing so. i.e. if Kazoo server extends its server function to support Alexa. I realise Jriver is a combo solution but it does feel that the world might shift here.

I am not sure I am explaining this well here but is it still your opinion that this is not an area that Minimserver will extend? I must admit to finding voice control enticing but at the same time I would be very reluctant to move away from your server product. I am sure over coming year or so this will play itself out but interested in your view.